Terms, Four Dollars a Year. J 

 Ten Cents a Copy. J 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1877. 



i Volume 7, Number 23. 



} 17 Chatham St. (City BaU Mqr.) 



For Forest and Stream. 

 ON THE PRAIRIE. 



/VT5R tne wide rolling prairie, where wild flowers grow, 



\J And the zephyrs of health and liberty blow; 

 ! With feet in the stirrnpB and hands on the reins. 



We'll cbase the wild buffalo over the plains; 



O'er the wide rolling prairie, untramelled by care, 



Like the beasts of the chase we rove everywhere; 

 i Leaving mountain and valley and forest behind, 

 ! And camping at night by each river we find. 



When evening comes on and our hunting is o'er, 

 ll How sweet to recline upon nature's green floor ! 

 \ To encamp on the marge of some beautiful lake, ' 



Whose rippling waves in sweet melodies break 

 t On its pebly shore. On its smooth shining breast 

 i| The heron and duck in tranquility rest; 

 ft And the vestige of d*»y with expiring beam, 

 ' Leaves beauty and peace to embellish the scene. 

 lowtr Brule Agency, D. T. Thomas Roberts . 



Selected. 



THE USE OF FLOWERS. 



BY MART HOW ITT. 



GOD might have made the earth bring forth 

 Enough for great and small, 

 The oak tree and the cedar tree, 

 . Without a flower at all. 



We might have had enough— enough 



For every want of ours; 

 For luxury, medicine and toil, 



And yet have had no flowers. 



The ore within the mountain mine 



Requireth none to grow; 

 Nor aoth it need the lotus flower 



To make the river flow. 



The clouds might give abundant rain; 



The nightly dews might fall. 

 And the herb that keepeth life in man 



Might yet have drunk them all. 



Then wherefore, wherefore, were tbey made 



All dyed in rainbow light, 

 All fashioned with supremest grace, 

 Upspringing day and night:— | 



Springing In valleys green and low, 



And on the mountains high, 

 And in ihe silent wilderness 



Where no man passes by? 



Our outward life requires them not: 



Then wherefore had they birth? 

 To minister delight to man, 



To beautify the earth; 



To comfort man— to whisper hope 



Whene'er his faith is dim; 

 For who so careth for the flowers 

 Will much more care for him 1 



For Forest and Stream. 



m §wtl punting ir\ ^dlifamm. 



ilAT'E had a good camp at the "smoke-house," on Pine 



Flat, wood and water handy, plenty of brush for 



mtmrros, and the camp well shaded with big pine and red 



Jw. Some of these trees are ten or twelve feet in diam- 



w at the butt, and taper slowly to the first limbs which 



|, ei " some cases seventy or eighty feet from the ground. 



>;° e °r the largest cedars is hollow, for fifteen or twenty 



flfj'at the butt, with walls including bark not more 



;? n two feet thick, and a gap large enough for a man to 



m n§ht in at the & r ound. This tree we use as a meat 



/irji Sm0kellOUSe ' When blow - flies are bad, and it gives the 



^ P a name. Many a time in the winter rains I've camp- 



lr > Us hollow with a good camp outfit, had a fire inside, 



, tt d room to spare. 



paving can ?P earl y one morning and Boze to watch it, 

 m±, *> Wltn an Irish prospector who had come up over 



IF. started out for sheep meat. The big horns stay 

 iW hi ff U ^ e - li§llest mountains among steep precipices 



kite p Clear Fork b ^ ad3 in the Mam Ran g e nearl y °P" 



