A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND 

 BY S. B. HACKLEY. 



To the white man of America who feels 

 his blood leap in his veins when his foot 

 crosses the rim of the woods, and the blue 

 sky, save the patches that gleam through the 

 leaves above him, is lost to him ; who hears 

 music in the bay of his hound and in his 

 rifle's crack — I, Io of the Umpquas, long 

 gone to the land of the spirits, speak. 



Listen to me, O Pale-face brother — I am 

 come to tell of a land of good hunting! 

 Fifty years it has been since I went into 

 the ground, and my covering for the night 

 and for the day became the canoe, the sand 

 and the stones, which those who in their 

 turn have blown out their breaths and 

 followed me, laid over me. Since that time, 

 O white friend, the Great Father at Wash- 

 ington has called my brethren with their 

 squaws and pappooses, to his reservations, 

 and no redskin remains on the Oregon coast 

 save she whose years are numbered as the 

 leaves of the maple — the widowed squaw bent 

 over the embers in her hovel by the sea, 

 with no companions save her dog-pack and 

 her pipe to listen to her sighs, like the sighs 

 of the east wind. 



When I lived and hunted, the foot-prints 

 of my bronze-skinned brothers were as thick 

 as deer-tracks, in this country of mighty for- 

 ests and wonderful valleys. Scrape in the 

 sand about old Indian camping-places, and 

 you will resurrect our household utensils and 

 outdoor implements in numbers as great as 

 the salmon that come up the rivers in spawn- 

 ing time. 



Go to the deserted huts in the wilderness, 

 long since given up to the denizens of the 

 woods, and look on the threescore feet high 

 mounds of shells and earth about them — 

 mute and lofty witnesses to the numbers of 

 the former hunters in these forests. 



The wild geese that pass over my bones 

 have whispered to me that in many parts 

 of the States of this broad land not even a 

 blackened stump remains to tell of the for- 

 ests that are gone, and that in other places 

 where the mighty trees hold up their heads 

 the north wind is bitter in the hunting sea- 

 son, and the hunter can not carry his^ rifle 

 for the freezing of his fingers. To him I, 

 Io the Indian, send greeting, and commend 

 him to the forests of the land that is lapped 

 by the Pacific Sea! 



Here, O white brother, the snow melts as 

 it falls — the every-day rain is but a warm 

 mist, and the white man can be comfort- 

 able in his shirt sleeves in the sunshine in 

 the dead of winter. There are no warm 

 nights and no cold days, and the air is pleas- 

 ant and bracing through the twelve moons. 



Here is found a greater area of untouched 

 timber land than in any other state in the 

 Great Father's dominions. Here, owing to 

 the copious rains and the mild climate tem- 

 pered by the ocean's breath, every green 

 stalk reaches toward the stars. The ever- 

 green brake measures the height of a brave, 

 and the heads of the trees are three times a 

 hundred feet above the earth. Many hundred 

 years these monarchs of wood have stood in 

 their summer's splendor and their winter's 

 strength, unharmed by the winds, and since 

 there is no day, even in the eighth moon, 

 when these forests are not wet with dew and 

 fogs, — unscathed by fire. And here in these 

 forests of spruces, hemlocks, firs, oaks, cher- 

 rys, tamaracks, maples, junipers, cedars, pines 

 — forests in many places so dense that the 

 gloom of day is like the darkness of night — 

 the wild things find hiding-places and live 

 in numbers so great that, in the white man's 

 language, the state is a '"sportsman's para- 

 dise." 



There are a few of the antlered elk in the 

 state, but the rulers have forbidden the death 

 of one of these for half a score of years, that 

 they may increase and be many in the Ore- 

 gon country. 



Of the deer the hunter is permitted to kill 

 five in the autumn season. Then to the 

 chase, Pale Face — to the long run ! Take 

 your dogs and your companions and your 

 fire-stick, and go into the woods a few hun- 

 dred yards, and start the big buck, quench- 

 ing his thirst at the fresh-water lake ! 



Then away like the west wind — past the 

 miles of water-lily covered lakes, out on the 

 knolls — on — on — to the sands where the bark 

 of the dogs is drowned by the roar of the 

 breakers — on — on — till the panting antlered 

 one, seized with despair, runs into the surf 

 to meet the crack of the good rifle ! 



There is another beast in these woods (the 

 most cunning thing in the forest) — the wild 

 creature the Great Father at Washington 

 loves to hunt — the yellow mountain lion. The 

 tame sheep and the foolish cow, chewing 

 their cuds in tjieir pastures, die as fish before 



88 



