Apbil 14, 1881.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



205 



Ogcekhee at the twelve-wile bridge aud ferried I lie Altumaha. 

 [t was nowthe third day out. We spied turkey Hacks in |he 



sand a 



e miplcte separation lu meet 

 should bring us together, i . 

 pine woods seetned full of 



road side and lor an hour or r 

 of fire-arms, distant and mo 



he 



isl_v arranged in case of 

 i Jacksonville unless ebanco 

 ■o were many turkeys. The 

 em. I tied "my horse by the 

 re heard occasional discharges 

 distant, until the crack soft- 



ened to a tick, and the tick was no more audible. Lat 

 that night 1 tool; lodgings alone at Trader's Hill, a village of 

 two houses, a store aud a blacksmith -shop, on the banks 

 of the St. Mary's. At seven o'clock a. it I mounted 

 and made for the ferry. The ferryman said my way to 

 Jacksonville was to ''take this trail"— a blind sort of carl, 

 road that never a curt went over— aud a mile below 1 was to 

 cross a creek and take a bright blaze, which 1 tnigjll foil) to 

 a branch (brook), there to take a new blaze which 1 might 

 follow a mile or so to an old blaze, that would lead lo Ihe 

 King's road, an old Spanish road near the coast, thirty-three 

 miles from Jacksonville. Trader's Hill was forty miles from 

 the Floridian city. I struck the trail, crossed the creek, hil 

 the bright blaze, and was soon lost. This country is one 

 vast forest of pines, standing far apart, but with branches 

 interlacing, and with no underbrush whatever. So wide. 

 apart are the tree trunks that one may look 

 for half a mile in any direction, or ride at a 

 swift, lope with perfect safety, and the things you might 

 meet with were a sand-hill crane, a rattler, a deer, a black 

 bear or a flock of turkeys, and perchance, but quite unlikely, 

 one of those short-tailed grizzly things with unpromising 

 claws and teeth, the thing usually seen curled up in the fork 

 of a tree glancing unaniiably right at you. At 3 o'clock that 

 afternoon I struck the edge of a cotton held, and being on 

 the west side of it the cheerful white faces, lurned 

 by millions toward me, seemed to invite me down the line 

 which, following, soon brought me to a planter's bouse. 

 The plauter received me respectfully, but not cordially. He, 

 knew me for a Yank. He received me dignifiedly, aud set 

 his table and stables at my disposal. I partook and thanked 

 him, having learned long before better than to offer a planter 

 compensasion. 



The gentleman gradually throwing off his reserve, in- 

 quired my destination, and informed me 1 was eleven miles 

 from Trader's Hill, seven miles from the King's Road, and 

 forty miles from Jacksonville, and having set me on another 

 blaze for the aforesaid toad 1 started and was lost in twenty 

 minutes. 



Do you think you could have done better ? I wish your 

 supper hung for once upon followiug an old blaze with time 

 short and road long. Inexpert as I was J could have made it 

 out, |>Ut I was in a hurry, and that was as good as three pairs 

 against me. That night at 10 o'clock, by a digitallic calcula- 

 tion on the bullseyc, 1 was following the edge of an immense 

 swamp, no slough or bog, but a wooded swamp that some- 

 thing that's astray has an abiding horror of. 



Both myself and horse felt absolutely certain that we ought 

 to bear to the right, and sharply, too. Domestic animals and 

 man mutely, but not less intelligibly, mutually communicate 

 thoughts, We both kept bearing "to the right, but no, that 

 interminable swamp kept moving upiu front of us every time 

 we vered. Again aud again we essayed it, sometimes the 

 horse, unguided, and sometimes myself. I Celt sure we were 

 moving in a circle by the swamp forcing us to the left. 



At midnight we saw a torch-light, and going for it brought 

 up at a cracker's log-house aud baited for the night. The 

 cracker said I was seven miles from Trader's Hill, seven 

 miles from the King's Road and forty miles from Jackson- 

 ville. The edge of the swamp we had" followed lay due cast 

 and west, and our wish to turn to the right was the natural 

 teudeacy to move in a circle. T. C. Riob. 



1 think it was the year 1SG4, in the month of March, Iwent 

 in lo Mollychunkemuuk Lake to prepare my camps at An- 

 gler's Retreat for the spring fishing parties." The camps arc 

 situated at the foot of the lake, near the outlet, and are six- 

 teen miles from the Upton settlements aud twenty miles 

 from Andover, in an unbroken forest and on the lake north 

 of Umbagog, being a difficult place to reach in the winter- 

 season. 