rmile lh Q Flat -' aDd fallin S two thousand feet in less than 

 ifctr d3 its wa y down t0 tne main river through a 

 m J J° rou S h and rocky that its water is seldom mud- 



Pnta' h beaviest rains - At the nead of this Fork tne 

 Pita t ln T beeD lOTn down and wasned out by water- 

 £ aboun a i ° f nearly a th(msand feet » and for a space 

 N ride- a SecUon 0T maybe 400 acres. This is rough 

 ide 8 b ° yenou S h at the bottom and is corralled on three 

 /'"fees rnn!™^ P reci Pices and- broken off spurs and 



Mostly bare rock; but wherever a pine or cedar 



can 



take root, one is standing or clinging, fighting, oftentimes, 

 with manzanita and madrofls for foot hold. In patches of 

 green among the rocks are wet places, growing sheep grass, 

 short and coarse but sweet. This the sheep is extremely 

 fond of, and the nature of the ground suiting the place is 

 a sort of pasture for them. On the top of the ridge separ- 

 ating Pine Flat from this layout, we divided, Tom and 

 Barney circling the main ridge and I going down into the 

 bottom. Half way across I struck sign. Following slow- 

 ly and carefully, it led through an awful rough country tD 

 a cienega where the grass was fresh bitten, then back down 

 across the main canon, and straight for the steepest pre- 

 cipices in the country. On an immense bald knob of 

 granite in the right direction, and nearly a mile distant, I 

 thought I could make out a baud. By carefnl climbing I 

 reached the first terrace, and as I could get no higher just 

 there, was crawling along upon it looking for an easier 

 climb, when the band I was following jumped up, the nearest 

 within thirty feet of me, and led by the largest old ram 

 I ever saw, tried to take the back track, two of them 

 nearly running over me, but turned down, running and 

 jumping with graceful ease where I could hardly climb. I 

 took a flying shot at the big ram, but missed him clean. 

 About fifty yards further my terrace gave out, breaking off 

 short on a deep gulch, on the other side of which the 

 mountain was broken up in large masses of rugged granite, 

 so steep and rough as to be apparently impassible. With 

 great difficulty I climbed down towards the main canon, 

 keeping as close as possible to the edge of the gulch. When 

 within thirty feet of the bottom I found a reasonably well 

 defined sheep trail, striking into and across the gulch and 

 leading into the broken rock. On this I made better pro- 

 gress and soon found it leading diagonally up the moun- 

 tain and towards the table knob before mentioned; but 

 the rocks were so large I could seldom see more than ten or 

 fifteen feet ahead. 



Creeping noiselessly along this trail, I was startled by a 

 loud bleat, apparently not more than ten feet off. Look- 

 ing cautiously around an angular piece of granite, I saw a 

 yearling ewe not more than the length of two rifles from 

 me, standing on a rock, all four feet together, looking 

 down and bleating at something I couldn't see. At the 

 crack of the rifle she dropped out of sight so quick that 

 for half a second I almost feared I was mistaken. I never 

 got so close to an unhurt sheep before, and felt consider- 

 ably excited at so unusual a circumstance. A light wind 

 blowing across the face of the mountain must have cut off 

 the scent completely. Reloading, I took her place on the 

 rock, and found myself, to my further surprise, at the 

 south edge of the broken rock and immediately overlook- 

 ing the main canon. About 150 feet below me lay the 

 dead body of the sheep. No others were in sight, and as I 

 had heard none run off, I concluded that tbe ewe had got 

 accidently parted from her band and was bleating for her 

 companions. Between me and the sheep was a straight 

 up-and-down place for about half the distance, after which 

 the broken rock commenced again and sloped gradually to 

 the bed of the canon. Through this slope ran a pretty 

 clean washout, about six feet wide, tolerably smooth, and 

 filled in with debris from the larger rock. Down this the 

 ewe had rolled until stopped by a projecting rock. About 

 sixty feet farther down was the bed of the canon, here 

 about twenty feet wide and partially filled by a jam of tree 

 tops, branches, and trash washed down from the mountain. 

 By tracking back a little higher than I stood, I saw that I 

 could reach a broken spur which intersected the Main 

 Range about half a mile from where we divided in the 

 morning. Leaving my rifle, I climbed down to get my 

 meat, half afraid 1 would never be able to climb back with 

 it. Just as I reached the easier slope my foot slipped and 

 started a loose boulder which narrowly missed the carcass 

 and went crashing into the canon below, I saw then why I 

 got so close to my sheep. An old he Grizzly that in a 

 minute loomed up as big as a barn, rose up out of those 

 logs and seeing me hanging to the cliff, turned every bristle 

 the wrong way and sent up a snort halfbred between cuss- 

 ing and questioning. I did'nt feel like saying anything 

 myself, but kept perfectly still and thought how infernal dull 

 my butcher knife was. After admiring each other until one 

 of us at least got mighty tired of the interview, "old Eph- 

 riam" got down on all-fours and moved off up the canon. 

 As he was out of sight in ten steps and I did'nt know but 

 what he was looking for an easier place to get up, I did'nt 

 fool away any more time than I could help in gutting that 

 sheep, nor roll any more rocks to speak of. Then with the 

 meat on my back, I climbed back to my rifle more easily 

 and quicker than would have been possible but for the bear. 



On the spur I found sign plenty, but had all the meat I 

 cared to pack, and did'nt hunt for more. 



