B02 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[July 24, 1884. 



iwtmnun f^otmgt 



MEMORIES OF SENACHWINE LAKE. 



BY T. S. YAN DYKE. 

 Second Paper. 



AROUND Senaehwine Lake I spent that fall nearly three 

 months in uninterrupted shooting, for in those days I 

 eared nothing for the difference hetween rain and shine. 

 Many a day I threaded the driftwood, snags and elbows of 

 the slough below Senaehwine, where the wedge-shaped wake 

 of the muskrat or the dart of the pickerel rippled the dark 

 water before the boat, and ducks rose quacking or squealing 

 from every little cove or inlet or from behind lodged mosses 

 of driftwood. Yellow-legged snipe, both large "and small 

 varieties, trolled along the shores of open mud or stood bob- 

 bing and craning their long necks until I could almost reach 

 them with the oar; then rising, with clear and penetrating 

 cry and long legs dangling behind, they would wing their 

 way with a vast display of fuss and feathers some ten or 

 twenty yards further up stream, to repeat the same pro- 

 gramme in about half a minute. Upon the same open, 

 muddy shores the English snipe were about as abundant as 

 the others, for in the West they frequent this kind of ground 

 about as much as any kind. At almost any time I could see 

 two or three of these snipe and often more trotting along the 

 water's edge, probing the soft mud at every few steps with 

 long black bills, scarcely noticing the boat until it came 

 within a few feet, then with a sudden scape and erratic twist 

 one would twitch himself away, dart skyward, pitch to the 

 right, pitch to the left, deliver himself ofmany a scape, then 

 after a long detour make a sudden wheel and, like the thread 

 of a corkscrew, come down about fifty yards further up 

 stream. AVisps of small gray snipe, sandpapers, etc., often 

 whisked by with soft, insinuating whistle, and an occasional 

 flock of plover skimmed along the muddy bars. 



But at such times the gun was hardly ever raised from its 

 resting place in the boat. When I wanted snipe shooting I 

 had far better opportunities. There were still many warm 

 autumn days, when the ducks were lazy through the middle 

 of the day and flew but little until toward evening. On such 

 days 1 had such snipe shooting as I had never seen before and 

 have never seen since. I have seen snipe in greater abund- 

 ance, but for easy, tranquil sport, freed from the wear and 

 tear, from the work, mud and annoyances of ordinary snipe 

 shooting, without the tremenduous strain to which patience 

 is often subjected until broken on the wheel of waiting, I 

 have never seen anything that approached the shore shooting 

 along Senaehwine Lake in those days. Along its shores was 

 a boggy strip for from five to fifteen yards wide. For a 

 few feet along the water's edge this was soft open mud. 

 This soon merged into thin, short grass, which grew taller 

 and thicker, with the ground drier as the shore receded 

 from the water; the width and wetness of the two strips de- 

 pending upon the rate at which the water had fallen in the 

 two or three weeks preceding. On some days there would 

 be two or three English snipe to almost every yard of this 

 strip of shore, and when the wind blew up or down the lake, 

 grand was the sport that could be had with this wayward 

 little beauty. Though fat and untroubled by hunters, he 

 was still saucy and swift, and up wind would test severely 

 your quickness and 3 r our gun. But when you were walking 

 down wind along that strip, he pitched and tacked about on 

 your right or left or shot skyward over your head in raptur- 

 ous style. Rarely was there any need to fire at those that 

 might fall into the lake, for there were birds enough that 

 went by on the land side. 



Along the shore at the foot of this lake occurred that fall 

 a remarkable piece of "pot-shooting" that will give some 

 idea of the abundance of snipe. My friend, Henry Buggies, 

 of Henry, a capital duck shot and one of the best hunting 

 companions that ever lived, had long looked with pitying 

 eye upon my total depravity in shooting such small birds 

 as English snipe. 



