416 
FOREST AND STREAM 
of the reach of other animals, we started upon our roturn 
march. Our bag consisted of fifty-seven deer, two elk, and 
over fifty turkeys. Upon arriving at camp another'pack 
train was sent for the balance. 
I shall never forget my first elk hunt. 
M. E. Morford, 
THE MAD WOLF. 
A TRUE STORY OF A TRAFFER’S FATE. 
BY CAVALIER. 
H YDROPHOBIA., though fortunately a disease of rare 
occurrence in man, i3 one of the most recondite 
ana least understood in the whole range of fleshly ills. It 
is, indeed, given up by medical authorities as utterly in¬ 
curable after the symptoms once set in, the only remedies 
being of a preventive and not of a curative character. 
The wolf, the dog, the fox, the jackal and the cat seem 
most liable to contract the disease, though it occasionally 
occurs in other animals, its appearance, according to 
Eckel, being most frequent in the months of February and 
May, though popular belief has laid hold upon the latter 
heats of summer, or the dog-days, as the season in which 
this horrible malady is most to be apprehended. Its ori¬ 
gin, when de novo, is little understood; but intense thirst, 
sudden changes from heat to cold, bad food, and unsatis¬ 
fied sexual desires have all been assigned as causes for its 
appearance in animals; but in man ii is invariably, and in 
animals most commonly, the result of contagion. When 
contracted by man it is usually from the bites of rabid 
dogs, but fortuuately such wounds iu most cases heal with¬ 
out any serious consequences, but one person in twenty Or 
thirty bitten, according to llunlei and Vaughn, taking the 
disease. The bites inflicted by mad wolves are more cer¬ 
tainly fatal, Watson mentioning sixty-seven deaths by hy¬ 
drophobia out of one hundred and fourteen bites. The 
greater virulence of wolf bites is accounted for by wolves 
usually luting at the naked parts, whereas dogs nearly al¬ 
ways bite through the clothing, the poisonous saliva thus 
being wiped from the teeth before they enter the flesh. 
But I eel out to tell a story, not to write a medical es¬ 
say, though so much on a subject illustrated by my story 
seemed not inappropriate by way of introduction. 
Among the tales with which in the hey-day of the 
American lur trade the story-telling trappers were wont to 
beguile the evening hours by their camp-fires, were those 
of wolves having gone mad upon the prairie, crept by 
night into the camp of the sleeping trapper, and inflicted 
bites from which the victim, alter lingering thrpugh days 
of sail.ting, died in terrible agony. Many such stories 
were euireut in the olden time, and not eveu an Indian 
alarm could rouse the sleeping trapper so quickly from his 
slumbers, and cause liim to clutch with such fierceness the 
ever ready rifle, as the cry, resounding through the camp 
in me stdluess of the night: “Mad wolf! mad wolf!” 
About the first of August, 1832, the rival camps of the 
several fur companies then contending for the supremacy 
iu the west, were clustered near each other - in the valley 
of the Green 'River. One night a mad wolf entered the 
camp of Fomeuelle, who represented the interest of the 
American Fur Company, and passing rapidly by the re¬ 
cumbent and sleeping men, inflicted upon several a slight 
bite, proceeded among the horses, several of which it bit, 
and escaped in the darkness. The alarm was spread to 
all the camps, and the following day a number of tents 
wetc erected by tlie more prudent men for their better 
piuteeuou should the wolf return. In the camp of Fitz¬ 
patrick and Campbell, five miles distant from that of 
Fontenelle, but one tent was pitched, the occupants at 
night barricading the entrance with pack saddles; but as 
the nights were pleasant the remainder of the men pre¬ 
ferred" to take their chances in the open air, laughing at 
and joking their more prudent companions not a little for 
the precautions they had taken. Eight came, and silence 
fell upon the camp, ouly broken at intervals of twenty 
minutes, when the chief of the guard sounded the ery of 
“Ail s well!” which was taken up and repeated successive¬ 
ly by the drowsy sentinels, who, forbidden by the rules of 
the camp to pace their beals # lest they should be made a 
target for the feathered shafts of unseen foes, could 
scarcely keep awake in the recumbent or sitting poslures 
they w ere required to maintain in some dark nook on the 
verge ot the camp. But presently a shaggy form steals 
past the nodding sentinels, and reaches undiscovered the 
centre of the camp. It approaches the sleeping form of 
George Howe, who, wiapped in his blanket and resting on 
his leu side, leaves quite unprotected his light ear and 
cheek. Snapping at the exposed face, the shaggy intruder 
inthctB a severe wound, rousing Howe rudely from bis 
slumbers with the cry on his lips: “Ho! I am bitten! a mad 
•noli!” “A mad wolf! a mad wolf!” echoed the now 
aroused sentinels, and every man leaped to his feet in con¬ 
sternation. But the wolf sprang quickly upon two other 
men and bit them in the face ere they could rise, and then, 
favored by the confusion and the darkness, effected its 
escape. The next morning mounted men scoured the 
plain in every direction iu search of the rabid monster, 
but without avail; he seemed to have gone quite off, and 
luriher apprehension was quieted. In consequence no ad 
dnioual precautions were taken the ensuing nights; but 
again, about midnight, the cry of "Mad wolf!” rang 
through Hie camp. This time the creature was among the 
cttille, and fled alter having severely bitten a fine, large 
bull, w hich was destined for Fort William, at the mouth 
of the Yellowstone, to be employed in breeding. The 
wolf might have been killed upon this occasion, but for 
lent' ol accidents orders bad been given not to fire in 
camp; he was, however, not long afterward shot and 
ktheu by Fouteuelle’s men. 
