3 68 



RECREATION 



July, ii 207 



12 389 



13 U2 



14 2 39 



Trout and Bullhead, 1,685 



P. G. Lawrence, 

 J. Grolo, 

 Christ. Regan, 

 John Carey, 

 July 9, 1905. 

 Address, Iron Mt., Mich., 



126 West Hight Street. 



Having fished in these waters for the last 

 four years, I want to say that my acquaint- 

 ance with Dr. McPherson shows me that he 

 is too much of a sportsman to wish to beat 

 such a slaughter. The doctor has camped at 

 this place for years. He is a disciple of Wells, 

 fishes with a single fly on a No. 10 sproat 

 hook. I met him this year just as he was 

 pitching his camp. His friend, Mr. Rose, an- 

 other ardent sportsman, was with him. They 

 showed me a Japanese fly wound on a No. 16 

 hook which they intended to try this season. 

 That does not look like a fish-hog. This no- 

 tice is a libel on Dr. McPherson' s character, 

 a reputable physician of Chicago. It would be 

 well for the game warden at Iron Mountain 

 to look after his fellow-townsmen who have 

 inscribed their names so conspicuously that 

 all passers-by may read, and the world at 

 large may know of their proclivities. How 

 long will a stream stand many such strains ! 

 This same party took home 800 trout pickled, 

 and informed the train hands that "they had 

 them in the leg." Questions : 1. Did they 

 catch them all with hook and line? Were they 

 all full length? Michigan has good laws, but 

 they evidently do not protect the trout. 

 Samuel W. French, M. D., 

 Milwaukee, Wis. 



IN THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS. 



Editor Recreation : 



In the remote upper ranges of these moun- 

 tains that divide North Carolina and Tennes- 

 see, a few of the old Creeks and Cherokees 

 still linger amid their ancestral wilds. Nat- 

 urally they hunt, trap and fish a good deal. 

 Beeswax, wild honey, ginseng, or "sang," also 

 form side issues in their wild wood rovings. 



Around the edges of the "Dismal," as it 

 was locally called, a terribly rough, * semi- 

 swampy wilderness, somewhere in the lap of 

 those remote Appalachians, they would trap 

 for otter, mink, musk rat, and even beaver, 

 long supposed to be extinct in all these East- 

 ern regions. 



I never saw any fresh beaver hides in their 

 hands, but was offered a chance to be piloted 

 to an old beaver dam somewhere in the Nan- 

 tahalas, if I rightly remember. This was in 

 ninety-four-five of the last century, while I 

 was on a hunting trip near the headwaters of 

 Tellico. on the line dividing North Carolina 

 from Tennessee, , 



"Four Wheels," one "bush' corn," was, if I 

 recall aright, the price to be paid to the half- 

 breed who was my especial "Barkis" in the 

 wilds of at that time. They were not wagon 

 wheels he wanted, but silver dollars ; nor was 

 the corn to be delivered to him in a dry state ; 

 but the distilled essence thereof, to the meas- 

 urement of one gallon in a sound, though un- 

 licensed and unstamped jug, well and truly 

 unwatered by the crossing of too many moun- 

 tain streams under the light of the moon. 



These Indians were great in home-made 

 contrivances. Aside from hunting with dog, 

 torch and gun, their ingenuity in apparently 

 making something out of nothing was scarce- 

 ly less wonderful than effectual, to my civ- 

 ilization-tutored eyes. 



Only once did I see one of them fairly 

 started out of his aboriginal calm. It was in 

 the time of the old-style Waterbury watch, 

 with a mainspring several yards long. In 

 course of some local bartering with the ubi- 

 quitous paleface, an old fellow had become 

 . the owner of one which failed to "talk time" 

 properly, through being wound up too tightly. 



Seating himself by the roadside, he shook 

 the watch, grunted, shook with increasing 

 vigor, holding it meanwhile, by the chain 

 only, until something parted. Down went the 

 watch, on a stray pebble, the case fell apart 

 and out sprang the uncoiling mainspring, 

 with a rattle and force that was entirely too 

 suggestive of snakes in dog days. He leaped 

 backward, his heels striking the log from 

 which he had risen, and disappeared among 

 some woods and rubbish on the other side. 



The uncoiled spring fell clattering across 

 the log, giving him the impression, doubtless, 

 of being bitten by an unknown monster, 

 which rattled again as he scrambled out from 

 under it, uttering a succession of gasps, 

 grunts and other signs of terror verging on 

 real hysteria. 



But he had the remedy. His hand shook 

 as he held a pint flask to his mouth, but grew 

 steadier when he had drained the contents. 

 Then he grinned, increasingly, as he ascer- 

 tained that he was not bitten ; kicked the 

 "talk-time snake-box" from his path, and a 

 little later was trying to have his flask refilled 

 at a local fruit distillery, by trading the re- 

 mains of the Waterbury to the man who ran 

 the still. 



In those years, old-timers among the moun- 

 taineers of Swain and Cherokee counties in 

 North Carolina, adjoining Polk and Monroe 

 counties in Tennessee, said that Indian hunt- 

 ers about Cheeowah and the lower Bald range 

 used to bring in occasional beaver pelts, lorn; 

 after living dam builders had vanished from 

 the white man's ken. But to outside inquiry 

 the usual reply was apt to be : "White father 

 take land; Injun hide beaver." 



Considering the general grab-all policy fol- 

 lowed in the days of the "Intrusion" (never 

 was promiscuous white squatting on Tndian 

 land more accurately placarded), T do not 



