_ 
Le 
Nov, 
ed ee 
Pal e i 7 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
S48 
leeward of them. He was lying down and looking alter- 
nately toward the birds and toward us, taking his case while 
we came up, The birds rose from the fence too far to shoot, 
carrying with them about two dozen more that were in the 
stubble around them in a grand display of snowy underwear. 
They flew over half a mile and settled into a patch of prairie 
grass that lay in a corner between four stubbles, and left un- 
broken, because sometimes too wet. But it was now per- 
fectly dry and covered with lon ass. And it contained 
not an inch over one acre and a half. 
Taking the dog in the wagon and giving him plenty of 
water to keep him fresh, we drove around to the leeward 
side of the prairie grass. A fair, cool breeze was blowing, 
and the dog began to point even in the wagon, as we drove 
across the breeze to tie the horses. That dog for over half 
an hour did nothing but crawl and lie down. Half the time 
in the grass when told to go on after we had done loading, 
he did nothing more than furn his head to one side or the 
other, without rising from where he had lain down at the re- 
port of the guns. Two or three times, I remember, he did 
not even turn his head, refusing even to get up; and another 
bird rose not a yard ahead of the place-from which the last 
one had risen. Ten or eleyen birds had fallen before we 
could pick up a dead one; then the dog would not go ahead, 
but could only be made to back out and swing around and 
pick up those that had fallen on the sides; and then he 
swung around to the leeward before entering the center 
again, Only one bird got away. We picked up twenty- 
eight, all full-zrown birds, And every one of them rose 
from a spot scarcely fifty yards in diameter. 
Such shooting as that was, however, entirely accidental. 
Sometimes one could hunt for a week over that country and 
see only the common prairie chicken, and even those I never 
saw so concentrated as in the case mentioned, But there 
was a tract of country oyer in Wisconsin that could always 
be depended on for fine sport with the sharptailed grouse. 
Tt lay some twenty-five or thirty miles up Beef River, a river 
coming into the Mississippi some five miles below Wabash, 
Minn. The ground was there a mixture of prairie and low 
bluffs or hills.. Hundreds of acres of smooth ground with 
all the vegetation of prairie lay between low hills from fifty 
to nearly three hundred feet high, covered with brush, thin 
timber or prairie grass. And sometimes tracts of prairie 
swept up into a crested ridge or low rolling swell of thin 
brush and grass. When‘driven from the stubble the birds 
took refuge in this, where they lay quite well. Fully two- 
thirds of the grouse found here fifteen or twenty years ago 
were of the sharptailed or white variety. The shooting to 
be had along the stubbles that Jay between the grassy slopes 
and hills was sometimes wouderful. The white grouse were 
wilder here than on the Minnesota side, and when about full 
grown would rise so far ahead of the dog that it often re- 
quired both quick and accurate work to make sure of one, 
to say nothing of a double shot. Common grouse were also 
there, but we generally let them go. I have seen the others 
so abundant there that it was not necesary to follow a single 
covey into the grass, but merely to keep going the rounds of 
the stubbles. But fine shooting they made when followed 
up. They lay close enough for a dog to point, yet rose at a 
distance that made you feel you were doing something when 
you hit one. And they bustle out of the grass with a roar 
and a flourish of white that shook the tyro’s nerves; and 
they struck the ground with a thump that gave him joy. 
They were in every sense a noble and stylish bird, and a 
trip up there was an event that we talked of long after our 
return, ‘Through nearly every piece of low ground a clear, 
cold brook containing plenty of trout, wound between deep, 
grassy or alder-clad banks. Drinking water was always 
ready, the dog was always fresh, and when tired of hunting 
fine fishing was just at hand. Altogether it was a place over 
which memory long will limger. But it was too good to 
endure. Its fame went abroad. The railroad came within 
a few miles of it, and a few years saw the end of it. 
