July 13, 1882.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



46B 



CAMP FIRE IN THE GREAT SWAMP. 



BY A. MULE. — PAHT I. 



*\\7"E iM,t arranged everything for a camp hunt of a week 



T T in our neighborhood, unci only awaited the coming of 



the first frost, and the "dark of the moou" to start. Betweeu 



the lit Of November and the 15th of December is our golden 



•: Swamp, and we rarely fail to take advantage 



I rosty nights, clear fresh days and lovely dry 



weather to enjoy the sport and social re-union of a camp 



hunt. 



The preparations in our case are simple enough, and yet 

 thoroughly comfortable, in fact during such weather all 

 one can use in camp is a blanket and plenty of food. Tents 

 are useless — for a week one can manage with a flannel shirt 

 —and so 1 feel fully equipped for a short camp when 1 pack 

 some mackinaw blankets, a lot of store grub, such us coffee, 

 milk, sugar, etc-., on a patient looking Balaam, ail surmounted, 

 of course, by the inevitable nigger and his axe. 



The wished for morning came and the welcome sounds of 

 old Shelb. 's horn came up faint, yet clear, through the blue 

 dawn, its three long drawn notes giving the expected signal 

 for the rendezvous; In the woods here the horn is a neces- 

 sity. By an agreed code of signals an entire neighborhood is 

 put into" communication, and for miles around we know 

 •'what is up." 



By an early start we got into camp some fifteen miles back 

 in the canebrake at nooo, and spent the rest of the daym 

 preparation and looking about. We live well in camp, for 

 what is the use of making a trip of pleasure rougher than 

 necessary? Only a cockney can eDJoy the dirt and priva- 



1 with 





have everything to eat we can buy and transport, plenty ot 

 good cooks ami keep them busy. "Whisky we look on as a 

 good thing, but it does not agree with the Swamp, and those 

 who are healthiest there use least of it. The less there is in 

 any camp the better for the camp. 



That camp is a sight for an artist to study. The many 

 gay colored blankets scattered about, the animals tied to 

 great vines and half hidden in the switch cane, the moving 

 figures and wreathing smoke of the camp fires are relieved 

 against the almost cavernous shadows of the giant woods 

 with their dusky wealth of purple, and brown, and gray, 

 the clear greenish tint of the overarched lake, and occasion- 

 ally a dazzling plat of sunshine thrown down through a rift 

 like a golden shield upon the black soil, 



Other things are there to make out a camp, but wo tare 

 not to detail them. There are few guns, as the pistol is used 

 for bear, and many dogs for the same purpose. The men 

 must introduce themselves if they choose, or relate their own 

 adventures. Suffice it to say, from the big, hearty, old 

 Doctor to the cook everybody has to keep in good humor. 

 No quarrels hen.-, but courtesy* and true kindness among all. 

 One night we had gathered about the tire and sat there 

 enjoying the best part of any camp— the flow of anecdote 

 and "the sparkle of humor that is so charming when fresh 

 from the waggish lips and so stale when put on paper. 



'Say. Doctor, what became of your visitor from up 

 country?" 



"Why. he went home. The fact is some of the boys got 

 hold of "him coming down on the boat and stuffed him full 

 of tales about the' wild beasts here until he was afraid to 

 walk out in mj r yard at night. I tried to soothe him down, 

 but unfortunately he got into my study one day and there 

 he Haw not, only the bottled specimens of prize snakes, and 

 the staffed wildcats and painters, but a beautiful collection 

 of anatomical curiosities f have. The cats and snakes seared 

 him, but the other varmints looked so horrible that he had a 

 chill and left before 1 got home." 



"Those Northern people must have a queer idea of this 

 country. They make their will-! I believe when they start 

 South, and then load down with all the improved weapons 

 they can carry. I had a cousin who came down here in 18(i(3 

 looking out for a speculation in bottom lands. He was an 

 educated gentleman from Massachusetts, and should have 

 known more than he did. He was timid to excess about the 

 people; H e beasts, and getting lost in the swamps, although 

 Ik- v ■Idler in the war. He carried a great, heavy 



double-barreled Express rifle, and would not move an inch 

 without it." 



