
THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN SPORTSMEN. 
The Bostwick Gun and Sporting Goods Co., 1528 
Arapahoe St., Denver Col. 
W. H. Longdon, Bridgeport, Conn. 
goods. i 
New York Condensed Milk Co., 71 Hudson Street, 
New York City. Condensed products. 
Oneida Community, Kenwood, N.Y. Traps. 
Metz & Schloerb, Oshkosh, Wis. Moccasins, hunting 
shoes, etc. ’ 
Novelty Cutlery Co., Canton, O. Pocket cutlery, ink 
erasers, etc. ; } 
M. A. Shipley, 432 Market St., Philadelphia, Pay 
Fishing, tackle. : ' 
Wiilis Arms & Cycle Co., Kansas City, Mo. Bicycles, 
athletic and sportsmen’s goods. 
Sportmen’s 

Kalispell, Montana, 2, 11, ’99. 
Since the organization of the Flathead 
county branch of the League one man has 
been arrested, charged with violating the 
game laws. The charge was selling veni- 
son. He pleaded guilty and was fined 25 
dollars. This is the first arrest in 2 years, 
although the law has been openly and 
flagrantly violated. We are extending our 
membership into all parts of the county 
(which is a large one, 100 miles North and 
South, and 200 miles East and West), and 
our people report a very noticeable falling 
off in violations of the game laws. We 
have the active and effective co-operation 
of the United States Forestry Commission- 
ers and their rangers. 
The other day Mr. A. McArthur, a mem- 
ber of the League, and I, personally noti- 
fied all the butchers in town that after next 
Monday the League would vigorously 
prosecute all persons offering trout for sale. 
Without exception, they promised here- 
after to refuse to buy or sell trout, applaud- 
ed the objects and purposes of the League 
and some of. them have applied for mem- 
bership. Our reason for fixing a definite 
time, after which we would commence 
prosecutions, is that the enforcement of 
the law has been so lax in the past we did 
not feel warranted in jumping on butchers 
and others without due warning. | 
Indians are constantly catching fish 
through the ice, and exposing them for 
sale in this place. After next Monday we 
will endeavor to put a stop to it. But the 
catching and selling of fish is the least 
damage they do. They are on the hunt, 
regardless of season, and legal limitations 
on the number of deer, elk, caribou and 
moose permitted to be killed in a single 
open season. 
It is sad the way deer have been killed 
by Indians in this country. Packload after 
packload has been carried to the reserva- 
tion every fall, after the snow has fallen 
to a depth sufficient to enable poor Lo 
to hunt to advantage. This can be attested 
by reliable people in every part of the 
county. 
Five years ago, as county attorney of 
this county( an office I then held), I sent an 
officer up to the head waters of South Fork 
139 
of Flathead river to investigate the alleged 
destruction of a large number of elk by 
Kootenai and Flathead Indians. The of- 
ficer was directed to go to a point about 
75 miles South of Coram, on the line of the 
Great Northern Railroad. This point is 
the crest of the Rocky mountains. Within 
a small radius rise the South Fork and 
Big Fork of Flathead Swan river, Big 
Blackfoot, Dearborn, and Clearwater. The 
3 first named rivers flow westward into 
the Pacific; the Big Blackfoot and Clear- 
water find their way into Lake Pond 
O’Rielle, and eventually into the Pacific, 
the Dearborn flows into the Missouri. 
Where these rivers head is a sportsman’s 
paradise. The elk, the deer, white tail and 
black tail, the caribou and moose, and the 
blue grouse are all to be found here, shel- 
tered by magnificent fir and tamarac trees, 
and sustained by the mosses of coniferous 
trees and the grasses of countless meadows 
and swamps. Into this section I sent a 
peace officer in 1894. He made his way 
on snowshoes, and on arriving he found 
piles of elk hair from one to 3 feet high, 
covering areas from 10 to 20 feet square. 
This hair had been scraped off by squaws 
in tanning. He found along the trail over 
which the Indians had made their way out 
of the mountains, 60 sets of magnificent 
elk antlers. The depth of snow had com- 
pelled the Indians to abandon these heads, 
but before doing so they had taken a 
hatchet,and broken 2 or 3 prongs off each 
set so as to spoil them should they be 
found by a white man. We had the satis- 
faction eventually, of gathering these noble 
red men in, and found in their possession 
30 antlered heads beside a large quantity 
of meat and a number of hides. They were 
indicted and tried. Most of them were con- 
victed, but the maudlin jurymen (ex-squaw 
men no doubt), fixed the penalty at the 
minimum, thus virtually destroying the 
moral effect of the convictions. Under 
our law, as it stood then, we had no right 
to confiscate the heads or meat of the ani- 
mals captured (see paragraph 2 and 7 of 
enclosed letter), so the Indians sold the 
heads at prices ranging from 15 to 30 
dollars apiece; thus by an an anomaly of 
the law the cold fact of their imprisonment 
was brightened by the reflection that their 
criminal act was not in vain, that they had 
money in their blankets and the State was 
furnishing them food and warmth during 
the cold winter months. 
My experience with Indians has satis- 
fied me that a jailsentence, especially dur- 
ing the winter months, is just “duck soup” 
for the average blanketed hobo. — 
Unless the federal government takes hold 
of the question and solves it properly, our 
red friends will always be an unmitigated 
pest wherever large game exists. : 
