Mat 13, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



307 



when in the distance 1 saw the noble form of a splendid buck 

 emerge from the thick undergrowth. He was coming 

 directly toward me, but was 200 yards away. He knew he 

 was approaching a place of danger, and as soon as he entered 

 the open ground he stopped, and with head erect looked long 

 and anxiously in the direction where I sat. I was in plain 

 view and knew that my only chance for a shot was to remain 

 motionless. He was a splendid fellow, and as he stood with 

 his branching antlers lifted high, with eyes intent and nostrils 

 sniffing the air for token of danger, he was a picture for an 

 artist. I almost held my breath, knowing full well that his 

 eager eyes would catch the least motion and that he would 

 be off like the wind. Apparently satisfied, he moves for- 

 ward, and with quick and graceful bounds comes onward 

 to his death. Changing his course as he approached 

 so as to pass about thirty or forty yards from where 

 I was sitting, I waited until he was in point 

 blank range, when I raised my gun quickly and 

 fired. "With a terrific burst of speed he rushed by me 

 and across the road. I was cramped by my position and 

 encumbered by my overcoat, but managed to fire the second 

 barrel as he crossed the road. He disappeared like a flash 

 in the thick woods beyond the road. Just then I heard, for 

 the first time, the notes of a single hound approaching on 

 the track. Looking in that direction I saw a piece of reck- 

 less riding that would have done credit to the dare-devil ac- 

 complishments of a wild Comanche. Mr. Pease, one of the 

 hunters from Athens, had just at the wrong time for him 

 and the right time for me left his stand on the other road for 

 a few minutes, and in his absence the old.buck passed. 

 There was a horse tied near by that had been'driven to the 

 ground hitched to a buggy. Loosing the horse, he sprang 

 on his bare back, and gun in hand and hatless, he came 

 dashing through the woods like a madman. He was keep- 

 ing up with the hound that was following the deer. I told 

 him 1 thought I had wounded the deer and not to lose sight 

 of the hound. On he dashed across the road and into the 

 tangled brush. Iu a moment more I heard him yell like an 

 Indian. He had found the deer dead about one hundred 

 yards from the road. He was a five-point buck, -and I 

 brought his antlers home with me as trophies of the hunt. 



H. E. Jokes. 

 Nashville, Tenn. 



DIFFERENT WAYS OF CAMPING. 



Denver, Col., April 28, 1886. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have several times thought of coming to the support of 

 "Nessrnuk" in his discussion of the camping outfit question. 

 But I do not know that he needs any help. He has so far 

 decidedly the best of it. It is all very nice to go "roughing 

 it" in a palace car or a fifty ton yacht, but "Nessmuk" and 

 I can't go that way, and thousands of others are in the same 

 unfortunate fix. And yet I fancy we can set more real solid 

 enjoyment out of our way of doing it than Is realized by our 

 fine haired friends in their buffet coaches and mahogany 

 cabins. They might not enjoy our way so intensely as we 

 do, and therefore we cheerfully concede them the right to 

 carry along a four- post French bedstead and a full service of 

 silverware if they want to. There is a good deal in the 

 spirit and more iu the experience to enable the camper to 

 enjoy life. 



My camping has been more or less for thirty-five years, 

 and reached from Florida to Puget Sound. Some years it 

 has not covered much time, in others it has been most of the 

 year. In it all I have never driven crotched stakes in the 

 ground and built a bedstead thereon, and I have always 

 been firmly of opinion that the fellow who did it was a con- 

 summate fool. Nor will I sleep in a wagon if there is ground 

 under it upon which to spread my blankets. When out 

 doors always sleep on the earth for comfort. Make your 

 bed there as comfortable as time and circumstances will per- 

 mit. If the ground is cold, or wet, or covered with snow, 

 ou must provide some kind of a foundation. It may be of 

 ay, straw, weeds, brush, corn stalks or fence rails, but in 

 any event stick to the ground. Don't roost on a perch like 

 a chicken and get every breath of air that blows and chills 

 you from every side. Balsam fir boughs make the best bed 

 of all beds; the tips broken off short and laid shingle fashion, 

 bottom side up from head to foot. All the firs, hemlock, 

 juniper, cedar and pine, may be substituted in the order 

 named as to choice. Cherry, willow, alder or any 3uch 

 shrubs follow next. If the ground is smooth and dry, and 

 it can generally be so found in this western country, it is 

 plenty good enough. Under any circumstances, when camp- 

 ing tiy to so provide yourself as to sleep warm, and the 

 nearer you get to the ground the easier that is accomplished. 

 With a comfortable night's sleep you can endure almost 

 anything the next day. Once, a long time ago, after pitch- 

 ing my tent, I was examining the ground for my bed when 

 I found a very small rattlesnake— a young one. That was 

 the only snake adventure I ever had in or about my sleeping 

 place, and I never knew anybody else to have a similar ex- 

 perience. 