The spur was tolerable smooth but steep. Just before 

 getting to the steepest place near the top, I stopped to 

 breathe, I had stuck the liver inside of my shirt and hud 

 a piece of jerked venison in my pocket. Making a little 

 fire (I never could eat raw liver,) I was sitting by it, eating 

 when I heard the rocks roll just above me, and looking up 

 saw a large ram standing on a point about sixty yards off, 

 and looking straight at the fire. My rifle lay handy and he 

 tumbled to its music, shot through the heart. I knew so 

 well where 1 had hit him that I finished eating before go- 

 ing to where he was lying (here's a good chance for some 

 fellow to say that I'd ought to have gone at once and bled 

 him.) He was middling fat, in good eating order, but for 

 size was'nt a patching to the patriarch I had missed in the 

 morning. I took the ewe to the top of the Main Range 

 first, went back for the ram, left him hanging up with shirt 

 tied to a swinging limb near him, and got into camp with 

 the ewe soon after sun down. Tom and Barney beat me 

 into camp about an hour, bringing the hide and meat of a 

 very large ram which Tom had knocked down, stunned 

 with a bullet in the forehead, and which coming too, as the 

 little Irishman was cutting its throat, struggled off of a 

 shelf some sixty feet high, taking the butcher with it about 

 half way, bruising one of his shoulders badly, and giving 

 him something to talk about for the balance of his life. 



El Cazador. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 OPOSSUM HUNTING. 



"The squirrel has a bushy tail, 

 And stumpy grows the hair; 

 The old 'coon's tail is ringed around, 

 An 1 de possum's tail am bare." 



Old Plantation Melody. 



IN the happy, antebellum days, while the old plantation 

 darkey yet dwelt upon the earth, 'possum hunting was 

 a favorite pastime with them, and was also enjoyable by 

 "young Massa" and Mars. Tom, Dick and Harry. As 

 soon as the first white frost fell — and ripened the persim- 

 mons, and sweetened the wild grapes — the smiling marsu- 

 pial waxed fat, and the season for hunting him commenced. 

 Then sallied forth at night, the darkies, young and old — 

 usually accompanied by some of the "young white folks" 

 — with two or three good varmint dogs, trained to run noth- 

 ing but "'coon and 'possum." These dogs were of the 

 bench-legged variety, with enough admixture of hound to 

 give them fair noses, and invariably named Bose, Bull, 

 or Tige. I never saw a first-class 'possum dog with any 

 other name. Some patriarchial Ethiopian headed the hunt, 

 cariied the horn, managed the dogs, and curbed the im- 

 petuosity of young whites and niggers. 



At the time of the full moon was not considered by the 

 sable autocrats as the most propitious for catching 'pos- 

 sums, for, said they, "De full moon gib too much light; 

 'possum powerful cowardly ; he feared ob his own shadder." 

 Their favorite haunts were well known along the borders 

 of the old fields, where the persimmon trees grew thickly 

 from the uncultivated soil* in the bushy hollows, where 

 the wild grapes hung in clustering bunches from the trail- 

 ing vines; on the undulating uplands, where the black- 

 haw, with its silvery branches bore its toothsome berries; 

 in the dark, still vales, along the brookside, where the 

 tall trees, 'ere the leaves had fallen, shut out the light of 

 moon and stars. To these places, by the glare of pine 

 torches, or by the light of the moon, the hunters made their 

 way. The dogs ranged widely and well for short -legged 

 fellows, and soon, far away, a yelp from old Bose; then 

 sharp and clear from the others. Instantly all is excite- 

 ment and confusion, "Hush, every one of you!" says old 

 Amos. "Is you all done gone clean stark mad? I want's 

 to hear dem dogs." A short, yelping run— for the opossum 

 stays on the ground but a little while when pursued by 

 dogs— and all is silent, expectation is on tip-toe, and every 

 ear is strained to catch the next note from the dogs. 

 There it is, a short, deeplmying, from old Bose.- "Treed, " 

 they all shout, and away they go, pell mell, through bush 

 and briar, regardless of scratched faces and torn clothing. 

 Clustered around the tree they look for the game— he 

 usually takes a small tree or sapling. Old Bose is sitting 

 on his haunches, looking with dim eyes far up into the 

 branches ; he has swept the leaves from behind him by. the 

 motion of his tail. The other dogs are standing on their 

 hind legs, or capering wildly around, occasionally gnaw- 

 ing a bush in their eagerness to get at the enemy. "Dar 

 he," says a young darkey, and there, between him and the 