A few days subsequent to these events, Fontenelle and 
Campbell bioke camp mod started for the Big Horn River, 
the latter on his way east with the year’s accumulation of 
peltries, the former to escort him as far as the fiver 
named. The bull that had been bitten appeared to be do¬ 
ing well, and Howe's wounds were rapidly bealiug; but 
When some two days’ march from the Big Horn, the hull 
couimt need Io behave strangely, indulging iu protracted 
fits ol tierce bellowing, the while foaming at the mouth 
and pawing the giouud with violence. It was evident that 
he was going mud, aud poor Howe became dreadfully 
idioiiied lor himself, He was a young man from New 
York, ol good lamily, and well educated, and had sought 
the west and adopted the trapper’s vocation, impelled sole¬ 
ly by the spirit of adventure which leads so many young 
men to make sacrifices of the advantages of a good home 
and the companionship of friends to plunge into a life of 
hardship and danger. Howe had, among other trappers, 
an excellent friend named Larpenteur, then quite a yruing 
man, who subsequently passed forty years on the plains’ 
and became well known upon the frontier. As they 
marched along together, witnesses of the mad antics and 
bellowing? of the bull, Howe, with white face and tremb¬ 
ling voice, would say: “Larpenteur, don’t you hear the 
bully He is going road, I am beginning to get frighten¬ 
ed. Do you think I shall go mad?” Then, relapsing into 
painful thought on Ihe horrible prospect, he would ere long 
again break silence in a pileous appeal to bis friend for 
the comforting assurance that he should probably escape 
so dreadful a fate. Larpenteur, with a heart wrung with 
affectionate sympathy, made to these queries in a voice of 
forced steadiness as consoling a reply as he might; but with 
the conviction iu bis heart that Howe was doomed, liis 
words but feebly concealed his own furebodiugs. The 
Big Horn was reached. Campbell’s party, including Lar¬ 
penteur, fell to work upon the boats of skins in which 
they were to float down the Big Horn and Yellowstone,to 
the Missouri, while Fontenelle turned to scatter his band 
through tlic heaver grounds to begin the season’s trapping. 
Howe returned with Fontenelle, and thus did not witness 
thedeathof tlie hull, which occurred soon after from a 
well developed case of hydrophobia. But poor Howe was 
constantly tortured with dread; lie seemed impressed with 
the hopelessness of his escape, and biller aud terrible were 
bis reflections at the prospect of tlius miserably perishing 
far from home and friends—friends who might never know 
his fate. Alas! Unit lie had ever left them! Would that 
upon Ibis August day lie might stand again within heariug 
of the voices of tlie dear ones at that door—the door of his 
father’s bouse—out of which, not many months before, lie 
had joyously passed, seeking adventure, and only achiev¬ 
ing an end like this! Would that the brown aud treeless 
prairie which he now traversed in such despondency and 
horror, might be replaced by the green grass upon which 
he had gamboled in boyhood, and the leafy coverts whose 
graceful shade had sheltered him from the summer heats 
on many a day like this! 
