Sept. 24. 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



16B 



^n(^ ntjd 0utj. 



Aiidrcss all communications to the Forest a«4 Stream PuMisIi- 

 ii)^ Co, 



ON THE PLATTE.— 11. 



rpHE best of sliots have their misses. The best of hunters 

 JL often make poor bao-s. One cannot capture game unless 

 the game be there to capture. Such thout^hts as these com- 

 l)incd no doubt keep the ardciit sportsman from taking on a 

 cargo of disgust when he makes a failure on oue_ of his 

 tours, and induce him to try bis hand again at the first op- 

 portunity and with renewed and redoubled vigor. 



The scanty luck attending our first hunt for geese last fall 

 did not discourage us in the least. If possible it made us 

 keener than ever to try it again. So, in the early part of 

 November three of us took civrs here at noon and were pulled 

 to Kearney. From thence, that night, wc Avent by the 

 TJnion Pacific, sixteen miles further on, to the small village 

 of Elm Creek, where we put up at the only hotel in the 

 place, kept by one John Dermody, a pretty clever sort of 

 fellow and who feeds his guests faiiiy well for that country 

 at $1.50 per day. It was here our two Lincoln friends had 

 stopped the week before, and from which point they radiated 

 to the river Platte for five or sis days in making their bag of 

 over one lumd red an(i fifty geese. One of the gentlemen of 

 the present party, Mv. Weli.ster, had been one of the couple 

 on the former occasion and. of coui'se, was pretty well 

 posted about matters and things. 



Arranging for a team to carrj' us down to the river early 

 in the morning and for a breakfast in good time, we soon 

 went to bed; not, however, before learning that geese were^ 

 quite abundant, and meeting our man Talbot, of Sioux City, 

 who had come up from Foote's wjth some of his force and 

 his mammoth display of decoys, his dead geese being prop- 

 erly numbered and tagged and shipped by express to his 

 taxidermists in the camp down the river. 



Dermody gave us an early breakfast, according to prom- 

 ise, and we reached the river Ln good time. Selecting places, 

 Houtz and I built a blind together, about one-third across 

 the river, Webster going another third and a little in advance 

 of us, building bis blind. In driving down to the river, 

 Houtz took a crack at a sandhill crane about twenty five 

 yards off, with a wire cartridge, missing it a foct or so by 

 shooting to the left. Further on we saw two geese in the 

 edge of the prairie, and as we approached one of them rose 

 and flew a hundred j'ards or so and came down again. The 

 other was wounded and could not fly. Houtz got out and 

 made for the first one, while Webster and I gave chase in the 

 buggy to the other one. The fowl was simply wing-tipped, 

 and made a most u'etlitable race; but ere long we overhauled 

 and captured it without further wound, and tying its legs, 

 placed it in the bottom of our vehicle. In the meantime, 

 Houtz "s goose had taken wing out of range, but swinging 

 around in search of its mate, came too near and was brought 

 to bag. 



On looking up the river after being located, what should 

 first meet our eyes, about half a mile distant, but the outfit 

 of our Sioux City slaughterer, his decoys covering a large 

 territory around a low, flat blind, and making a show that 

 was sure to bring in the geese as they should pass up or 

 down the river. We felt pretty certain from the start that 

 this outfit would materially diminish our score, if indeed it 

 did not knock us "out of time" altogether. But as our team 

 had gone back to the house, and it was then out of the ques- 

 tion to move that day, we had nothing to do but to remain 

 where we were and see it out. It was not long before we 

 sighted a flock of geese coming up stream. Dropping down 

 in our blinds we Isegan honking at them. At once they 

 showed signs of corning in, and slowly set sail for our de- 

 003^8, but before coming within range they espied the larger 

 display of Talbot's, and at once sheered off in that direction 

 and made a I^ee line for them. We had the privilege of 

 standing there and seeing this flock approach apparently 

 within ten f^et of Talbot, when two pufls of smoke and two 

 unshapely objects dropping from the startled and confused 

 flock that soon gathered together and went on up stream, told 

 a tale that was repeated during the day till this man in pur- 

 suit of hides had brought fifty-four to bag. Our score was 

 only five, including the two captured on land in the morn- 

 ing, none of these falling to my gun. The enjoyment Web- 

 ster seemed to get out of the fact that I had closed the day 

 without a single feather, would, in my humble opinion, alone 

 have amply compensated him for this trip. 



