FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



The man who quits when he gets enough, with plenty of game still in sight, is a real sportsman. 



FINN SHOULD TAKE A REEF IN HIS CAU- 

 DAL FIN. 



The enclosed clipping, published in the 

 New York Times, Sunday, June 22, con- 

 tains so many misstatements and adverse 

 reflections on the guides and residents of 

 Jackson's Hole that I desire to give you 

 the benefit of my personal experience in 

 that region. 



First ground-hop is the statement that 

 one George William Finn went into the 

 Hole in September, guided several dude 

 hunting parties from the East and charged 

 them $10 a day and grub. Anyone who 

 has ever hunted in the region knows that 

 the fixed price for guides is $5 and grub. 

 Cooks, packers and horse wranglers get 

 less. If Finn went into the Hole for the 

 first time last September he did not take 

 a party out with him as guide. He may 

 have gone along as grub rustler for Josh 

 Adams, but more likely he was at home. 



When Finn makes the statement that 

 there "was heaps of hunters all over the 

 hills, and the rifles could be heard bustin' 

 and bangin' away all day," he draws heav- 

 ily on his imagination. I happened to be 

 in those same hills all through September 

 and only once did our outfit hear a rifle 

 shot from another hunting party ; and we 

 covered considerable territory, too. This 

 Finn got into the clutches of some over 

 zealous news shark, and the write-up 

 poses Finn as the oracle of Jackson's Hole 

 and the fast disappearing elk. He was talk- 

 ing big medicine and the reporter raised his 

 ante. It is time both were called. Such 

 men are the bane of all honest sportsmen, 

 and much injustice is done by them. Listen 

 to Finn's yawp : 



"The young man described how the car- 

 casses of elk, killed by hunters, could be 

 found in the hills, and bones and antlers 

 scattered everywhere." Certainly bones 

 and antlers are found everywhere, especial- 

 ly the latter. Any tenderfoot dude knows 

 that the antlers are shed every year, and 

 where such immense herds of elk roam the 

 hills it is perfectly natural that shed horns 

 should decorate almost every butte and 

 mountain. This man Finn argues that 

 because they are abundant the elk are 

 dying out ! In that climate bones and car- 

 casses last for ages. It is true that a 

 number of elk are found with their tusks 

 removed, antlers and carcasses undis- 

 turbed. The reason is not far to seek. 

 Every winter when the snows are deep and 

 feed is scarce, a certain number of elk, 

 bulls and cows and calves, die of starva- 



tion ; many more than are killed by the 

 whole force of hunting parties invading 

 the region every fall. It is a lamentable 

 fact that tusk hunters also kill bulls for 

 their teeth, but such hunters are few. The 

 tusk hunters go out early in the spring and 

 extract the teeth of the winter-killed ani- 

 mals ; and that is why so many untouched 

 carcasses are in evidence, antlers and all.. 



The inference that Indians are largely 

 engaged in this nefarious slaughter is all 

 bosh. In a 4-month sojourn in the region 

 I did not see one Indian. The country is 

 hoodooed for the redskin since 1894, when 

 trouble was precipitated because the ranch- 

 ers combined to put a stop to the indis- 

 criminate killing of game by Indian hunt- 

 ing bands. At that time 2 Indians were 

 sent over the Big Divide by the Winchester 

 route, and the noble warrior shuns the 

 Hole. 



I saw thousands of elk during the sum- 

 mer of 1901, at close range, photographed 

 them, and watched them on the licks. I 

 do not remember having observed one elk 

 in "all states and stages of maimed con- 

 ditions," despite the fact that Finn says 

 the country is alive with such fruit of the 

 dude sportsmen's efforts,. Elk in Jackson's 

 Hole are in a flourishing condition, for 

 every band last summer had a large per- 

 centage of calves. Any reader of Recrea- 

 tion will readily recall the excellent photo- 

 graphs of immense herds of elk which have 

 been sent in by that indefatigable guide and 

 amateur photographer, S. N. Leek, of Jack- 

 son. 



The statement that the ranchers are 

 afraid of poachers and that the game war- 

 dens are of no earthly use is nonsense. The 

 ranchers are fully alive to the fact that the 

 preservation of the elk in the Hole is of 

 inestimable value to them. They make 

 good money by guiding hunting parties 

 every fall. Last September every avail- 

 able registered guide was in the hills. 

 They know that the extermination of the 

 elk would cut off a great slice of their 

 revenue, and, as a matter of fact, would 

 render it impossible for them to make a 

 ranch go.. If the list of members of the L. 

 A. S. is conned, it will be found that a good 

 percentage of the registered guides in the 

 Hole belong to the organization and live 

 up to its principles. An arrest was made 

 in the Hole last summer, by a game war- 

 den, of a man who was simply found out 

 in the hills with a gun. The man was run 

 in on suspicion and at last accounts the 

 warden had not been shot. 

 There is a wholesome respect for the 



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