Nov. 9, 1882.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



287 



After waiting about a mile up the ciieek i found plenty of 

 traces of deer where they had trod down the snow . and laid 

 down, and soon 1 struck u fresh trail of Ibrce, and followed 

 them Ehvough ravin,- and overguniho Mull's. ■ IH 1 was tired 



out, but 1 did not coma irp vrttfi them. I i back down 



the ti'-'k. and returned to camp without seeing door, TJie 

 rest of the party came in, and With the exception of Spauld- 

 ing and Stmrt, none of us had Been deer. They ban sinned 

 a baud of four, 1 nit did not «r-t a shot— a poor show for veni- 

 son. We prepared our supper, lit our pipes, laid beside of 

 onrcamp Eire and told hunting stories tin bed time and then 

 turned in. Early in the morning wi- started out. 1 Lad by 

 this time made up my mind, that deer, hunting iu this 

 country was rather different from deer hunting of Louisiana 

 and .Maine. 1 had had the idea up to this time, that the 

 deer were hunted in the timber, whereas thej are found iu 

 the, In time in the ravines among the bills in th. 



This lime I kept corapa 

 few miles no the creek, 

 Stout and nr. -elf wnt 

 saw so manysignsof d 

 tieular. where then » 

 Ally feet across, the 



ami in the (■■ nler was n small pine. .. 

 We passed over places iu the grassaud 1 

 as though a drove of horse.- uad paEBed 

 Ai last we struck a trail of GigW deer 

 to the hills, when Mr. Stout took 

 strapped it to his Middle. I asked hii 

 walk, and to mv surprise he said m 

 and follow thetii. 1 had had a litlli 

 trail the day before, and the idea of ; 

 a trail was a surprise to me. How 

 and we took our lariat ropes in our h 

 gumbo hill witli a pitch steeper th 



with Mr. Stout. Aft 



• again parted company, ami Mr. 



!| further up the creek. 1 never 

 in my life. At one place in par- 

 a depression in the bottom about 



pletelv trampled down. 



thev leal - lick. 



hwi,. reii looked 

 r the ground, 

 •. and followed them 

 iff his overcoat and 



you take 

 numerable guuics 



p. lldic .. 



see that riding a h 



don't think there:: 

 tain sheep or Indii 

 I do not think thei 



n if he was going t-> 

 >, he was going to ilde 



■ experience id a dc. r 



i horse following such 



ever. T followed suit. 



auds, and start,-.! up a 



and when 



nsidcralion that these hills arc cut \ 

 :- from one to twenty feet deep, w 



and from one to titty feet wide, \ 



Horse across such a country is not e 



3 are any other animals except deer, 



iesthat Could perform such 



horse in the world that has 



Jsare 



durance of an Indian pony. These litt 

 out on the prairie to shift for themselvi 



nly feed that they gel, In 



„1 to 



th per- 

 uu will 

 tay. I 

 moun- 



a feat. 

 the eu- 

 turned 

 u they 

 prairie 



ml In 



•day 



de the 

 e, and 

 n .-..ell feed a 

 1 miles, day a 

 OUld look i wi 

 ldthosfdaf-of guml 

 hard, and the only way to 

 in fifty to one hundred feet wa- 

 le crii'i. and yet my pony went 



I passed a 



grass is the inside bark of th 

 to aa-y, thev will grow fat on tl 

 in, nt' i he pony .-m be ridden m 

 and go through places that a 

 fore he would ventur 

 knobs where the BHO' 

 prevent slipping dov 

 by sticking my heels 

 with perfect esse. 



We went back Lai 

 riding along a divid, 

 and, across the ravin 

 he saw one band of 



He called my attention to this, and, I must say. 1 never saw 

 a finer sight than those eight deer on the dead run. Tin v 

 were out of range of our .44 Winchesters, .so we started on 

 the trail. We followed them more thin ten miles before 

 we came up with them again, but they were up and away 

 before we could get near enough to them. We were ju-t 



l the hills 



M 



tile, aud i 



iboul : 

 t hapi. 