Why is it that-such days must form so small a point in the 
period of man’s existence upon the globe? No sooner does 
he find out how to enjoy such times than they take wing 
forever. All this shooting is about ended. Many a time as 
I stood upon those points of the bluffs and looked over the 
great stretches of prairie and the hillsides that seemed as if 
they could never be ploughed up, I have said, “We shall 
have chickens here for dozens of years to come.’’ Though 
searcely past the zenith of life I have lived to see a pinnated 
grouse a curiosity upon those grounds. I have lived, too, 
to see the noble Mississippi that up here used to be as clear 
as crystal at its highest stage, a turbid stream at high water, 
and the once lovely Trout Brook back of Wabasha stripped 
of its last bright tin, and filthy and muddy with the drain- 
age of barnyards and plowed fields. T’o those idiots who are 
eternally drivelling about making “the desert blossom as the 
rose” this country would look infinitely more pretty now with 
ils white farmhouses, and fields of green and gold. But as I 
looked upon it this year, after fen years’ absence and thought 
of what it once was, but one feeling and one thought pos- 
sessed me, a feeling of infinite sadness and a hope that [might 
never see it again, 
Few writers haye done full justice to the pinnated grouse. 
Most people haye seen him only upon such ground as that 
of linois, where, during the heat of the day, the coveys are 
hidden in the immense cornfields or long grass of the sloughs, 
and except on cool or cloudy days, can be found on the stub- 
bles only early in the morning or late in the eyening, and 
where the coveys, when flushed, too often fly into such 
heayy cover. Many others have hunted them only When the 
young ones are quite small, and have found them so easy to 
hit, and such wretched looking little things when picked up, 
that they have quickly become cloyed with the shooting. 
But late in August, when the young were about full grown, 
a hunt on the cool, shady hills of Minnesota, or in the breezy 
oak openings of Wiseonsin, amid scenery the most unique 
that our land affords, was one of the most intense and sub- 
stantial pleasures that the sportsman ever enjoys. 
No bird has lent such a charm to the prairie as the pinuated 
grouse. He has beento it-more than Bob White has been to 
the harvest field or the frosty stubble, or the woodcock to the 
tangled swamp. He has impressed his individuality upon it 
in so many ways that without him it seems no more a prairie 
but only a blank waste. No sound ever woke more tender 
feelings in the human breast than his weird, penetrating 
“boom, boom, boom, boom,” rising and swelling in its far- 
reaching intensity from the distant knoll where he was strut- 
ting on the first warm mornings of the opening year. And 
many 4 one it has lulled into another nap to dream of spring- 
time and love. No bird has ever so thrilled the novice as the 
full grown grouse soaring ont of the long grass almost at his 
feet, and none has ever caused him such ibfinite amazement 
when he so confidently pulled the trigger. None has ever so 
extracted the conceit from the blockhead who has made a 
few lucky shots at robins or rabbits, and fancies that so big 
a bird and so straight a flyer will be casy for him to hit. 
And late in autumn when ducks have left the slough, when 
the honk of the goose is heard no more on high, and the sand- 
hill crane stands no more upon the prairie, then the grouse is 
about the only companion left us. And whether sweeping in 
large flocks across the plain, now with whiffling stroke of 
Wing, now sailing, or on frosty or snowy mornings sitting 
quietly upon the fence or corn shocks, or in colder weather 
feeding upon the buds of the trees along the edge of the tim- 
ber, he was always the brightest lightia the great solitude of 
the prairie. Onur children’s children shall hear the whistle of 
the woodceek’s wing as he whirls upward through the sap- 
ling grove, over the harvest field shall hear the mellow 
call of Bob White, and in the tangled brake shall see the 
ruffed grouse outspread his banded tail as he soars upward 
into the sunlight. But few of them shall see the pinnated 
grouse, except as rare specimens, For it is a bird that in- 
creases with the first stage of civilization, pauses at the sec- 
ond and departs forever with the third. 
A LOUISIANA DEER DRIVE. 