But once, about the middle of the day, when ducks were 

 unusually slow in coming to our blind, and Ruggles was 

 tired of smoking and picking cold roast duck, and the flies 

 would not let him sleep, he actually condescended to shoot 

 a snipe, it being absolutely necessary to do something to kill 

 time. He left me, and was gone less than an hour. During 

 that time T heard him shoot twelve or thirteen times, cer- 

 tainly not over fourteen times at the outside, and all of these 

 shots came from the same place. He came back and tossed 

 a bunch of Enalish snipe at me and said; 



"Hanged if I didn't just sit down behind a bush on the 

 edge of the lake and pot 'em all in one spot, sometimes three 

 orl'our at a shot." To my certain knowledge he had not a 

 snipe when he left me and there was no one near from whom 

 he could have got them. I am almost afraid to tell the num- 

 ber of snipe in that bunch. There were exactly twenty- 

 seven. And recollect that they were all English snipe 

 and that Ruggles had nothing but coarse duck shot with 

 him. 



Though ducks in the West do not come to decoys in the 

 autumn as well as they do in spring, there are still many 

 days when they come quite well, especially wood ducks, teal 

 and bluebills. * Many a time during the middle of the day 

 we pulled the boat into a blind of reeds and willows, and 

 set out decoys in the open w r ater a few yards outside the 

 brush, and many a time did I have to drop the roasted snipe 

 or pumpkin pie and snatch up a gun as the air began to sing 

 beneath descending wings. And many a time, when yield- 

 ing to the soporific influence of a heavy lunch on a soft 

 Indian summer day, did I suddenly start from the land of 

 Nod just iu time to* hear my comrade's gun from the other 

 end of the boat, to see two or three ducks come whMing and 

 splashing below, while the rest of the flock were towering 

 nicely skyward just as I got hold of my gun. 



What camp-fires roared along the Illinois in those days! 

 It saddens me to think that such days may come no more 

 for me. Driftwood piled as high as we could throw it shot 

 a glare across the river until the dead eottouwoods upon the 

 other side looked like imploring ghosts with arms stretched 

 heavenward, and we could almost see the white collars on 

 the necks of the geese that passed high above us. Bunches 

 of mallards, wood ducks, sprigtail, etc., hung around the 

 fire, with every color glowing brightly as in the evening sun, 

 and naught was needed save a string of trout or a deer to 

 make the scene complete. Cold and all other jars that shiver 

 this mortal crockery were banished there, and all thought of 

 the whole outside world went whMing away into the vortex 

 of flame and sparks that streamed skyward through the tree- 

 tops. Little did I hear of the song or jest or the laughter 

 that almost woke the echoes from the eastern bluffs. For by 

 some strange principle of suggestion, some mysterious mental 



connection, the whole outer circle of darkness was to me a 

 picture gallery upon which I could lie and gaze by the hour. 

 The walls of that dark rotunda beyond the fire were for me 

 full hung with the brightest scenes of the new life I had en- 

 tered, and they drew with them by association all those that 

 I had passed through before. There again was the bright 

 sky swept by long strings of whizzing fife widening out and 

 streaming toward me in swift descent; and by its side was 

 the old dog rolling with happy gallop over the buckwheat 

 stubble, slackening into a catlike tread as he swings to lee- 

 ward of the clump of brush in the corner of the field, stiffen- 

 ing into rigid faith as he crawls under the fence and enters 

 the tangled woods beyond. There again was the stately 

 mallard or more gorgeous wood duck relaxing his hold on 

 air and falling a "whirl of brilliant colors, or the wary old 

 goose, with drooping neck and folded wing, coming to earth 

 with impetuous crash; and by their side the catbrier brake or 

 hemlock-clad slopes, where the wintergreen fills the air with 

 its fragrance, while the ruffed grouse shoots like a shaft of light 

 among the dark ranks of tree trunks. And bright among 

 them all were those autumn days, when the bloody sun 

 struggles down through smoky air, and the whistle of the 

 woodcock's wing in the sapling grove sends through the 

 heart a more tender thrill than ever. Succeeding years have 

 hung many a new picture in the. dark rotunda that sur- 

 rounds the camp-fire; but none of them in all the freshness 

 of youth shine with more brilliancy than still through the 

 mist of years shine those around the camp-fires on the Illi- 

 nois. 



