HANK HOTCHKISS. 185 
dropping to the bed of the North Fork for the final 
spurt. We were visited here by Supervisor Johns 
from Silver City, and Pooler, an Assistant District 
Forester from Albuquerque, on a tour of inspection. 
Randolph, the ranger from Fierro, accompanied 
them and stayed with us until we went in, but the 
others only stopped over night. 
At ‘‘Meson’s’’ we ran across Hank Hotchkiss, a 
former soldier and scout now well-known locally as 
hunter and trapper. 
When we visited his camp for the first time we 
found the old woodsman engaged in the novel pas- 
time of teasing a huge Mexican eagle that had just 
been caught, oddly enough, in one of his smaller 
traps. The bird was tied to a tree with a rope 
about five yards long, which gave it a chance to ex- 
ercise after a fashion. , . 
We asked the trapper if he intended to tame his 
pet, and he laughed. 
‘Tt can’t be did, not to my knowledge, leastways,”’ 
he stated. ‘‘I kep’ one once for five years an’ he’d 
fight me just as quick when I let him go as when 
I caught him. They’s queer critters, that’s a fact. 
Did you ever cut one of ’em up? No? Well, they 
got an eye nigh as big as the rest of their head put 
together, an’ as for brains, they hain’t got more’n 
enough to fill a 22 cartridge. I don’t believe they 
got sense for anything but to fight. That’s all they 
is to them!’ 
He tapped the captive eagle on the head as he 