BY COL, GHO, D, ALEXANDER, 
RIDAY afternoon, the 7th of November, 1884, I left 
A Minden to go out as far as the John Chaffe plantation 
‘on the Bossier and Webster line, in order to have a deer 
drive the next morning. The night was spent with a Mr. 
John Henry, a gentleman devoted to hunting, who enter- 
tained me at his bachelor residence most hospitably. Unfor- 
tunately for my expectations, the next day was the usual 
grinding day at Chaife’s grist mill. Mr- Henry was the sup- 
erintendent, consequently he could not accompany me, but 
he did the next best thing he could do, which was to in- 
form all the parties who had hounds to meet the next morn- 
ing at his mill and give me a benefit of a good deer hunt. 
His two or three nearest white neighbors lad sundry ex- 
cuses to make because they could not come, while a dozen 
freedmen responded to the invitation, and were promptly on 
‘hand with a motely group of dogs, some being the very best 
of biack tan deer dogs. 
Tt: was as lovely a morning for a deer chase as I could have 
‘desired. A very heavy frost covered the ground and vege- 
tation, which, when melted, left a deposit of moisture gsimi- 
lar to a nice shower of rain. No wind was sighing through 
the pines that towered their great straight trunks to some 
hundred feet high. No breezes to waft the scent of a human 
being to the delicate nose of a wary deer, and turn it from 
the stand when one was certain of getting a shot. There was 
nothing to taint the air with human odor and make a hunter 
mutter with vexation low and deep because a fine buck that 
was almost near enough to shoot suddenly veered its course, 
turning back into the drive, or passing out of gunshot dis- 
tance from the distrusted spot. 
The buck in the love season follows the trail of the doe as 
unerringly as the fleet hound follows the cold scent of a fox 
—and I fully believe he can scent the hunter as far as the 
best deer hound. He is ever on the watch; his large ears are 
thrown forward on the slightest sound being heard, with his 
head thrown back he turns his cold nose to every point of the 
compass, sniffs the tainted air, and locates the point of dan- 
ger with more certainty than if he saw the object. The 
slightest movement is detected by his piercing eyes. Yet he 
suffers himself to approach the hunter in pistol shot distance, 
when no wind stirs the air, and no movement is made by his 
arch enemy. Knowing this, the hunter never takes his stand 
behind a tree or some object to hide himself, but he stands in 
front motionless as a statue, until the wary animal is near 
enough to be shot. At any season of the year the nose of the 
deer is moist and feels cold. It has been a sign with me to 
distinguish a pointer or setter puppy that will possess a deli- 
cate sense of smell, to feel the tip of the nose, and ascertain 
the degree of coldness to the touch. One with a dry, warm 
nose will never make a dog of good powers of scent. Deli- 
cacy and accuracy of scent are, in my estimation, worth 
more than all the other qualities in the hound, pointer and 
setter. I have never yet seen any svtter possessing that deli- 
cacy I required in a bird dog, nor do I believe any setter ever 
did or ever will possess the powers of scent, suchas the noble 
black tan deer hound or the English foxhound exhibits. The 
pointer, that was seen many years ago, did possess such 
powers of scent, but the breeding of the present generation 
has produced a worthless race, that never smells as well as it 
should do; and has a coat of hair too fine and thin to do good 
work in thickets and briers, Nevertheless, they are infinitely 
supérior to the present breed of setters, in respect of nose 
and ability to course over fields infested with cockleburrs and 
nettles, without having to stop to take them off. 