the opposite side of the nexl divid, 

 ghl deer (whitetails) on the jump 



rising up out of 

 that we were riding' up to get 

 they discovered us, and away they 

 near night, we started for camp, 

 riding on top of a divide we saw 

 both without any deer, I thought 

 venison for supper was no better tli 

 caught up to them at the sleigh, 

 about four miles in the niorniin 

 lr.,m Krvin, thai he had killed 

 heart felt good (as the Indiai 



ibout 

 pit 



cut i 



fifteen leet deep 

 i to get out of, and 

 it \ 



Sbortl 



Spaulding and Forbes, 

 again that our show for 

 in the night before. We 

 which we had taken up 

 Here we found 

 white-tailed bu, 

 ) at the new 



twenty feet d-vp. the sides^'of which were as perpendicular 

 aa the sides of a nouge. : &.•■ j," "" . r - 



At last I struck a creek, and thinking that' I" had struck 



ih. ma ii one Hooked ;,t mv compass for t lie direction Of 

 camp, but soon found out Men it was noi right, I was 

 completely worn OUt by this lime, and 1 found a nice pile 



of driftwood and concluded to star there the rest of the 



nia'lit. 1 bad used up mv matches that were gc the rest 



Having sol u.-i with -now. 1 am too old an hunter to be 



stopped by sud. aamnl! thing as that, 1 took olf mv vest, 



tbOB Out lie. lining, and placed it between two of thelbgs, 



| Bring two or three shotfl int., ii [succeeded in 



iiito, a (lame, and soon had s wsod roaring (in 



bttg, I slaved inside the lire until daylight, 

 that. I was about three mile- from camp. 



Started for 

 when 1 fell 

 I went iu 

 some hard 

 was not 01 

 coffeepot. 1 

 bad b.cii... 



cups of 



the pie. 



1 1 



I found 

 l.got up and 



e, and 



I dragged along at a slow 



d the sleigh gone. 



ffce-pol sittingtherc full of coffee, 

 iiiatcli-s and a cup. The fire 



he omber-S together, set on the 

 in stalked Mr. Spaulding, who 



i looking for me. I drink three 



1 bread, gQt on Spauldiner's pony. 

 he walking up the creek to whore too sleigh was, After 

 getting there we hitched up the horses and started by the 

 waydf the hills tor home, which we reached just after 

 dark. So ended our week's hunt. I think if I ever should 

 start again on such a hunt f should keep inyhOrse, I think, 

 on the wide, thn v,e had quite a successful hunt, seeing 

 that neither of us had hunted the creek before and the 

 country was new Lous. Loweh liun.i:. 



A TRIP THROUGH NOR1H CAROLINA. 



_| |- .N!!Y and myself IVIl thai we must make a new de- 



. 1 piirturc. Wc had hunted and shot so much over 



Virginia during the lasl ten-years, that we wanted change 



H 



turkeys 



in the Alleghanies. partridges in the valley, old hares and 

 robins iu tllG Piedmont. 30ra and mil in tie lowlands, black 

 birds and reed birds on the James, shufflers and mallard on 

 tile Potomac, deer in the pin. -lands, canvas-back and red- 

 head on tin- Chesapeake, brant, black duck, snipe and 

 . wild pigeons in tin: mast 

 -.ants in the highlands. Wood- 

 lOttotoS; we had killed bull- 

 s, and field larks in every 

 .nd dropped our discharged 



curlew off i he Vi 



for, 



1' ll::! 



peake, br 

 . ini.i Gapei 



I Mo, -.tains, pile: 



cock on the Rappahannock 

 bats, red-headed woodpecke 



count v in the Old Dominion, i 

 si,. II- In almost every precincl 



It was time to think of cruising in new seas, and then 

 again the scarcity of name in our own State is alarming to 

 the true sportsman. 'The interest taken in the full enforce- 

 ment of the laws for the protection and preservation of 

 game has died entirely out, from the fact that there is no 

 law to enforce. Tho Ivt Legislature, having run mad on 

 politics and the election of State officers, had no time, they 

 said, for any such trill,-. So pot-hunters and scrub-Shooters 

 have played the old scratch with ell kind of fur and feather, 

 and where to .-hoot this fall and winter has become a serious 

 problem. 



It, is no use to go to f 



. My 

 Then 

 buck 



Forbes said that Spaulding had killed four deer— on. 

 and tluee does— and left them in the prairie. 