"He was the fellow, Tom, that old Shuck Blewett 

 swindled so badly on the land, wasn't he?" 



"The very man. He went up to look at some land of 

 Blewett's. and f cautioned him to buy laud above overflow, 

 and pointed out the water mark on the trees so plain a fool 

 couldn't miss. But I am blessed if old Shuck didn't per- 

 suade him it vtasfog marie, where the fog settled, and sold 

 him land twenty feet under water every spring." 

 "What did you say when he told you?" 

 "Oli, 1 congratulated him on having bought the best 

 stock farm in the country. 'Stock farm! what do you 

 iiii'an!' said he. 'Why,' I said, 'if you will get some 

 sea cows a ud hydraulic rams your fortune is made! lie 

 was very anxious to go hunting, so one day, as I was very 

 busy. I put him and his big rifle on a horse and told Jerry to 

 take him down to Shelb., there, for a hunt. The old man 

 can best tell what happened." 



Shelb. was, as usual, smoking a pipe and listening pa- 

 ti:nt:r Being urged however lie briefly gave the t or*V iies 

 of the Yankee*. 



"Well," said he. slowly, "didn't much happen, but I don't 

 doubt the gentleman thought a great, deal did happen, and 

 most of it to him, lie had it fixed in his head that a black 

 bear was one of the most savage beasts in the world, but he 

 fell .pretty sandy about the gizzard mi of the woods, and 

 wanted to kill a bea i 



"Tom's nigger, Jerry, had sorter taken the wire edge off 

 of him coming down. Some years ago Jerry got iutoa dispute 

 with a Steam gin and came as near being mixed up for hash 

 as a nigger can lie to live. So, to be sociable. Mr. Green 

 a aked Jerry 'what had scarred him up so fearfully?' Aud 

 the CUSBed nigger had told him that 'Mars Tom and Misscr 



McP . they* done make him go in a hollow log after a bar, 



and. the bar done nigh kill him, for true'.' W ith such talcs 

 as this, you can imagine how he felt when he. got to my 

 house. 



"Early next morning we started. As we rode along, I ex- 

 plained "to him that I would put him where he, would be 

 certain bo get a shot, That was in the bed of a guhy about 

 six feet deep, with the cane meeting over the top and making 

 a lovely stand, for 1 could lay a yard-stick down in there 

 and run a bear right over it every time! 



"As we went along further into the woods I noticed he 

 was getting soberer and soberer. Finally he pulled up his 

 boss with a jerk and said, 'Look here, "I'm going back!' 



'Why,' I said; 'what for?' 'Well,' he said, I'm not agoing 

 down into any such hole as that after bear. My gun might, 

 snap, or something, and then I never could get out of that 

 d — d gullev. I'm going back. ' 



"Well. 1 laughed, but finally I explained to him that I 

 meant to run the bear across "the ravine and not down its 

 length. Anyhow, he was suspicious, and wouldn't go until 

 I promised him a stand under a tree. 



"The doa's had scattered all about in the H oods, and every- 

 thing was very quiet, wnen a hound pup i had just got 

 opened on a cricket's trail out in the bushes, with a dreadful 

 drawn out note, as long as a grape-vine. 



"Mr. Green stopped right away. 'Do you bear that !' says 

 he. 



" 'No,' says 1, listening all I could; 'what is it'/' 



" 'It must" be a cougar.' said he. 



" "Let's kilLhiui,' I says; 'what does lie look like'?* 



"Hush,' says he, 'there it is again!' Oo-oo-.ao-oo-oo went 

 the pup. 



"'Now you hear it, don't you';' says he. with his eyes 

 popped out. 



" 'No,' says I, 'I can't hear anything for the infernal 

 pup.' 



" 'Is that a dawg making that long drawn cry?' said he, 

 riding ahead. And I uever dared to ask him what a cougar 

 was, on Tom S — s account. 