But Lam digressing. It was nearly 9 o’clock beforel got 
the order of the day arranged. Of tle two drivers Jack 
Thomas was the blackest negro one ever saw, but an invet- 
erate lover of the chase. He was represented to be one of the 
most successful drivers and shots in the neighborbood. Pete 
Willson was to assist him. Jones, a large, fine-looking 
mulatto, the manager of the Chaffe plantation, undertook to 
have the standers properly placed. He was well mounted, 
had a good gun, and was réputed to be a good shot. Then 
there were Harrison Thompson, a gruff negro, of pleasant 
countenance, polite as a colored barber, a hard rider and a 
good shot, who Imew all the best stands, and could do good 
work in heading the dogs. Mayfield, almost white in color, 
young and athletic; Paul Turner, a yellow man of some 
fifty years old, mounted on a splendid mule, shouldered an 
old breechloader that I would not have taken up if found in 
the woods. Paul was a negro of good hard common sense; 
what one night appropriately term horse sense. He was an 
earnest advocate of education, and no colored man in the 
parish took more interest in schools and having his children 
taught by competent teachers. He was quite communica- 
tive, telling me as we rode along that he had not killed a deer 
in two years, but he neyer missed one, for he would not 
shoot unless he was certain of ‘getting meat.” When I 
looked at the old gun, I doubted whether he ever got close 
enough to a deer to be that certain of killing it. One often 
makes slight or grand mistakes, as I did in this instance, as 
the sequel will prove. 
The next stander was Applewhite. Porte Crayon, of Har- 
pers Magazine, previous to the war, could have made his 
fortune by taking a perfect picture of Applewhite and his 
mule. I must confess that I never saw just such a sight. 
The trousers came to a standstill aboutten inches above 
his ankles. One foot had ona rough broganed shoe—the 
left I believe, while the right was incased in a short top 
boot, garnished by a spur that would have taken the prize in 
a Mexican cow ranche for length, size aud dullness of rowels. 
Applewhite was not-less than six feet four inches high, was 
uniform in girth—like a barber's pole, His head was cov- 
ered with a raccoon cap with many serious rents in it, 
while the remains of an old Federal uniform coat hung loose 
around his barber pole body, minus one of the tails, the 
shoulders in rags, worn out by the wear of the gun on them, 
and the sleeves came just below the élbows. 
There was a fitting correspondence between himself and 
his Rosinante—a deer-colored mule—the like of which was 
never seen before. It was not less than sixteen hands high, 
with the longest legs and the sparest body that ever greeted 
the eyes of a horse trader, The tail stood on a horizontal 
line with the backbone; there was no downward movement 
or position to it; but at each bound of the legs it rose at an 
angle of 45°, A pin of some eight inches length, if pierced 
behind the shoulders, would have had the point to appear 
on the opposite side, It seemed as if a good square meal 
had never been given the poor animal, yet one must not 
suppose there was no life in it. The eyes were vicious as 
a hyena’s, the hoofs were ready to shoot out i# every 
direction, and had a handy way of showing the 
entire bottoms, when the bucking commenced. A 
fearful dragoon bit garnished its mouth, and the blood was 
running down both sides, where the rank curb had cut the 
lips. It was a sight as good a8 a circus show to see Apple- 
white mount hismule. As he gathered the reins and caught 
hold of the horn of the saddle, the mule commenced buck- 
ing. With considerable difficulty he seated himself, and 
at once drove his right heel into the flank of his steed. 
The vicious animal bounded forward, with head nearly 
touching the ground, the heels flying hich in the air, and the 
tail shooting out at an angle considerably elevated above a 
horizontal line. The old saddle was tightly girted, so there 
was not much probability of its slipping over the withers 
and ejecting Applewhite some twenty feet in advance, to 
make of him an ornamental column, having his head stuck 
two feet in the ground, with both legs gracefully poised and 
slightly arched to support anything—say the air. Finding 
it could not throw the rider, that mule struck straight 
across the field for some three hundred yards, at each bound 
the head going down and the heels flying up, with daylight 
appearing between the nether extremities of Applewhite’s 
breeches and the saddle. With each bound the thump on 
the saddle was distinctly audible, while that made by digging 
his heel into the mule’s side was like beating on the head of 
asplit drum. It was evident to us, as we looked on, that 
one or the other would soon conquer. Bets were freely taken 
as to which would be victorious. Had I been a betting man 
I should have piled my money on the mule, but in this case 
the biped won. When he returned there was no more buck- 
ing, but the eye of that mule told as plainas written language 
that it was not conquered, but only submitted for the time. 