But let us dwell no longer upon his sufferings. This 
mental anguish, this dread of the impending fate—one of 
the earliest symptoms of hydrophobia—was soon followed 
by other symptoms more pronounced. He would turn 
pale at sight of the small streams on the route, crossed 
them witii trembling, and tlnally^overconie by his dread 
of water, dared not cross them at all. It became necessa¬ 
ry to cover him wiik a blanket aud carry him across, the 
mere sight of water throwing him into convulsions. At 
length it became difficult to get him along at all, and one 
afternoon, not fur from the proposed camping ground, he 
was left behind in care of two men until he should recov¬ 
er from a fit. into which he bad fallen. The attendants 
soon wearied of their task, and came into camp without 
him. Fonlenelle immediately sent back a party to bring 
him in, but when they arrived at the spot where be bad 
been left tiiey found only the torn remnants of bis cloth¬ 
ing, which lie bad evidently stripped off in his paroxysms, 
and then fled miked into the wilderness. He was never 
found, and undoubtedly perished miserably iu this forlorn 
condition, without a companion to solace his dying mo¬ 
ments, or a friendly hand to bury his remains. 
Fort Shaw, Montana, February ISM, 1876. 
For Forest and Stream. 
MY FIRST TURKEY HUNT. 
W HEN we first moved down on Green Hiver, Ken¬ 
tucky, where we now reside, people told us that 
there were a gootl many turkeys near our place; that they 
used to forage aroilud the feuec only a short distance from 
the house. I was then a youth of eighteen; never saw 
nor hunted anything larger than quail, rabbits, &c., having 
always lived in a thickly settled part of the State, and as 
might be expected 1 wua on the quivi'ce for turkey every 
time I chanced to go out any distance. When I went out 
in the woods or fields I took my gun along expecting to 
find an old gobbler sitting on most every stumjt wailing 
for me to pop him over. It-did not lake long, though, to 
convince me of my error, and to And that if I wanted a 
turkey 1 would have to hunt for it the same as oilier game. 
In the latter part of the winter my father hired a Jong, 
lank specimen of the genus humo by tlie name of Sam, 
who assumed to be a mighty hunter; had trapped in Ar¬ 
kansas, and had killed more turkeys than he could carry 
lots of times. His stories of turkey hunting only increased 
my desire to draw a bead on one of those noble birds. 
We shouldered our guns one afternoon, and I struck out 
into the “flats.” There had been a snow full of a couple 
of inches in the forenoon, and Sam prophesied a turkey 
sure. We tramped about tor something near an hour, 
when all at once Sam declared he saw one. After warning 
me to make as little noise as possible he commenced slip¬ 
ping on the object, while I followed close to his heels. 
After getting within gun shot We found it to be ouly a 
black log, much to Sam’s chagrin. Alter walking a mile 
or two further we came to a large hollotv log, iu which the 
snow had blown several feet, and there, fresh in the new 
fallen snow, was a turkey track, made oil entering the log. 
Sam squalled down before the hole, and after squatting a 
while declared he saw it, at the same time leveling his 
rifle. After taking deliberate aim he cut loose, but as no 
sound was heart! indicating success of the shot he called 
for roy gnu, which, by the way, was an army musket, and 
I handed it to him, which, alter aiming with great pains, 
sent a kandfull of B. B.’s crashing through the other eud 
of the log. Sam laid the guns down and commenced 
peering into lire log. 
“See him, Samv" says I. “No; but I hear him. Crawl 
in and get it,” replied Sam. 
i came closer and looked in. The log was full of smoke, 
and so dark 1 could not Ree two feet from the end, and as I 
thought not very inviting I declined going in. 
“Go in and get your turkey,” urged Sain. 
I replied by lolling liim to go in himself, which for some 
reason I could not account for, he lefused to do* I went 
down the log towards the opposite end, and finding a soft 
place applied the I oe of my boot with considerable vigor, and 
soon had a hole into the hollow. I called Sam, and wbde 
he proceed to enlarge the hole, I commenced loading my 
gun to be ready iu case of emergency. Sam tore up the log 
several feet, anu presently yelled out “Here he is—come 
pull him out.” 
1 looked, and sure enough there was something. 
“Wby don’t you come pull it out,” asked Sam again. 
I began to get suspicious and to think something was 
wrong or Sam would take hold himself. After finding I 
would not drag out game shot by someone else, Sam 
cautiously ran his arm in and caugbt the turkey by the 
tail feathers, and drew it forth and deposited it on the 
ground; yes, a sure enough turkey, but surnamed buzzard, 
Sam’s face was a study as lie eyed the bird, literally cut to 
pieces, ll blew or hissed something like a goose fora 
while, aud after flapping about sometime flew off. Sam 
and I watched the ill-fated carrion eater out of sight befoie 
either of us spoke. 
We silently shouldered our guns and wended our way 
homeward, finding no more game. As if by mutual con¬ 
sent neither of us mentioned the circumstance after arriv¬ 
ing home, not caring to be tlie butt of so good a joke. 