"I put him on a stand by a tree, where the limb was at least 

 fifteen feet from the ground, for I suspieioned he would 

 want to climb a tree after a while. Well, 1 had got off 

 nearly a hundred yards, when he called me back. 



"'See here, Mr. McP.,' says he, 'do these bears here 

 go in flocks?' 



' 'You mean do they kill sheep?' 



" 'No, sir. 1 mean "do they go together in numbers?' 



"'Why,' said I, 't've never saw more than three or 

 four together at once.' 



" Well,' said he, 'just look at the multitude of tracks 

 here. It is something frightful!' 



"And sure enough there was a lot of tracks in a muddy 

 place there. 



"'Well,' said I, 'a man scared at tracks can't be ex- 

 pected to do much killing of a bear.' However, I left him 

 on the stand, and presently run a big lis.- right over him, 

 Bang, bang, went his gun, and I rode full run to see what 

 he had got. By George, he had fired both barrels accident- 

 ally, in his nervousness, while trying to get up the tree, and 

 there he was reared up agin his tree and still going through 

 climbin' motions!" 



' 'Lucky f oi him he didn't, get hold of a bear I tackled 

 once," said Jack F . "I was walking around a corn- 

 field one day just in the edge of the woods, when I heard a 

 devil of a racket in the corn, and there came a fat old he, 

 swaggering along like a lord, with a big watermelon under 

 each arm, and one balanced on his head. I laughed aud 

 said to myself I would pay the old thief. So I hid behind a 

 tree, and just as he came by, I stepped out and said very 

 politely, 'Good morning, sir!' By gad, the old cuss never 

 said a word, but he whaled away at me with one of the 

 melons, and only by God's grace he missed, my head would 

 have been smashed. I turned and ran all I knew how, but 

 he chased me for a hundred yards, pelting me with both the 

 other melons!" 



"That is almost as good as my crows," said Tom S . 



"The crows were pulling up my corn at a great rate, when 

 some genius told me to soak corn in whisky and scatter it 

 where they could get it and they would go away. By Jove, 

 When I went to see after it I found one old black- visaged 

 scoundrel had seized all the whisky corn, laid two stakes 

 across the row for a bar, and was peddling it out to t he others 

 at one whisky grain for two unsoaked!" 



"Well, gentlemen, we all need rest after that, so let's to 

 bed." 



"D1DYMUS" CRITICISES WASHINGTON. 



THOUGH the FohbSX axd Sthf.aw is essentially a sport- 

 ing publication, a slight mixture of outside stuff would 

 do your readers good, if they only knew it, but for rear they 

 might grumble I'll make them think it's a sporting article by 

 inserting right here something about "choke bores," "sure 

 death on fleas," "speckled beauties," vulgarly called trout, and 

 a few other sporting points, and then they'll enjoy it. I E I were 

 a "literary cuss" ot the Ward persuasion I might tell your 

 readers that Washington is the home of the grate American 

 iggle, but I'm not, so I'll seriously say that Washington is, 

 pre-eminently, a political city. The average citizen talks of 

 nothing butpolitiesaU day, andindulgesinpolitical dreams by 

 night; and when anything relating to the matter of adding to 

 the city's attractions is broached it "falls on stony ground." 

 Its attractions are many. The streets are very broad, and it 

 has miles upon miles of beautiful concrete pavement, not 

 made on the New York job principle, but laid down prop- 

 erly, so that driving around the city is really a delight, and 

 horses are never seen lying 'round in promiscuous looseness, 

 as they often are in front of the "Brunswick" and the Worth 

 monument in New York. 



Small parks arc in profusion, and in front of nearly every 

 house is a little park or terrace. (The principal game is the 

 English sparrow, but they are not. allowed to be shot, as they 

 will some day be needed as a substitute for pigeons at shoot- 

 ing matches'). 