Lulled to sleep by the too-whoo of the great owl, the scape 

 of traveling snipe, the frequent honk of passing geese, the 

 dank-a lank of brant, the quack of mallards in the lake 

 near by, or the grrroooo of the sandhill cranes traveling far 

 up in the dome of night, we got up before daybreak to get 

 upon our stands for the morning flight of ducks. 



Though the morning flight of ducks is often very heavy, 

 it generally lacks that tumultuous intensity of presence that 

 characterizes the evening flight. Beginning with the first 

 gray of morning, when a lonely mallard perhaps comes 

 winging his way slowly out of the circle of darkness around 

 you, crosses the open sky above in dim outline, doubles up at 

 the report of your gun and sinks at your feet with a sullen 

 whop, the flight increases with every new beam of light that 

 struggles through the misty morning. They fall no longer 

 from above, as in the evening, and stream in from every 

 other quarter of the horizon about as much as from the 

 north. There is less rush and bustle, but they move with 

 steadier march. They are not shot by you in volleys like 

 projectiles from some uncontrollable impulse, but they move 

 with more majestic sweep and more as if they had some 

 inkling of what they are about. At the first report of your 

 gun the air throbs beneath the beat of thousands of wings, 

 and a wild medley of energetic quacks, dolorous squeals, 

 melodious honkings and discordant cackling as the myriads 

 of ducks, geese and brant stUl roosting in the ponds rise in 

 a clamorous mob. Again, for a few moments the tyro may 

 lose his wits as the vast horde breaks into a hundred divi- 

 sions, each circling perhaps a dozen times through the light- 

 ening sky and streaming over his head without remembering 

 or caring that it was from that spot that the fire just spouted 

 skyward. As the fire again leaps upward the circle of sky 

 overhead is cleared for an instant as the ducks sheer and 

 climb the air out of danger's reach ; but in another moment 

 it is thronged again with rushing wings. | Beware, now, how 

 you waste your fire upon this flock of teal just emerging into 

 the gray, for you can hear the mallards' heavy wings, a hun- 

 dred strong, beating the dark air close behind them. Be- 

 ware how you waste your fire even upon the mallards, for 

 upon the right the deep-toned honk of the goose sounds most 

 thrillingly near. But, alas! how can the tyro reason calmly 

 when the hiss of a sailing flock of mallards is heard just be- 

 hind his head before his premises are thought of , and his con- 

 clusion is rudely hastened by a deep, dark line of bluebills 

 pouring out of the remnant of the night upon his left? 



This lasts, however, but a few minutes. As soon as dawn 

 has fairly begun the wildfowl travel wider and higher, you 

 must keep yourself well concealed and do your very best 

 shooting. For an hour or two, and often longer, the flight 

 may be strong and steady and then it will shade gradually 

 off until you may find yourself waiting fifteen minutes for a 

 shot. The evening flight rises by rapid steps to an over- 

 powering climax, while the morning flight tapers away into 

 all the flatness of the anti-climax. 