We drove into camp, and led our ponies, and thai night 

 we made a quarter of venison look "sick." and the bacon 

 was at a discount, I can tell you. The next morning our 

 other quarter went the wav of tin- first, and wc started with 

 the sleigh after Spaulding's deer. Mr. Krvin was obliged 

 to return home that dav (Friday), and I let him hive mv 

 pony. He left us on top of the hills on the prairie, and we 

 Went to the scene of the previous day's work, an 



the carcase- of the 

 stood to where th 

 he shot tin four de 

 thev stalled WaS le 

 yards b fore he I'd 



up, when he gave 

 the hill on the ol 

 attention onlv to tl 

 killed four d 



Stopped to ta 



deer. Pro 

 leer started from \ 



, aud the furthest <: 

 than 100 yards, ai 

 Besides the four 

 le rolled down the 

 ir another shot, Sho 



3 Mr. i 

 out 



V li 



1 he ran 15 or 20 



leer that he killed, 



hill, and then got 



■ again rolled down 



ither side, and he, thinking her dead, paid 



the buck, aud shot him, so that he -le end 



and [iiit two shot through a fifth one. lie 



is out of the four, supposing that the 



fifth was in the other ravine, aud to his surprise she had got 

 away down the creek, and he lost the trail among other 

 tracks. 



While we were viewing the ground and Mr. Spaulding 

 was showing me tho ground and the way he shot them, Mr 

 Krvin came back and told ine thai he had killed two mo 



backs, and wanted us to go aud 

 wanted to keep on his way home 

 he kept on with me on foot Wo 

 of a mile, aud 1 saw across the ravine 

 fine large white tail bucks. I not olf 

 He- trail Of the rest Of the band, whei 

 fug tip. He had jii-t started a bam 

 the:, i. end missed both. I left them 

 and followed it till nearly night on fo 

 up with ihe deer, but found where tin 

 Late in the afternoon I found whe 

 my trail with a horse, at 

 saw than we- myself 



After following them all day 

 reviles, snow crugt, and SUOW 

 -now to my weist. to think that 

 I rail. 1 turned around like a \ 



camp, twelve miles away Booh 

 out, and I would walk a' short 

 ie.-t in the snow. [ traveled till 

 looked for gumbo, 1 was that m 

 and a plenty of it. I had tak. 

 end il was so cut up with gu 



where thev weie as he 

 I not ou mv pony, aud 

 nl about tfiive-i | miners 



Mr 



f pony to ta 



laud got two shots at 

 i and took up the trail 

 ot, but did not conn 

 y had laid down one,-. 

 Dine one had taken ii[ 

 and a more disgusted man vou neve. 

 I. that time. 



• hill and dale, llirougl 

 fts, and often ihroiieh 

 eonecf-e had taken ray 

 iped cur and started for 

 sr starting my fen 

 uiee, then sit down and 

 r dark, and if ever man 

 At last 1 found gumbo, 



i II ravine bj ibis lime. 



that 1 had to i 



drcd brandl ai 

 lid-, but good d 

 Cobb's. II is m 

 there are hunclri 



hat make the : 



them has cuns. 



at. thev kill 



:ourse, illegally 



is to Sh 



The 



iot the duck.- it; 

 yes then, olf fj 



E\ 



lib's Island for brand! aud duck 

 of the past, and. lo be candid, the 

 Buy be told. The time was when 



oy.rthe decoys, and a half n hun- 

 . dock was ii common bag for one 

 ■lie:-. I leer, is forever gone at the 

 nous oyster and clam station, and 

 ■ n and -cons of sloops andschooncrs 

 icii- rendezvous; and every man of 

 IringtO vary their menu with fresh 

 [- in every conceivable way, and, of 

 r easiest and most practiced method 

 the night time, and this unqiicstion- 

 en their feeding grounds, never to 



rows worse, until these vandal clam- 



-snipea" have destroyed the finest shoot- 



ably d 



return. 



pickers and ' 



ins; on the Allauiic coast. 



I have begn regularly to Cobb's Island for three winters, 

 and with the most unsatisfactory results. I have frequent 

 ly had to wait a whole week before I could go out shfioting, 

 for time, tide and sunshine have all to harmonize— if cither 



rf Ihe II, 



ithc 



ivanlii 



i m 



talk about, nothing I 

 .pent life; it isle 



'dilate upon the sins 

 sing, aud eue gets 



u the habit of a house dog, and yawns and sleeps in fitful 

 shin.ber day and night. 



ih, i, every tune you go out. hunting, the guide charges 

 you three dollars and lakes half of'your ducks. T have 

 euouch of duck shooting then; — il simply don't pay — and 

 after losing two Orthrqc weeks, end getting a few braul 



thai COSl me between five and leu dollars apiece, I have 

 come vo the ((inclusion to try my luck .■Jsewhere. 1 hale to 

 bid adieu to Cobb's Hand, but iu all truth it is time, 

 money and temper utterly wasted: it is sad. but vet a frozeu 

 fact. 