My friend. Jack Lauham, who tried to elicit sympathy by 

 feigning a broken leg when the wagon turned over down at 

 Newark a few days before, dropping in on us at 9 o'clock 

 that night cheered me up considerably, for i had anticipated 

 his coming and had ali'eady laid plans for the nest day. We 

 had often shot from the .same blir I and understood each 

 other first rate, although we often had our disputes as to 

 who jumped up before the geese were in range and fright- 

 ened them away. Jack had lakes the noon train at Lincoln, 

 having telephoned to his daughter at Crete, where he lives, 

 to dump his gun and hunting traps upon the cars as he 

 passed there, so he appeared on the scene, as he always does, 

 about half prepared. But the party turned in and helped 

 him load his shells that night and the morning found him in 

 trim and in fine spirits. 



The second day after om- arrival at Elm Creek we all went 

 further down the river, Webster and Houtz locating about 

 a mile below the blinds of the day before and Jack and 1 

 going still two miles further on, where we found a fair blind 

 already erected and a few dead geese in a state of decay, sit- 

 ting around it. This pi'oving to be a good location, we 

 managed by main strength and awkwardness to kill twenty- 

 four geese timing the day. For some reason we did about 

 as miserable as can well be conceived of gentlemen who pro- 

 fessed to be stiots at all, and on one or two occasions the 

 driver was so disgusted with our work as to yell from shore 

 across to us and ask if he should not bring out a batch of 

 clubs. But for all that we had much fun, and twenty-four 

 geese in one day was an experience so far ahead of anything 

 we had encountered, that we were in no mood to faU out 

 with ourselves or each other, and were taken back to the 

 hotel for a late supper that all hands enjoyed. Webster and 

 Houtz had not done so well as Jack and I, although they 

 had tried the fields in the alternoon during feeding time. 

 They kept their wounded goose which had already become 

 somewhat tame, and had witnessed on this day its capacity 

 for storing away shelled corn by seeing it devour every 

 grain of a large ear. Talbot as usual brought in a large 

 number of geese and tagged and .shipped them to his skin- 

 ners at Wood River. ^Two days after this he pulled up 

 stakes and took his own departure, having alone killed nearly 

 three hundred geese 



On the next day Jack and I went down to our blind of the 

 day before, Houtz and Webster pulling up stakes and going 

 up the i-iver four or five miles above town, where they had 

 exceptionally fine success. Jack and I falling considerably 

 behind the score of the previous day. On meeting at the 

 hotel that night we wore informed by Houtz and W ebster of 

 their intention to leave for home in the morning, to meet 

 business calls requiring their attention. Jack and I con- 

 cluded to stay two days longer; and early the next morning, 

 having the niglit before brought up our decoys and game 

 from below, we were driven up the river to the scene of 

 Houtz and Webster's operations. As we drove up to the 

 bank where we were to take the river, a fine deer — a buck — 

 walked leisurely down the bank and across the sandbar to 

 the long, narrow island running parallel with tlie main shore, 

 where it disappeared among the plum bushes and high grass. 

 Jack was anxious that we should fry and cnpture this fellow 

 by one of the party taking a stand in the center of the 

 island, while the driver and other parly should move him 

 up. But as we had no buckshot, and were hunting for 

 geese, I objected, and the project was abandoned. That 

 afternoon the buck was shot and killed by a Swede woman, 

 who, with uci uuii'^n^rl lived on the upper end of the island. 