At & more convenient season he intended having another 
struggle. Applewhite said his mule did that way every 
time he mouuted it if there were a good many present, but 
if he was alone it cut up no such antics, Jones whispered to 
me that Applewhite had taught his mule to make such per- 
formances; but he was a good hunter, a good shot, and a 
handy man to haye along. 
Our drivers had gone another road to make the drive, and 
Jones hurried all as rapidly as possible to their stands. A 
lope of a miie brought us to the first. Jones said ‘“‘he would 
take that in order to head the dogs, should the deer either 
run back and eross the Chaffe fields, or get by the standers 
without being wounded. His fleet horse would enable him 
to beat the deer to the Ivey plantation, where it would cross 
the wire road, and if he did not kill it he could stop the 
dogs.” 
The next stand was one I selected, for I knew what a 
good one it was, but this time I calculated wrong. Harri- 
son, who was directed to place the remaining standers, 
wanted me to go to what was known as the Wilherson stand, 
and had J taken his advice I should haye had the pleasure 
of killing the large buck that was killed there. Paul was 
divected to take that stand, Mayfield the next, Applewhite 
the next, and the last was taken by Harrison. I had not 
been at my stand a minute before I heard the loud month of 
an old dog behind me, in another drive. He was opening 
very slowly, as if on acold trail. Five minutes more and 
bang went one barrel from Paul’s gun at the Wilherson 
stand; then was heard the report of another, higher up in 
the drive, when the mongrel pack broke into full cry. Sey- 
eral half curs took the lead; next camethe genuine black 
and tans, and two young hound puppies of Jack Thomas 
brought up the tail end of the chase. 
For half an hour I have not often heard a prettier chase. 
The deer doubled so often, at times commg almost in shoot- 
ing distance of Jones, and then of myself, that I felt as if I 
would certainly get a shot. My splendid Greener hammer- 
less gun was ready for the occasion, and I doubt not had it . 
come in one hundred yards of me it would have been killed, 
J was extremely anxious to get a shot, not only to have had 
the pleasure of killing a deer, but also to test the shooting of 
my gun with buckshot. Alas! 1 was doomed to disappoint- 
ment, The deer turned away from us, bore north, and then 
took a southeast course, until not a note of a dog could be 
heard. Soon after this the horns of Jones and both drivers 
could be heard blowing back their dogs. Three long blasts 
from Paul’s horn called us to his stand. Mounting my pony 
Lode to where he was blowing, and saw a magnificent four- 
point buck stretched dead on the ground. He was as blue 
as deer generally get, and extremely fat for this season of 
the year. On questioning Paul as to how he kilied it, he 
stated he was sitting in front of a large post-oak tree—point- 
ing it out to me, when he heard a rattling in the leaves, and 
looking out discovered the buck coming directto him. He 
let him get about fifty yards from him, when he whistled 
and the deer slackened his gait. As he was passing he gave 
him a broadside shot, and over he tumbled with a broken 
back. 
‘How far was he from you when you shot?” I asked Paul, 
“About forty yards, sir,” he replied. 
Discovering a buckshot ina large pine proved that the 
deer was between the pine and the oak. I stepped the dis- 
tance and found Paul’s forty yards to be only nineteen steps. 
This is always the case with the man that kills a deer; his 
distance, if measured, falls short at least one-half of the 
estimate. 
Two more freedmen by this time came dashing up, a Dick 
Durden and a Joe Wilson, who were driving the same drive 
that we werein. Dick reported that it was his gun that we 
heard soon after Paul shot, and he had killed a nice fat 
young doe. By this time, Jack Thomas, Jones, and Petes 
made their appearance with all the dogs. 
Jones was trying to pacify Jack, who wanted to ‘‘knock 
Pete in the head,” who, he said, “was always getting in his 
way when he wanted to head a deer. He told Pete to go to 
one glade and he would go to another, but when he got there 
whom should hesee but Pete ahead of him, and the fact was, 