One scarcely needs to be told that neither the morning nor 

 evening flight is always during duck season such as I have 

 described it. There are days when ducks will not fly as they 

 will on other days, though they still throng both lake and 

 siough in myriads. At such times the flight of those that 

 do move is more over the face of the water than elsewhere, 

 and then I have had rare sport from a big barrel sunk almost 

 to the edge in the mud and water of Swan Lake, a little 

 below the foot of Senaehwine. Through a fringe of reeds 

 around the edge of that barrel I have watched great flocks 

 of mallards skim low along the water until the long green 

 necks glistened within ten yards of the barrel. Then as I 

 suddenly rose to my feet, what a glorious medley of flashing 

 bars on terrified wings, of shiny cinnamon breasts, white 

 banded tails, with curls of burnished green, red legs and 

 beaded eyes rose whirling and quacking upward. There, 

 too, I have watched the geese winding slowly down out of 

 the blue sky until near the center of the lake, then, with set 

 and silent wing and every honking throat hushed as if in 

 death, every neck and head immovable, drift softly along a 

 few feet above the water, until, as close as the corner of the 

 ceiling where I sit writing, I coidd see their eyes sparkle in 

 the sunlight. And then what an uproarious wiff, wiff, wiff, 

 of sheering wings, what a honk-wonk-onk-kwonk, and what 

 a confusion of white collars and black necks, of gray wings 

 and swarthy feet would crowd upon my eye as I rose and 

 looked along the gun ! 



It is sad to think that such scenes are fading fast into the 

 things that were. There are, perhaps, parts of our country 

 where the scenes of Senaehwine twenty years ago are still 

 repeated. But it may be doubted if they are repeated on so 

 grand and varied a scale; and even if they are it will not be 

 for long. The increasing interest in game protection will 

 preserve many kinds of game to such an extent that our 

 children's children may see shooting of some kinds better 

 than we now see. But no legislation can recall from the past 

 the mighty hordes of wildfowl that once darkened the 

 waters of the West, that dotted its skies and made its corn- 

 fields alive with roaring wings. Nor can any public senti- 

 ment, whether expressed in laws or not, bring back the 

 primeval solitude of those swamps and river bottoms which 

 were such an important condition in such scenes as I have 

 described. Those vast stretches of timber, broken only by 

 ponds and their margins of mud and reeds, or by the long 



lines of the winding sloughs, those wide reaches of open 

 land covered with wavy grass or reeds, cut with sloughs or 

 broken by rush-fringed ponds of acres and acres iu extent, 

 over all of which one could see no sign of civilization save 

 an occasional road, and hear none of the sounds of progress 

 save once in a while the far off puff of the high pressure 

 steamer that was trailing its sooty banner along the distant 

 sky, can never be restored. 



It was at the head of Senaehwine Lake that 1 first made 

 the acquaintance of a nuisance that, in his full development 

 can be seen only on a Western duck stand. He forms so 

 decided a feature of Western duck shooting that any sketch 

 of that shooting would be incomplete without him. 



Mr. Peter Popper, a Chicago parvenu— one of the first of 

 the shoddyites created by the war— had come down for a 

 few days' shooting. He came out to Senaehwine in a buggv 

 and planted himself on a piece of dry and open ground about 

 one hundred and fifty yards from where I, hidden iu reeds, 

 was standing knee deep in water. He had high-topped 

 rubbers also, but he did not incline to mud and reeds. There 

 were also hundreds of acres of ground just as good as where • 

 I was shooting. Yet he drifted as naturally to where he 

 saw someone else killing ducks, as a boy does to the "hole" 

 from which his comrade has just pulled a fish. 



The first intimation I had of his presence was the sheering 

 of a flock of mallards that were coming directly toward me, 

 followed by a bang whang of Popper's gun some hundred 

 yards away from them. 



"Most too far," I remarked tentatively. 



' 'Oh, no !" he replied. ' 'This gun will kill a hundred yards. 

 Cost three hundred dollars in England." 



Having seen plenty of hundred yard guns and their own- 

 ers, I knew the futility of any reply, "it was but a few 

 minutes before a pair of mallards, coming down the water 

 opposite me, rose high with heavy beat of wing, and bang 

 went the first barrel of Mr. Popper's gun again, followed by 

 the other as they got well skyward. 



"Those are too far anyhow," I called out rather de- 

 cidedly. 



"Oh, I'm only shooting for sport anyway; I couldn't hit 

 a flock of barns," replied Mr. Popper with consoling tone. 

 He evidently thought that I felt bad to see him miss, 



"Why don't you get in the reeds and not let them see 

 you?" I called out in as argumentative a tone as an interrog- 

 ative sentence would permit. 



"Too muddy. I can get all the mud I want in Chicago. 