' There, arc trees in abundance all over the city, and at a sur- 

 face glance they seem lo'clothe the city in a garb of beauty, 

 but there is probably no city in these United States where 

 such utter ignorance is shown in the planting of trees, If 

 the authorities had their wits about them they would take a 

 lesson from their predecessors who planted the trees around 

 the White House and the capitol. There is scarcely an old tree 

 left around the capitol, and seam ly one of those remaining 

 in the White House grounds is fit to be there. No observer 

 of trees c 01 fail to know that the silver maple is the poorest 

 of all our shade trees, yet they are planting them by the 

 thou -and, to :i down about the time a sugar or "rock 



naapk would be in its full perfection. The silver maple 

 grows rapidly, but has nothing else to recommend it. The 

 folia :. ••■■ is thin and pale, the limbs are long, slender and 

 brittle, and liable to be split or broken off by every high 

 wind, while the "Norway sugar or rook maple have dense, 

 dark-green foliage, and are strong and lasting as well as 

 beautiful. There are doubtless other trees that would suit 

 the soil and climate, but this is not a dendrologieal lecture. 

 People frequently remark, "What a delightful city Wash- 

 ington would be were it not for the nuisances," hi truth it 

 .itful city for Ft lame, and would be more 



moderation of its true interests could be w devil 

 into the brains of its rulers, and the editors could be induced 

 to admit a few sharp criticisms into their columns; but as 



matters now stand it is simply a half-civilized Garden of 

 Eden. Occasional visitors from the Eastern cities, whose re- 

 fined tastes and sensitive feelings are ruffled by the vulgar 

 annoyances they meet with, try the effect of protests through 

 the press, but the press is as stupid as the city rulers, and 

 can't see why people should want to find fault with anything 

 — except the" opposite side in politics— and down it goes into 

 the waste basket. 



Ahuge chunk of our national wisdom ouce tookt'ai. form: 

 They set apart 10,000 annual dollars to feed the negroes, 

 which in one light looks very well, for negroes must eat; but, 

 unfortunately, as long as they are fed they will not work, 

 and a city where it's all eat and no work, is equal, in their 

 eves, to 'the New Jerusalem. So the lazy rascals flock in 

 from all parts of the South to feed at the public crib, and 

 there are now in Washington more than 50,000 of the black 

 persuasion, and the cry is still they come. 



If they would work, or if every mother's son of them did 

 not think it his especial duty to prove his equality as a man 

 and a brother by his impudence and general cussedness, they 

 might be tolerated; but as it is, they are "tolerable and not 

 to be endured." The paramount luxury of the negro is 

 whistling, and of the 50,000 aforesaid, something over 20,- 

 000 are always whistling, except when eating. _ Science has 

 demonstrated that every negro has a lung capacity equal to 

 that of two bull elephants, and as two-thirds of the juvenile 

 black male population are of the newsboy tribe, and are 

 allowed to congregate on the comers of the streets like crows 

 in a cornfield, and make as much noise, you may imagine 

 how charming it is to the contemplative mind. It is useless 

 to appeal to the police, for, like the editors, they don't con- 

 sider that making the city attractive is in their line of busi- 

 ness. (I introduce the crow because the crow is a game bird; 

 in fact, too gamy for the common taste, and is never eaten 

 except by professional politicians.) 



I also take the liberty of growling at the street car nuis- 

 ance, and will state that four-fifths of the passengers in the 

 street cars sit with their legs crossed — like Trumbull's 

 "signers of the declaration" in the rotunda — and still con- 

 sider themselves gentlemen. 



I would likewise state that a multitude of dogs may sit 

 under your window, and bark at the moon all night (if there's 

 any moon to bark at), and no law will interfere with their 

 amusement. 



Many other minor items might be added to this tirade, but 

 they're" a sensitive people, and I'll spare their feelings. 



Wild turkeys tire sometimes seen in the streets of Wash- 

 ington, but if a man wants to shoot wild ducks he must go 

 down the broad Potomac; but the ducks are expensive. 