 During our two days' sOjounv ill i,ui.o ^.:,""^bly we found the 

 bars in the vicinity literally cut up with deer' tfatiiis, where 

 they had apparently been at play, but no other animal pu't 

 in an appearance. 



In addition to our box of sheet iron decoys, we had taken 

 with us up to this place two dozen or more which some 

 Chicago parties had left at the hotel, and these, together 

 with om" guns and lunch and ammunition, made (juite a load 

 to pack through water and quicksands and across tlie tangle 

 and jungle on the island. There is scarcely anything so 

 fatiguing as staggering along under a heavy load in water 

 threatening every moment to run in at the top of your 

 waders, with a dash into quicksands here and there, and 

 now and then having to back out on account of too 2Teat 

 depths, and to seek another route. The wind was whistling 

 down in a bee line from the north and the weather was 

 growing quite cold. One had to have much faith in his 

 rubber pants before he could muster up the courage to 

 plunge into the stream on that frigid morning. The sand- 

 bars were frozen on top and we had to use our pocket knives 

 to make holes for the pins that supported the decoys, and to 

 enable us to stick down the willows that were necessary in 

 repairing the blind. 



The flight from the fields that began that morning shortly 

 after 10 o'clock was the largest one I ever saw on the Platte, 

 but the tendency of the geese seemed to be for points further 

 up the river. And another thing that militated greatly 

 against us was the fact that our blind was located too near 

 the northern shore. The wind at that point was blowing 

 duectly across the river, and as the clumsy fowls slowly 

 made their way up stream, they naturally drifted toward the 

 southern shore, and generally passed too far from us to be 

 attracted or called in by our decoys, though once in a while 

 a flock made us a visit, to which we paid our best compli- 

 ments. It was a source of no small annoyance to us to see 

 them alighting by the thousand about two miles further up 

 the river. About the middle of the afternoon Jack took a 

 few decoys and went up, where he had good luck, consider- 

 ing he had a new blind to build under great diflScullies, and 

 that the best flights for the day were over. He came back 

 down to me before nightfall, when we waded ashore, climbed 

 into our spring wagon and were hastily driven to the hotel, 

 a distance of some six miles, against a raw wind that chilled 

 me nearly to the bone. 



I now begin the doings of the last day, which was a sting- 

 ing cold one, c(miing nearly up to the proportions of a bliz- 

 zard. I waded out to the blind abreast the island, and Jack 

 was driven on up to a point opposite the one be had erected 

 the day before, it being understood that the driver should tie 

 up his team and perambulate between the two and finish by 

 helping us get our trap.': a.shore later in the day. 1 had 

 about the same experience as on the preceding day, namely, 

 to see the geese pass out of range and out of call to the .south 

 of me, and frequently settle down in the vicinity of Jack's 

 blind, he being too far away for me to decide with any cer- 

 tainity if they went to his decoys. The wind was too fierce 

 for me to hear the report of his gun, and the dark lowering 

 clouds made it impossible to see the smoke from its discharge 



I retrieved eight geese that day. Two wounded ones that 

 had fallen near the blind had waded about and recovered 

 their health, and when later I went out to gather them 

 in, they took wing for parts unknown and were seen no 

 more. Two others fell not far from the blind of some coun- 

 trymen a quarter of a mile above me, who waded out and 

 took them in. 1 think those were the only geese four of 

 them got all day, and I had no disposition to pai'ley with 

 them over the rights of property. Not long after the geese 

 took the afternoon departure for the fields I began to pull 

 up stakes so that I miglit get ashore before dark. The first 

 thing I did was to gather up and strap together the decoys 

 belonging to the Chicago folks, which I carried out and 

 across the island, where I laid them down on the sand and 

 stuck up some bushes to mark their locality. I then re- 

 turned to the blind, when I pulled up the other decoys and 

 packed them in their box, which I expected the driver would 

 come and take ashore, the box being too heavy for me to 

 manage. There yet remained a big bag of shells and seven- 

 teen dead geese, most of them the large Canada fellows, to 

 be disposed of. Unwinding the cord that had been tied 

 around the blind to hold it in place, I tied my geese around 

 the necks with it, each one separately and so far apart that 

 in dragging them they would follow tandem, and one not 

 pile upon fop of another. It was done in this way that they 

 would the more readily float, and not ground in shoal water. 