Hearing that there was flue shooting iu Western North 

 Carolina, a parly of us determined to make n trip there, 

 Cbjefly to shoot quail. But, what point should we aim for ? 

 Neither 1 lenry, Ned or myself had ever been iu the State be- 

 fore, or rather, they had not, aud my experience of North 

 Carolina was a short visit, it is true, but so crowded with 

 incident, that it will be a vivid memory as long as lite lasts. 

 It happened thus: 



The scene was at Appomattox Court House; the time, a 

 gloomy Apiil morning in the sping of '(55. Lee had sent in 

 his (lag of 1 1 uce, and "the news Hew liom lip to Ii,., that the 

 army of Northern Virginia was about to surrender. Surren- 

 der. A laugh oi scorn and derision enrae from many who 

 deemed our battalions invincible, whether coinbattcd singly 

 by overwhelming numbers, unlimited resource-, starvation 

 aii.l wounds and death, or opposed by all. Surrender the 

 gland old army of Northern Virginia, that incomparable 



spur between the 'ribs of; hi.- skeleton steed, "wc wuTmake 

 'le- trip, sure." 



\\ . ,, e, led Johnston after a few days' steady riding, and 

 Ihe General told us to go back to Virginia, give ourselves 

 up. and return to our homes. We turned ou the back track 

 and aimed for Tarboro, a beautiful little town in North 



est ling ( 

 n a lev 



ok dii 



I tie 



body of infantry, as Swinton called Ih 

 as hell. Vet the whispers grew louder 

 never blanched before death, grew while t 

 soon ihe news grew into a eerlaintv. Ma 

 alrymen determined to break out of the si 

 for' Johnston's armv in North Carolina, 

 squad charged through the line, and tweh 



It 



s false 

 ■eks that 



lied trie, 

 by SI, el 



Johnsto 



the, lee 



thii 



.fo 



mori 



e out, 



ad left but tw 



go country, w itllOUl 



el 

 the lips now, aud 

 f individual cav- 

 roundand strike 

 Sixteen in one 

 e, horsemen and 

 i- less wounded, and 

 valryinen, .lack )(. 

 re bothy,,,,,,. ,„. 

 both uiih flesh 



■f the Roanoke River. 

 f the place, what a sight imt OUT 

 jjon train thai had left Peters- 

 ore the evacuation, tilled and jammed with supplies, 

 1 iu vain to reach Lee. and finding him environed 

 dan's troopers, turned the caravan's head toward 

 i. and had traversed a good deal ,,f the wav. when 

 •ned thai the l„,il,„,, bed fallen out of the whole 

 Nor was this all. Two six-gun batteries ami a regi- 

 if of infantry guarded the train." The gnus were brand 

 new and had never been tired. They were beautiful rifle 

 pieces, fresh from the English foundries, that had run the 

 blockade by way of Nassau. The caissons were bright and 

 clean as new paint could make them, and the inins gleamed 

 like gold. 



A -ad council of war by old comrades, thai had come I" 

 gether by chance, was held in the recesses of the North 

 Carolina piny woods. There was no officer higher than 

 the Major, a young Virginian named Slaughter, who com- 

 mended the provision train. 



The discussion was brief, for there was only one side to 

 be argued. Lee had surrendered ; Johnston was about to lay 

 down his arms; Kirby Smith anil Dick Taylor had an army 

 in Louisiana, nearly a thousand miles away, so all chance of 

 reaching him was futile; President Davis' and his Cabinet. 

 were fugitives, and the Confederate government dissolved; 

 there was but one course to follow, and that was for every 

 man to disperse to his home. 



A lew hot-blooded, scatter-brained soldiers urged that a 

 guerilla warfare- should be inaugurated: but such a propo- 

 sition was voted down by all the veterans present, who knew 

 what a guerilla warfare "really meant. 