About shelter; a square of canvas sufficient for a "dog 

 tent" is good enough for anybody, though not as handy as a 

 wall tent or a Sibley. I have lived all summer with nothing- 

 better, and other summers with nothing at all. He is a poor 

 woodsman who in a forest of any kind cannot very 

 quickly provide himself with shelter from rain or snow. It 

 may be of palmetto leaves, of branches of trees, or of bark 

 from the trunk of a tree. The favoring trunk of a tree may 

 keep off the storm, or in a rocky country a shelter can often 

 be found under a projecting ledge or in a shallow cave. A 

 good thing always to carry along is a rubber poncho for each 

 person. It is good to roll around the bedding when en route 

 to protect it from wet and dirt; or to put over one's shoulders 

 when traveling in rain or wet snow. When night comes, if 

 the ground is wet and the heavens dry, spread it under your 

 bed. If the reverse, reverse it. With two small stakes at 

 opposite sides of a bed for two, to support two corners of a 

 poncho, the other two corners being stretched backward and 

 held to the ground by a couple of stones or chunks of wood, 

 a very good shelter is provided for your heads and shoulders. 

 Then another poncho spread over the blankets to your feet, 

 and you two can sleep blissfully through any ordinary rainy 

 night. Use only woolen blankets for camp bedding. Let 

 Arctic explorers have the fur bags and feather ticks. In 

 camp outfit, be governed by your ability to carry it. I have 

 made a successful and entirely satisfactory expedition with 

 a tin cup and pocket knife. Meat can be broiled on a stick. 

 Flour can be transformed into dough in the mouth of the 

 sack and baked on a flat stone, a chip or a piece of bark 

 before the fire, but a cup is positively needed for the coffee. 

 Under such circumstances the addition of a frying pan enables 

 you to revel in positive luxury. In it you fry your meat, 

 bake your bread and can make your coffee. The tin cup is 



then superfluous. After the necessities add anything you 

 want and can carry. In provisions, bread, meat and coffee 

 are important though not indispensable. It is more com- 

 fortable to have them, and unless you are a first-rate rustler 

 it is quite essential that you have plenty of something. After 

 a few weeks the more you have of it the better you will be 

 satisfied, and yet it is quite possible to live off the natural 

 resources of the country for a considerable length of time. 

 Indians do it. 



Again, I have gone camping with wagon trains loaded 

 with luxuries — wall tents, spring mattrasses, arm chairs, cup- 

 boards, four story South African broilers, and china table 

 service, and we had dinners of eleven courses after dark 

 every day— after starving to death all day — and had a high 

 old time generally. This way did seem more comfortable, 

 and stylish, and all that at the time, but the other was 

 decidedly the more satisfactory — after it was over. You 

 have something then to look back to — a kind of triumph over 

 difficulties and hardships overcome, so to speak. Hence 

 "Nessinuk's" great satisfaction, and also that of W. N. B. 



IN THE OLDEN TIME. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Your communication from "Nimrod," of Batavia, 111,, 

 about "Spring Shooting," stirs mo to add a word in support 

 of his proposition. Spring shooting is an outrage in every 

 sense, and the worst folly for all who care for the future. 

 To day I was vexed at the appearance on the bill of fare at 

 my favorite restaurant of plover and curlew, and I would 

 not think of ordering either of them were they the most 

 toothsome morsels between Boston and Fox River. 



I wish metaphorically to shake hands with "Nimrod," and 

 to condole with him over the disappearance from his waters 

 of the great flights of fowl, which in the days of my boy- 

 hood made the river between Batavia Bridge and Snyder's 

 Dam as fine a reach of water for a day's sport as one could 

 wish for. I wonder if "Nimrod" knew the river then. It 

 was before the timber was cut from the banks and the islands 

 below the mouth of Mill Creek, and before the railroads and 

 excavations of the quarrymen had made their havoc. 



I would not dare to tell from memory the bags of game 

 made iu those days by Mr. Morris, and Tom Meredith, and 

 the Belden boys, and other famous shots; nor even what 

 backloads of greenheads and teal fell to the awkward aim 

 of one schoolboy, whenever he could secure a "Saturday 

 down river." 



It was in the days when ducks were sometimes shot flying 

 low over Batavia Bridge, when prairie chickens not in- 

 frequently alighted on the roofs of the village houses, and 

 when great whirling flocks of them could be seen in autumn 

 from the doorstep of the school house, and when down river 

 among the islands, it was a frequent thing to start up 

 such myriads of ducks that they seemed to darken the air, 

 and the number of species represented would hardly now be 

 credited. It was when deer were still shot in the "Big 

 Woods" and wolves still occasionally prowled on the prairie, 

 and when in spring great flights of pigeons, in long extended 

 fines, reaching out of sight both ways over the prairie, would 

 go roaring over, startling us with the hurtle of their wings, 

 at short intervals for two or three days at a time. 



