SMOKE FROM OUR CAMP FIRE. 



G. O. S. 



The 22d monthly dinner of the Camp 

 Fire Club was another memorable one. 

 It was given at the rooms of the Uptown 

 Merchants' Association, 5th Avenue and 

 19th Street, and among the invited guests 

 was George Harbo, who, with a compan- 

 ion, crossed the Atlantic ocean in a row 

 boat. Harbo is a brawny, sturdy, Nor- 

 wegian sailor, and has a frank, manly way 

 about him that is exceedingly pleasant. 

 He has a fair command of English and told 

 us in a straightforward, simple manner the 

 chief incidents of his trip, some of which 

 were really thrilling. I have no room here 

 to enumerate them, but if any reader of 

 Recreation ever has a chance to hear 

 Harbo tell his story, he will agree with me 

 that it is one of the most novel bits of nar- 

 rative he has ever listened to. 



Ernest Seton Thompson made some 

 telling arguments in behalf of the propo- 

 sition to extend the Yellowstone National 

 Park. He spent several weeks in Jack- 

 son's Hole and in the Teton Range, last 

 summer, and studied carefully the condi- 

 tions existing there. He discussed with 

 nearly all the inhabitants of Jackson's Hole 

 the question of park extension, and said 

 that while they favored taking in the Teton 

 timber reserve, they were unanimously op- 

 posed to extending the line so as to include 

 their homes. Mr. Thompson detailed sev- 

 eral instances of large bands of elk having 

 wintered in the Hole, and having hung 

 around the ranchers' hay stacks, longing 

 for a chance to get at them, until many of 

 the animals starved to death. These ranch- 

 men claim that while the elk come into 

 their neighborhood, it is not absolutely 

 necessary they should do so, and that most 

 of them can winter within the present lines 

 of the timber reserve. These people insist 

 that if allowed to retain their homes, they 

 will carefully protect the elk that come 

 among them in future, as they have in the 

 past. 



Mr. Thompson gave some pertinent de- 

 tails of the arrest of a band of Bannock 

 Indians who invaded the Snake river coun- 

 try in the summer of '96 and killed some 

 300 elk. The game warden of that district 

 called out a posse of citizens, numbering 

 about 25. These men went to the Indian 

 camp, arrested 75 of the bandits and took 

 them to the county seat. On the way and 

 while passing through a bit of timber, 

 some 2 days' march from the scene of 

 action, several of the Indians made a break 

 to escape and a few of them were killed. 



The ranchmen claim that they were shoot- 

 ing to kill the horses, in order that they 

 might recapture the Indians. Mr. Thomp- 

 son asked them if they were certain they 

 had killed the Indians. The settlers said 

 no; that they didn't look through the 

 woods after the shooting was over to see 

 what had happened; that their only object 

 was to take their prisoners into court and 

 prosecute them, and that they took into 

 court all that was left after the shooting 

 was over. 



The Jackson's Hole people insist that 

 hundreds of elk and deer are killed every 

 year by mountain lions, and that a large 

 bounty should be offered for the scalps of 

 these brutes. Mr. Thompson asked the 

 ranchmen how many lions they thought 

 that there were in that region. Opinions 

 differed widely, but all agreed there were 

 several hundred. He then asked these 

 men how many had been killed within the 

 last year and the consensus of opinion was 

 that at least 50 had been taken care of. 

 Mr. Thompson said he didn't believe this 

 and asked each man how many he had 

 killed, individually. One said 6. 



" Where are they? " Mr. Thompson 

 asked. 



" Out here in the shed." 



" Let's go and see them." 



The 2 men went out and sure enough 

 there were 6 lion skins hanging from the 

 rafters. 



Another man was asked how many he 

 had killed, and he said 7. 



"Where are they?" Mr. Thompson 

 asked. 



" Out here in the stable," said the ranch- 

 man. 



" Let's see them." 



They went out and there hung the skins. 

 all right. Then Mr. Thompson said that 

 by allowing each of the settlers in the Hole 

 to have made similar scores, he could easily 

 believe that 50 or more lions had been 

 killed within the year. Two of the ranch- 

 men told of having trailed one lion in the 

 snow several miles, to where it entered a 

 deer yard in the deep snow, and high up 

 in the mountains. Here they found the 

 carcasses of 12 deer, yet there was but one 

 lion track in the country. They said this 

 was only an instance of the havoc created 

 by these varmints; that they had seen many 

 places where the brutes had killed deer 

 and elk. apparently out of pure cussedness. 



Mr. Thompson says all of the settlers in 

 Jackson's Hole are extremely anxious that 



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