I used to store all tbe provisions I had left from the summer 

 supplies, as also the bedding and crockery, &c, in a room in 

 the centre camp, and lock the doors and nail up everything 

 in the strongest possible manner, not only to keep them from 

 wild beasts, but also from any vagrant biped who might stray 

 so far away from human society. It was not only expensive, 

 but difficult to freight in supplies over Umbagog Lake up 

 Rapid River and over the roughest carry for four or five miles 

 ou a sled in the summer time, therefore we were the more 

 careful to take care of every pound weight possible. 



On approaching the camps I found they were open and 

 everything in disorder— the wood burned up and the pro- 

 vision room broken into, and considerable of it gone. The 

 bedding was all disarranged and overhauled, showing plainly 

 that some one had camped there quite a while. 



Presently I discovered a piece of paper tacked up on a post. 

 in the camp, aud in a fair handwriting the followiug 

 words t 



"Camp Bicii, at Head of Kk!kabdson's LAERj Kan* S. 

 To who may read this, sir or sirs : 



Should I not bo able to get luvay from here he kind enough to 

 notify my frieiirtu or at least my father, the. lion. Peter EdBalT, No. 

 1G Morton street, New York city— that is, should you find me dead. 

 By examining papers in ray pockets you will find out how I e&ino 

 here and my business. Yours truly, 



Wm. H. Edsaj.t,. 



After reading tbe above I immediately made a thorough 

 search for the body, both indoors and out, fearing the poor 

 fellow had perished in this lonely, faraway place. But I did 

 not then, and neither have I since, iu all these seventeen 

 years, been able to learn the least tidings of any such 

 a person. J. Q. p lIO u. 



Bethel, Maine, Feb. 28, 1881. 



OUR LAST MATCrT. 



Minnesota Dbee Btttohehy.— The Long Prairie, Minn., 

 Argus, says that, "In Ward and beyond parties are butcher- 

 ing deer in a disgraceful manner. Some of the deer are so 

 poor that they can scarcely stand, and yet these bones are re- 

 lentlessly pursued on snow shoes and slain." Commenting 

 on this abomination, one of our correspondents writes : "The 

 inclosed slip I ask you to insert in your influential journal 

 for the sake of humanity and civilization, as I feel certain 

 that no right-minded man or woman can regard the abomina- 

 ble butchers with any other sentiments 1 than those of loathing 

 and execration. The snow bore is yet a foot deep on the 

 level, while many huge drifts are from five to eight feet 

 high."— M. J. E, 



HAVING 

 ,[„• Co 



mu-( 



at i. 



u} i 



tin 





the 



kn own stream which runs thr. 

 made nearly at limber due, and aba 

 and huge snow banks winch must h 

 the mountains tliemsolves. The i 

 are very rugged and cut Up by deer 

 to keep it sharp lookout when %>< 

 iSlcutty in returning lo his cSttJr, 



(tribute one of my own 

 iclud Mi myself, while 

 ist n ober. W- left 

 ur outfit on. a couple ol 

 soke* i] ■ o id camped 

 lot Pall River, a well- 

 • park. Our cump was 

 were bdd, bare peaks 

 b been there as long as 

 Mountains iu iJwi section 

 i canyons, SO tlmt one has 

 ng any distance to avoid 

 yv be familiar 



show conducted by seme enterprising old grizzly Barnurr. 

 We afterwards found that the placj- wlure. we spent the 

 night was within a mile of our camp, with only a low divide 

 between. C. 



enlu 



with one side of a huge peak and think he would know it if 

 he were miles away, but let him change his location a few 

 miles and h will look strange and entirely- different. It is 

 the same way with snow landmarks. One may pass down a 

 smalj valley and roe half a dozen large snow bah In on eiiln-r 

 side, aud then a day or two later enter the valley from a 

 diff'iTtil, (lircition and proceed up and nothing will look 

 familiar?. Then several canons will head close together and 

 lead in different directions so that you can hunt up one lo its 

 "ew times and start back down another 

 in the same one you went up when in 

 » in another direction. This will show 

 ny one not familiar with the country to 

 the night. 