 Mine cost me over $40. He was very small at that. 1 

 wounded another, but I don't think he cost me over §10. I 

 might have killed more, but at that rate I was afraid I'd 

 have to sell somebody's house to pay the bill, so I let them 

 live, and they are now enjoying the fruits of my mercy by 

 raising interesting lots of little ducks away up in the north- 

 ern swamps. There! It's just as I expected— this turned 

 out to be a sporting article after all. 



JltW" Washington papers please copy. Dmraus. 



Washington, D. C, June 1, 1882. 



DOCTOR BUG. 



BY LEW VANDERPOEL. 



EPTEMBER was fast dwindling into October and the 

 early frosts were just yellowing the leaves. Old Mount 

 Mansfield was never lovelier. Crag, cliff and foliage united 

 into one picturesque whole. The lesser Green Mountains 

 spread far away to the north and south, a continuation of 

 irregular summits. The sun was just setting as I climbed 

 part way down the east side one ever memorable day, and 

 stopped at Jerry Corbin's for my supper. Jerry was a great 

 good-natured giant who kept, a little "wayside inn" up in 

 the mountains for the accommodation of itinerant sports- 

 men. 



At the time I mention three other sportsmen were sojourn- 

 ing at Corbin's with me. One of these, universally dubbed 

 "Rattlepate" because of his proclivities to yarning', was the 

 most unmitigated nuisance it was ever my misfortune to 

 meet. He was deliberate and corpulent enough to prove the 

 axiom that large bodies move slowly. His "ancient" ap- 

 pearance easily led one into the mistake that he was grand- 

 father to the patriarch Abraham. According to his pro- 

 fessed belief he was a mightier Nimrod than Ninrrod him- 

 self, and there was nothing in till creation that he didn't 

 know. Prevalent opinion was that he was only less tricky 

 than a circus-mule, and that he had never been known to 

 tell the ttuth. Anyhow, he was disliked "by acclamation." 

 The second boarder was a Boston dry-goods drummer, 

 with no very marked characteristics, intellectually or other- 

 wise. The third was the especial object and subject of this 

 sketch. Who he was or whence he came none of us ever 

 knew, but a sweeter character than his it would be im- 

 possible U) conceive. He was kind, gentle and reproachless 

 to all, seeming to live entirely for his fellow men with no 

 thought of self. Still lie was thoroughly. a mystery; rn- 

 tirely beyond ordinary penetration. Nobody ever attempted 

 to question hirn; his manner prevented that. He did not 

 repulse, however: he only repelled; that gently, too. On 

 Jerry's old battered "register" he simply wrote in clear, 

 handsome characters, "Doctor Bug, U. S. A." — not the 

 Ifwfjliest name in the w.orld, and certainly not a very definite 

 address. 



Hie drummer, Joe Biglow, and I were strangers before 

 We met .at Corbin's; it is needless to say as much of the 

 Doctor. The Rattlepate was an annual infliction at Mount 

 Mansfield, and I had already met him several times before — 

 to my sorrow. Our party was there with one common 

 intent, and our meeting and subsequent relations on this 

 basis were cordial. Game abounded in plentiful variety, 

 and w> would be apparently happy but for the irrepressible 

 Rattlepate; his terrible tongue was worse than a two-edged 

 sword. His daily achievements were far in advance of 

 those of the rest, of his party, and his prolonged recitals of 

 the same weie obnoxious even to painfullness. The only 

 way to silence him was to leave him, and even then lie 

 would talk on unmoved as long as Ids last victim was within 

 reach of his voice. The Doctor never seemed to find him 

 tiresome, but would listen to his prate with perfect patience, 

 The wholesale boring of his associates was Rattlepate's man- 

 ifest mission on earth, and with one sad exception this was 

 all he ever accomplished. 



This was the exception. He returned to Oorbln'-s 

 hind me. the night which opens my tale, more than ordin- 

 arily moved. It really seemed as if something out of the 

 general fun of his adventures had happened. It was quite a 

 cool day, yet he was dripping with perspiration, 

 as he could wash down a portion of his excitement with a 



S 1 