No lime was lost. The meeting broke up, each man se- 

 lected a mule or a horse, and mounting, rode away in twos 

 and threes. Old comrades looked with lingering glances 

 inio each other's eyes, and their hands met in firm, warm, 

 cordial pressure for the last time, and turning their faces— 

 "Somft toward the setting sun have fjoue, 

 A.ud some to tho setting moon"— 

 Obey disappeared iu the tortuous road, never to meet 

 again in this world. In an hour the scene so full of a. 

 buslline, life was almost deserted. There iu the road stood 

 the twelve guns with the appurtenances all complete and the 

 chests Idled with ammunition. They were the property of 

 any who chose to claim them. Any enterprising farmer 

 who chc£e had only to jump on a mule and bear away with 

 him to his country home the finest rifled guns in the world, 

 and he could celebrate the Fourth of July, Christmas, or 

 his mother-in-law's birthday, or his tin wedding, as he 

 minded to, in tine style. And 'then what splendid adornments 

 to his grounds would be twelve brass and steel cannons 

 encircling his mansion, and pointing their grim muzzles to 

 every point of the compass. Ah me! I have often wished 

 1 hail winked two of those guns away quietly; nobody 

 would have missed them and they would have been like 

 Mrs. Toodles's door-plate, a handy thing to have about the 

 bouse. 



than that; there in the pine woods was a train 

 i mile long, and over a couple of hundred mules, 

 3 guns, for somebody to help themselves. Owiug 

 poit the officers thought that Sheridan's cavalry 

 were but a few miles off, but the half a dozen scouts who 

 remained nil dav by the wagons found out that there was 

 wa- not a blue coat, within twenty miles. 



A few of us built our fires and remained over night with 

 the train, looting the wagons and drinking some blockade 

 whisky, the meanest I ever swallowed. The next morning 

 we debated whether we should spike the guns and burn the 

 wagons, but as the countty people began to arrive we told 

 them to h.lp themselves, and then loading one of the field 

 piec- under direction of an old artilleryman who had been 

 transferred to the cavalry, we touched her off. The sound 

 echoed aud re-echoed through the vast pine forest and then 

 died away in the fur distance. Mounting our horses we 

 -truck tor Virginia. 



I claim that our small body of a half a dozen scouts were 

 the final executors of the effects s>f the Confederacy, and we 

 fired the last gun and last snluie of the war. 



« # X » * # « * * * 



At the St. Claire, in Richmond, wc met Mr. Mereer 

 Slaughter, the genial ticket agent of the Danville Railroad. 

 We confided our intention of seeking some hunting ground 

 in North Carolina, for ihe reason that sportsmen were over- 

 crowding the Old Dominion. 



•Why don't you go to Western North Carolina', "he asked. 

 "I hear that partridges abound out that section. Take a 

 ticket to Oa-tonia, about two hundred and fifty miles from 

 here, on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, and you will 

 strike the finest game preserves in the eouutry." 



"All right,'' we said, "and we will start to-morrow night." 



The tram leaves the depot at 11:35 P. M. and reaches 

 Danville, Va., at seven the next morning. We got a splendid 

 breakfast here nt the depot, such a rare thing iu this section 

 that the event ought to be chronicled, for during the space of 

 ten days we never ate another palatable meal at a public 

 house, aud how we lived and suffered and fed ou cold victuals 

 and greasy food will be told further on. North Carolinians 

 don'i seem to know how to keep a hotel, or if they do, they 

 take particular pains to hide that accomplishment from 

 strangers. 



After an all day travel through an inexpressibly dreary 

 looking country we arrived at.Gastonia, a little village in its 

 infancy and dirt, iu Lincoln county. We got out aud looked 

 around, and the scene appeard so uninviting that Henry 

 positively refused lo stop. 



"I'll die of the blues if I remain here" he said. "I feel them 

 creeping over me now." 



Upon inquiry we found that t'- - 

 town of some eight h«mdred inha 



Bu 



of Wl 

 left, 1 

 to a falsi 



bottom of the main gully. 1 traveled foi two miles or more wounds, aud riding the sorriest specters of horses ever seen, 

 where the wiUur had cut through the gunibo in some places ' "If we can cheat the buzzards," said Jack, driving his 



e miles away was a 



called Liucoluton, 



_e railroad that lefl 



c evening'. Transferring our traps, we were soon 



along at the lively rate oi'twenty miles an hour and 



dusk reached Die depot. 



tent Jersey wagon drawn by a steed that had been 

 e. iii the memory of man, was to be our conveyance. 

 i our traps, we started for town, a mile distant, a 

 nine: in from and lighting the way with a lautern. 

 ihe old horse fell down eleven time-, between the depot and 

 the hotel by actual count. Arriving at Liucoluton hotel, tho 

 only hostelry iu the place, wc got some cold bread and 



just al'u 



Vilim: 

 larkey 