Stnce that snowy afternoon I have caused many a turkey to 
“bile the dust," and have in rny possession a beard measur¬ 
ing 10J inches that I took off au old gobbler I killed not 
far from the seat of that adventure. And I have always 
found that when a man kills a turkey, no matter where, he 
is always willing to go after it. ‘ Paddy O’ Leak v. 
rgislt §nltur L e. 
FISH CULTURE IN NEW YORK. 
EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE C AMISSION— 
GRATIFYING PROGRESS. 
T HE eighth Annual Report of the Fish Commission 
of this State has just been printed as a public docu¬ 
ment. It records operations down to June 1st. 
Sliad-hatcbing is first considered, and the results are 
said to be highly gratifying. There were artificially im¬ 
pregnated 4,684,000 eggs and 4,580,000 shad were turned 
loose in the Hudson River, between May 21st and June 
28th. The yield of mature shad showed a fair percentage of 
the number hatched, and tlie effect upon the market is 
more and more noticeable, indicating a steady increase in 
supply. As usual, there is a criminal gTeed manifested by 
fishermen alone the Hudson, who will not consent to cease 
operating On Sunday. As matters stand at present in 
every part of that river, stakes, nets, drift nets, pounds 
and seines intercept the passage of the fish at every step, 
and the fact that one is able to ascend is almost miracu¬ 
lous. This is the great difficulty the Commissioners have 
to contend with, and they urge as an imperative necessity 
the compelling by law of a cessation of fishing oh Sunday. 
Of the shad-fry distributed New York received the larger 
portion, but 75,000 young shad were shipped to Scioto 
River, Ohio; 75,000 to Muskingum River, Ohio; 90,000 to 
Des Moines River, Ohio; 100,000 to White River, Indiana; 
and 100,000 to Texas. Previous experiments in this direc¬ 
tion encourage the belief that a successful result may be 
predicted, as the shad which had been deposited in the 
Cayuga, Oswego and Genesee Rivers of this State have 
often been taken of marketable size, and would have been 
abundant were it not for the “eel-weirs,” by which thou¬ 
sands of young shad are captured and destroyed before 
maturity. Legislation is needed here also. At the lower 
end of Lake Ontario the young are enormously abundant. 
The Commissioners say:— 
“Further investigation confirm tlie views expressed in 
previous reports, that shad never wander far from tlie 
mouths of the rivers where they are bred, and invariably 
return to them to spawn. When hatched they drop down 
the river with the current, possibly wailing until the fol¬ 
lowing year before entering tlie sea. Fish form no excep¬ 
tion to tlie rule of jrregularity in growth; some will obtain 
the start of others, and maintain it at the expense of their 
less fortunate brethren. The larger, better able to appro¬ 
priate food, keep growing, white the weakly and puny, 
incapable of bearing their part in the struggle for existence, 
suffer accordingly. The shad do not differ greatly iu tlria 
respect from the salmon, since the young of the latter, 
although bore on the same day, never go to the salt water 
all at once; so the young of the shad are often found iu 
the tiver some months, at least, after they are bom. It 
lias even happened that shad'of six inches in length have 
been found tilled with spawn, although it is ascertained 
that usually they require three years to mature their ova.” 
Encouraging progress has been made with black bass. 
The ova of this fish cannot be subjected with any ad¬ 
vantage, to any methods of manipulation used in the 
treatment of the ova of many other varieties. They are 
surrounded with a gelatinous or mucus fluid, which unfits 
them for being deposited either in the salmon troughs or 
shad boxes. The best method of introducing them to 
new waters is by pulling iu live fish about three years old 
and from 3 to 13 inches in length. In this 728 black bass, 
482 Oswego bass and 1,533 of allied species were sent to 
lakes and the headwaters of rivers iu the western part of 
the State. 
Of salmon trout and wliite-fish eggs the Commission dis¬ 
tributed 164,500, aud 20,000 young white-fish, and over a 
million young trout were sent to various parts of the State 
stocking a large number of localities which bad become 
almost barren. As the salmon trout fry placed in the in¬ 
land waters of the State in 1872 and 1873 will be large 
enough to catch during the present season, a few sugges¬ 
tions as to their mode of capture are given. They may 
be taken at the surface, or half way down, but mainly 
from the bottom. Tlie bait must be the small live fish 
upon which they arc accustomed to feed. 
Of the very great number of eggs of the California 
salmon imported by the United States Fish Commission, 
New Y r ork received 400,000, which were hatched at the 
State hatching house. The Commissioners are of the 
opinion that the true salmon {Salmo mlar) cannot be pro¬ 
pagated in tlie waters of the Atlantic seaboard, but have 