ter arriving we all started together in a 

 look for hears. And let me say right 

 bete that we do not hunt, range grizzlies with shot-guns and 

 fquirrel shot, and wbeu one is mot on a bare mountain and a 

 gun goes off the hunter always gets the bear, or the bear gets 

 the hminr. So we always kept together, for three men with 

 bi-tech loaders and n %lo . g nj$ can keep h stresilt of lend 

 in the air hard for any animal [q face. We got off about 

 A. m. in a nonhrrly direction and at the sun was shining 

 briglitly and the day promised lo be warm 1 left my coat in 

 c imp against the advice of the boys, who said it-might get 

 c. lid before our return. We tramped around until about 3 

 v. m. killing nothing but some snow quail, which at, that sea- 

 son were spotted— about half while and half brown. Later 

 they gel, to be snow wire. At, this time we eoul I 1 ok 



head, 



turnn 



roi 



and t 







realil 







how 







getlo 







Ou the lb 



rd 



north 



.■rly di 



ec 



down upon our camp trnm the rnounta 

 the. sides was so strep aud r 

 get down without going to t 

 way we went ou . 

 lower eud. We d l% led ill 

 way. After going a short dii ... . 



and had to make a long detour, and before we got Wua'd a 

 cloud settled down over us enveloping tbe mountain iu a 

 heavy fog-tike mist, so cle'nse that we 

 over twenty feet, As this caused tbe si. 

 r. began lo get cold and befi re we reall 

 came on, and -we wen- a U in ; '..■ ill ! ,■ 

 aud hungry. Iwassure I knew the d 

 bat my companions were equally eertftll 

 different direction. So we went, waude 

 It was getting very cold, the wind which came up after 



Then Tommy, the biggesl aud Btouicsi ore oi ! V party, aave 

 out aud we had to carry his gun. It, was so cold we'could 

 not stop and uot a particle of wood of any kind. Finally we 

 came to a soil of valley and concluded lo follow it down and 

 find wood and Cam].. At last we eatlXe to a patch of sertit:- 

 oak about two feet high, and prepared to make a fire. A 

 search of all our cloihes revealed six matches 

 were gathered, a match struck, which went Of 

 Four times more was the same thing repeated 

 suit. We knew the other would go tbe same way, and so 

 decided to keep it until our return to camp the next, day, so 

 as to be able to make a tire there. TjjJen tho faoi began to 

 strike us forcibly that we were in for anight on the moun 

 tiins, too tired to travel, and too cold to be still. Once we 

 all crawled into a, thick buuch of bushes, myself in tie 

 middle, aud tried to snuggle up Close and keep warm. But 

 it was no go, the ground was hard and 3tony, and lie any way 

 I would the top side would soon get so cold that I would 

 have to change my position. 

 Finally this became unendurable and we crawled out and 

 " "sfai 



where we were, but 

 impossible ti 



nd st rte 1 that 

 B deep Crnycn 



:ouId not see i. b.jtcls 

 i's rays to disappear, 



a ilaric nignt, tired 



ection of il 



it was iu an entirely 



Some twigs 

 and no fhe. 

 ilb like rc- 



wen 



of brush aed sat 



the match out of mj 

 chances, said : " Boy 

 to-morrow, for we wl 

 Tommy produced qutl 

 had in one oi Ilia pooi 

 with that. Lucky lb 

 cloth blazed up and v 

 twigs on if, but the bl; 

 most. But as the el 

 menctd to blow and fu 

 would blow nut 



we Btopped at another bunch 

 it of the wind aud shivered. I took 

 pocket, and after considering the 

 tins match will not do us any good 

 all freeze to death before mornimr." 

 a large piece of flour sack which die 

 3 ami proposed trying to start a tire 

 lgbtl The match was struck, the 

 laid il, ou the ground and put a few 

 i went cut and with it our hopes, nl- 

 I and smouldered we com. 

 it, anil the way we did work! Oi c 

 Id find no more breath, then another 

 would try it, and then we would blow all together, until al 

 last the twigs began to get red, they blazed, faint at first, but 

 by careful nursing a tire was sorted. Tnis wc moved to a 

 buuch of brush aud soon had a fire blazing five or six feet 

 high. The night, kept getting colder, until toward motning 

 we could hardly keep warm arouud the fire, except by chang- 

 ing our positions so that first one side, would be warmed and 

 then the other. When the sun came out iu the morning 1 

 was about played, but the others felt better. Tommy went 

 up on a high peak to take a look ami came back and siid he- 

 did not know where we were, as everything looked strange. 