This being done I started ashore, taking everything with 

 me save the box of decoys. I bore down stream, pursuing 

 every little channel that led toward the northern bank, in- 

 tending to come out below the point of the island, where -I 

 wouldleave them for the more robust Jack and the driver 

 to carry across the dry channel to shore. This undertaking 

 proved to be a most arduous one. In many places I had to 

 drag my big string of geese across little bars in order to keep 

 them in channels leading toward my destination. The quick- 

 sands were numerous and deep, and as I struggled along: 

 under my burden I fell into a copious perspiration, and took 

 off my gloves, wristlets and neck wrap to get reUef. These 

 I put in the pockets of the hunting coat, which I wore out- 

 side of the wading pants. On two or three occasions I came 

 near getting into water above the waist of these pants. 

 Finally, after a long and weary pull, and the most violent 

 exercise, I think, of my life, I reached the foot of the island, 

 and dragging my train of geese upon the bar, feU down 

 upon the sands for a moment or so to rest. But this was not 

 for long. It was too fearfully cold. The sky had become 



overcast, more densely, if possible, with clouds, and it was 

 now about dark. I soon .started up the bar along the edge 

 of the island in quest of the decoys I had carried out there 

 early in the afternoon. I did not find them for nearly an 

 hour, having passed them three or four times in my joorney- 

 ing up and down there. 



1 then went out to shore where I could be picked up by 

 the vehicle as it came down with Jack on the way home. 

 Huddling up in a nook down behind the bank, I "tried to 

 keep warm. The wraps 1 had taken ofl' and put into my 

 coat pockets when wading ashore, bad gotten soaked with 

 water by being submerged, and of course could not be used. 

 When I first made this discovery, I think my spirits and my 

 temperature both fell about forty degrees. 1 was literally- 

 wet with perspiration, and ray overcoat was in the spring 

 wagon. All at once the subject of a fire flashed upon me, 

 and then it occurred that one of the pockets of my vest was 

 stored with matches put in there three years before. On 

 fi,shing them out they proved to be all right, and lighting a 

 piece of newspaper I soon had a rousing fire. The territory 

 abreast the river there was newly plowed, leaving a strip of 

 prairie grass about fifteen feet wide between the plowed land 

 and the river bank, and it was this which furnished my fuel. 

 After it had burned a little I got a bunch of brusli and 

 whipped the fire out at one end, letting the other burn against 

 the wind partlj-, and following it up as it slowly crept along, 

 keeping v.'fu-m and drying my saturated wraps. 



It was now abtjU": B o'clock and as dark as a .stack of 

 black cats, with a most cut'ing wind from the direction of 

 the North Pole. I could not imsigitie what was detaining 

 Jack and the driver, but directly the latter came down alone, 

 and on being asked where Jack was facetiously queried, 

 "Where are you?" He had not seen Jack since the middle 

 of the afteiTioon, when ho had taken his lunch out to the 

 blind and had returned to shore with a load of dead geese. 

 Of course I sent him back up the river with instructions to 

 stay there until he found Jack or had some definite in- 

 formation concerning him. Not long after he had gone I 

 heard the faint yell of some one I took to be the Swede, on 

 the upper end of the island. This was repeated at intervals 

 apparently closer each time, until at last I distinguished 

 Jack's voice, and on my replying vigorously he asked, "Is 

 that you. Polk?" and upon ray answering in the afflrmative 

 be yelled in tones of thunder, "Put her out! put her out!" 

 meaning for me to put out my comfortable and harmless fire. 

 Upon learning that plowed land was behind me and the river 

 in front his fears of devastation by a praiiie fire that dark 

 and windy night were allayed. 