 Here comes a lot," he replied, with a bang whang at an in- ' 

 coming flock that would surely have given me a good shot if 

 he had been out of the way. 



"You are scaring all the ducks," yelled I, somewhat in- 

 dignantly, 



"By Jove," my Mend, that's the best I can do. I'm only 

 shooting for fun anyhow. I couldn't hit a flock of barns." 



A few minutes passed away, during which I revolved un- 

 utterable things in mind, and in my indignation executed 

 some artistic misses on ducks coming from the direction 

 opposite Popper. Presently a flock of mallards, coming 

 down along the water a hundred yards or more from Pop- 

 per, but headed directly for the point where I was standing, 

 sheered and sprang skyward at the report of his gun. 



"Why don't you let them come further down?" 1 bawled, 

 somewhat hoarsely, for I was getting mad. 



"That's what I'm trying to do. But they won't come 

 down, yah-yah-yah." 



"But you are' disturbing all the ducks. You don't — " 



I finished the sentence with a savage bang whang at a 

 duck that came whizzing down the pond, while Popper was 

 loading. 



"That's what I came for," replied he, blandly. "I dnn't 

 see as you are disturbing them much more seriously though," 

 he added, as my duck went on undamaged. 



"But you are spoiling my shooting. Look there, those 

 would have come close to me if you had kept out of sight, " 

 said I, as a flock of sprigtails, with long, forked tails trailing 

 behind, sheered off from Popper. Bang went his gun at 

 them, and one, struck at about ninety yards just over the eye 

 with a stray shot, dove head first into the mud. 



"Plenty close enough. You only want a good gun," said 

 he, with exultant laugh. 



"That was only a scratch." 



"It's a wonder you don't make a scratch or two for a 

 change," he replied. 



Completely snuffed out, I shouldered my gun and left him 

 master of the field where, far into the twilight, he held un- 

 disputed possession. 



" And from about hini fierce effusion rolled 

 Of smoke and bickering flame and sparkles dire. " 



A LO HUNT IN THE STAKED PLAINS. 



I WAS in East Las Vegas, N. M., running a store ami res- 

 taurant for a man during the summer of 1881. I had 

 worked hard seven days in the week and was worn down. 

 One day my friend Lew came in and wanted me to quit the 

 store and take a liquor dealer down the Pecos River to the 

 small Mexican plazas in a buggy, as I knew the country and 

 could talk Mexican. 



Knowing it would be a pleasant trip and improve my 

 health I consented, and a week from that time found me on 

 the road south. A top buggy and a span of good ponies 

 constituted the team. I had a repeating rifle and a six-shooter 

 revolver, while Singer, the spectacled Hebrew, who was my 

 passenger, had a British bulldog revolver. He was very 

 captious and fault-finding, and told me several tales of which 

 he was the hero, seeming to wish to impress me with the 

 idea that he was a brave man. I have siuce thought he was 

 afraid of me on account of my arsenal. 



We went along from town to town with varying success, 

 selling some goods by sample. Starting from Fort Sumner 

 at about 7 one morning we drove ten miles and came to a 

 large ranch near the road. As we drove up we observed a 

 stir among the people, and when I got out to get a drink of 

 water I was met by Tom S., who owned the ranch. After a 

 hurried hand shake the dialogue was as follows; 

 "What are you doing down here?" 

 "Driving that drummer who is selling whisky." 

 "1 lost all my horses last night; stolen by Indians or rust- 

 lers [white horse thieves]. I have found the trail ; it leads 

 for the Staked Plains. I have got three horses and three 

 good men. Take your horses and come with me after them." 

 "I will if I can get my Jew to consent," said I. 1 went 

 out to the buggy and explained the affair to the fellow but 

 he would not go nor let me go. Tom came out and we both 

 begged him to let me go, and Singer "jawed" until Tom got 

 mad, and turning to me said. "Will you go, Dick, if I will 

 square it at home?" I said "yes. " So Tom coolly unhitched 