 So we decided to follow our back trail, knowing wc c add 

 reach camp that day. 'J his wo did, arriving about 8 30 p. 

 m. Everything was all right, and the fire we had left burn- 

 ing the day before bad spread to a buuch of brush and was 

 smouldering when we got there. We soon had a lire going, 

 coffee put, on aud aiso the camp kettle, which contained 

 some grouse and potatoes and plenty of broth. We broke 

 our thirty hours' fast with soup and' coffee, and wound up 

 with bread and meat. The next day a big bull elk came 

 pretty uear into camp before he knew it aud we all c >m- 

 menced shooting at once. He got off quite a distance, bit 

 finally went down after being hit six times. Tbe day fol ow- 

 ing we butchered a 300 pound grizzly in pretty much the 

 same way. All commenced shooting afoncc. He fell at toe 

 first fire, then got up and made the mountaitis echo for a 

 > get to 



minute and tried b 

 long as he kicked, aud g 



make sure of his not play 



1 have been out 

 above timber line 

 is little doubt but i'i 



s, but il was no use. We shot as 

 b him one or two after he quit to 

 >t piaymg possum. 



n pret'y cold weather, but think our night 



as a little the coldest, 1 ever knew. Thero 



our "last match" wc would all be up 



there yet, frozen solid, perhaps serving as curiosities iu a side- 



ANOTHER TOUR IN THE PROVINCES. 



I iff any one of your million readers has ever chanced to sec a 

 book published a long lime ago, eivitled •'S'ewart's 

 llis'ory of l'rince Edward's Island," and thinks he willframe 

 a sporting tour on l bat excellent and really — for iis lime— 

 lies 1 reliable work, he will find himself frightfully mislaken, 



Slower, s a'es |o the sfteo'l that die Province ofT'rince Ed- 

 ward's Island in ihe "Gulph" of B«. Lawrence abounds in 

 game, large and small ; ami as to iisb, you or any o her man 

 have only io drop a line in the shape of a crooked pin on lire 

 end of a siring lo ca'oh any nngiven qnnivi y of fish such as 

 sea cows, seal's, Sturgeon and bass, wi h salmon | ttiehurdson's 

 and lire other kinds), .sea iroul, river iront of colossal £ro- 

 poriions, smell, and every other phase <d die >'.■/,',/,.,/, ',.',;. In 

 face, So wart, and later people who have cribbed from his 

 book, say Ibat Prince Ed ward's Island oilers a paradise lo ihe 

 Sportsman and angler. 



It don't 



In tbe. pilgrimage that it, is m.y lot lo make freqiicn ly 

 throughout, the leugh and narrow wid h of the island now 

 miscalled by tbe. name of ihe otherwise forgotten Prince Ed- 

 ward— (please to understand that I am uot'a book agent and 

 I repudiate chromos with scorn), I have been really sorry to 

 see several American gentlemen who looked like sporlSmea 

 excepting that iheir fiY-onlseemtd too awfully expensive, fry, 

 ing in vain io find where the paradise of gaming and fishing 

 came in iu this Province of ours. That is the main reason 1 

 now write you. 



Game there, is none to speak of now in Prince Edward's Is. 

 land. Antlers of deer have been plowed up, showing that 

 good sport was once upon a time. Flint, arrowheads, both ol 

 war and the chase, have been given to me from several locali 

 ties, indicating a stone era long ago down into the abyss rd 

 ages. An archaeologist might Take some interest in a locality 

 Ibat I could show him where the Hint, arrowheads that have 

 been dug up within the range of an arrow's flight show a pet 

 ceptible difference of construction. Tbe defendants were 

 evidently tbe occupiers of tbe soil, the now effete, but then 

 not uupowerful nomadic sept of the Mte Macs; the plaintiffs 

 were the Mohawks— I hose Indian Normans who beached 

 their long galleys on tbe hards ol Miminigash Creek here ou 

 our I'r-vp. ■■>■„'* Isle. And. strange to say, iu the inner com 

 scioustiess of the remnant of the Mie Mac tribe now living on 

 I.enox Island, here lives an unwholesome dread of the bbgy 

 "the Mohawk!" Once your present correspodenl wasoiivj 

 , ' I, i hear a Mic Mac mother say to a papoose snapped 

 Italian fashion to a shingle : li U/;tri.i reumiutg mijipyima 

 Abvffwe M<nt<inl:i're kaij" or words to ibat effect, wdiich be 

 ing freely rendered may read-. "You little brute, if you 

 don't shut up I'll give you to the Mohawks to eat: " The re- 

 mark was followed by a sort of rhythmical cadence that 

 sounded not unlike the white-gloved applause at a suceessfu. 