When Jack came up, though a man of herculean strength, 

 he was nearly exhausted. He had started ashore with six- 

 teen or eighteen dead geese on his back, and when about 

 half way over had given out and left these on a bar and nad 

 then gone back after another load, some eight or ten, which 

 he carried asiiore to flud on reaching there that the driver 

 and team had gone. Leaving the geese he went back after 

 those left on the bar, but it had grown so dark he could not 

 find them, besides him.self getting lost out in the river. At 

 about this time he descried my miniature prairie, fire and 

 made tracks for it, every now and then yelling as he pro- 

 ceeded. His journey took him diagonally across the island, 

 where the bramble and plum bushes came near tearing all 

 the clothes off him, On reaching me he felt a sense of relief 

 at knowing where he was, but I think if he could have laid 

 hands on the driver he would have shaken the life out of 

 him. Satisfying himself that there was no danger of my 

 fire getting beyond control, he at once started up the river 

 bank in quest of the driver. In the time between this and 

 their return Iwas enabeld to thorougly dry my wet garments 

 and put them on. 



On the return of Jack and the driver a hasty council of 

 war resulted in our deciding to drive at once back to the 

 town and send a team up the next morning after the box of 

 decoys and thirty-five dead geese, which was to be expressed 

 home, as we were to leave early the next morning. This 

 decision being reached we beat out with brush the last ves- 

 tige of our fire, and in the blackness of a dark night climbed 

 into the open spring wagon, wrapped ourselves up as best 

 we could, and started down the rivrr bank in the direction 

 of home, about the only thing that was visible being the 

 white broncho on the oE side, and the dim lights of a few 

 farmhouses scattered about at Icng distances off on the 

 prairie. 



Our route for the first mile or so lay eastward along down 

 the river bank, where we were to bear oS in a northeast 

 course to strike a road leading eastwardly to town. The 

 two bronchos we were driving had only the daj before been 

 purchased out of a herd brought into the town and of course 

 we could not trust to them to take us home. The course 

 along the river was easily pursued, hut when we left that 

 and struck out upon the prairie we were all at sea. The 

 only guide we had was the direction of the wind; and as 

 Jack swore up and down the wind had changed, no basis as 

 to the direction could be derived from that. At the very 

 start Jack and the driver fell into a dispute as to which was 

 the proper way to drive, the former insisting that we were 

 driving directly back to the river. I sided with the driver 

 and urged that we travel so as to keep the stiff unvarying 

 wind on our left cheek. "T tell you," Jack would emphat- 

 ically reply, "the wind has changed." And when I would 

 look forward and see the little white broncho apparently go- 

 ing the wrong way in a circle I would forbear further com- 

 ments. At last the driver got out and walked in the hope of 

 falling upon some kind of road, but it appeared to me we 

 took more of a circuit then than at any time before, the 

 wind blowing first and last upon every side of our persons. 



Between 9 and 10 o'clock somewhere, we agreed to drive 

 to the light apparently tlie nearest to us, and there find 

 where we were ; and so we headed for one. We had not 

 proceeded far before we came to a plain road. Then a dis- 

 pute arose between Jack and the driver whether we should 

 turn to the right or to the left. I took no part in this dis- 

 pute, but on the theory that the wind still came down from 

 the north, I believed the driver to be correct. Jack had be- 

 come so utterly demoralized I had no faith in him; but he 

 was so persistent in the correctness of his position, that the 

 driver yielded and went his way. Luckily for the party we 

 drove up to a farmhouse whose light had not been visible 

 before, and calling the owner out told him we were lost and 

 wanted to go to Elm Creek. "That being the case," said he, 

 "you must turn and go back the other way." "Are you not 

 mistaken?" asked Jack, as though the man was crazy and 

 did not know the way to town. He must have felt that 

 some such thoughts were passing through Jack's mind, for 

 he held the laniern that was in his hand up to Jack's face to 

 see what manner of man he was. We further learned here 

 that we were less than a mile due north from the point on 

 the river bank where X had started my fire. 