 opera. But 1 must, confess that my no written legends of the 

 Hiawatha type are mostly derived from an Indian of my 

 own, now in the happy hunting-ground — where, in tbe present 

 Scarcity of game, 1 rather confess I have half a wish to be 

 with him — and whom once upon a lime in camp I reverently 

 christened out of ftaetotood'ts MttgaiiM by the Christian and 

 surname of Tony Butler. 



To resume : The Province of. Piiuce Edward Island is a 

 long, narrow, stoneless bunk of earth, one hundred aud thirty 

 miles, more or less, iu length, by a widlh of eight to thirty- 

 five miles, and completely fringod with tidaP estuaries, in 

 which, at tbe right season, is always not bad sea trout fish, 

 ing. " Tbe Island," as we islanders love to call it, has beeis 

 unnecessarily called ;l the garden of the tiulf." Ko greatct 

 , .1 On any part than Thirty to eighty feet prevents the 

 .1, a thing from being washed away. The sol is the 

 loam of frnil-bearing "Devonshire, England, and from 

 what is told lo ihe undersigned not unlike the earthy part of 

 tlmt New Jersey, where curly frosts always kill, by telegraph, 

 all the expected" peach crop. 



In such a strip of laud, barely showing above the surround- 

 ing sea its crown of green fields, dotted here and there, with 

 the roni/t/w, that, are now almost the only suggestion to re- 

 mind that before Cabot came drifting along this was an isle 



That on Its summer shade, of frees 

 l.ayallailoat, 



it cannot be expected that there should be any rivers. Thert 

 are none. The- temperature of the running waters over shfil. 

 low depths is too tropical for salmon. Trout, however, art 

 to be had in boles. 

 It 13 no* two years and perhaps more since the present 



Canadian Minister of E 

 took decisive steps to rede 

 ihe waters of that smallest 

 made the largest show in 

 $5,500,000— meaning, of c 

 The fishery Officers now 

 the small but iniHimeraO! 

 doubled during the past l\\ 

 know whereof I speak iu 



good sport for : 



The only ill" 



not be best t 



stei 



nabl 

 further to lit; re 

 and upon Ihe Islr 

 ivandeiing around 



es came into office and at once 

 from utter fish-exhaustion all 

 if the maritime provinces thai 

 )hering up i hat most reluctant 

 se. l'rince Edward Island, 

 te Ibat Hie number of Iroul in 

 angling streams has certainlv 

 seas., ns ,.!' ( lose protection. 1 

 .ying that (here is reasonably 

 " ' gitimaie trout rods, 

 ed is that it would 

 .ore from the Gulf 

 one's real On one'i 

 without having pre- 

 y.iur present corres. 

 IV really enthusiastic unglei 

 iing n.iiit-brooks of Pri'iftie 

 a on ,1 expense for rough 

 f scare sly over ?:? per diem, 

 v .mi. Ic.- r . he bad better eon. 

 office 



Perh 



ids. 



dioulder, looking at a 



viously a r i 



pondent might suggest tltatif i 



WOUld like 10 try Hie little pi 



Edward Island (trout, only) a 



accommodation— ex-transport— 



including small boys as mission. 



suit beforehand with the fishery officer for the l'r 



whose name recently appeared with the other fishery officers 



of the continent in Poincsr and Stkham. As probably that 



designation of the p#ty referred to docs not live iu the 



miuas of his contemporaries, his address is: Col. Duvar, 



Alberton, P. ()., Inspector of Fisheries for the Province of 



Prince Edward Island, Canada. D. 



Death or- Mi:. Conn Warrenton, V'n., April (I.— Please 

 notice death of tbe elder Cobb, discoverer and proprietor ot 

 Cobb's Island, Va., who died "March '3(1, 1SSI, aged SI years 

 Many sportsmen of the United States will remember him as 

 a splendid hunter, a man wise in sporting lore, and withali 

 good recounter. He was buried ou the Island that he found, 

 and iu the blasts thai, sweep over Ids grave — which come from 

 the ocean— mingled with the cry of the gull and sea mew, he 

 will sleep sweetly. An honest, true-hearted man, — Cuassetje] 