This great abundance of wild life is gone, and it cannot 

 be helped. But something may yet be done to preserve the 

 remnant of it that is left. 



To discourage spring shooting and to cause it to be 

 esteemed the improvident and unsportsmanlike thing it is, 

 will be the first step toward this preservation. 



An Old Batavian. 



Boston, Mass., May 1. 



MY FIRST TRIP TO MAINE WOODS. 



AUGUST 20, 1853, with a relative, whom I will designate 

 as L., I arrived at the Franklin, now American House, 

 Bangor, en route to Moosehead Lake. Here we met Johnny 

 M., who was to be our guide. We tarried over one night 

 and started next morning by wagon, in company with two 

 more wagonloads of red-skirted lumbermen, who were on 

 the way to the upper waters of the west branch of the 

 Penobscot thus early to "open up" for the ensuing winter's 

 operations. A jolly, roystering crowd they were, shouting, 

 singing, and dancing juba on the wagon floor continuously. 

 We dined at Oxford, if I recollect aright. Soon after 

 leaving the town, and where the road lies at the base of a 

 wooded hill, we met several men with guns, who informed 

 us that a bear hunt was taking place and they were surround- 

 ing the hill. Soon after the report of several guns announced 

 the death of bruin. This, to our youthful mind, was very 

 exhilarating. At night we stayed at Monson. But little of 

 the hotel or its surroundings is remembered. One thing I 

 cherish in this connection is that I inscribed my name imme- 

 diately next that of Bayard Taylor, one whom I had learned 

 to love for his charming essays and foreign letters. I in- 

 quired for him, and learned with regret he had just departed. 

 We stayed the following night at the Lake House, Green- 

 ville, and next morning went on board the little steamer 

 Moosehead for passage up the lake. We made a brief stop 

 at the Hines House and warmed ourselves at its large, open 

 fireplace, on whose broad mantle shelf were many specimens 

 of backwoods bric-a-brac that pleased our youthful fancy. 



About the middle of the afternoon we landed at the foot 

 of the long narrow pier at the Northeast carry. Our duffle 

 was transferred to a truck or car that ran on a wooden tram- 

 way and was- hauled over to the landing on the river by a 

 single ox. Our party kept to the rear. On reaching the 

 stunted growth of timber, but a short distance from the pier, 

 we came upon a large flock of grouse feeding upon the low- 

 growing raspberries, who paid not the least attention or 

 seemed in the least afraid. This was a revelation. We had often 

 heard of, but never seen the like. L, and I immediately 

 opened our gripsacks, spread out our ammunition upon the 

 tramway and kept up a murderous fusilade for a few min- 

 utes. But the sport soon failed. Gathering up the twenty 

 odd birds we proceeded to camp. As we reached the little 

 clearing on the river we beheld another sight that sent me 

 wild. The lumbermen were ranged along on the bank at the 

 landing and were lifting out the trout continuously. Setting 

 down rifle and grip at the door of the log camp, I hurried 

 down and was soon having a hand in the game. Supper 

 being announced we went to camp and did ample service 

 with knife and fork. 



At that time one camp was used for sleeping berths, one 

 on each side extending the whole length, with a tall "ram- 

 down" stove in the center of the camp and a deacon seat on 

 each side. Soon after supper the stove cover was used as a 

 frying pan and the catch of trout was cooked and eaten 

 before bed time. The lumbermen were up and away before 

 daylight, Our party enjoyed the novelty of a browse bed, 



and only turned out as the sun's rays came through the 

 chinks. We went outside to sit a while in the sunshine, for 

 it was quite cool and a heavy frost covered the ground. We 

 were about to go in, when a monster moose— the first wild 

 one L. or I had ever seen — came out of the woods which 

 grew close to the further side of the tramway, and entering 

 a gully came out into the clearing. The road was supported 

 on trestle-work at that place some eight or ten feet high, yet 

 the moose, a bull, had to lower his crest to pass under. At 

 first we were too surprised to act, but as he came into full 

 view we went for our rifles, but when again outside he was 

 out of sight, beyond the narrow clearing. 



In the course of the day we started in a canoe, a birch, for 

 Lobster Pond, where we were to camp two weeks. About 

 two miles down stream we came to the outlet of the pond 

 which was a couple of miles further. The thoroughfare was 

 dead water. We had seen all along tracks innumerable of 

 moose, as well as of bear and wolf. On rounding a bend 

 we came upon a cow and calf moose. The former at once 

 leaped up the abrupt bank and in a second was out of sight 

 in the thick growth of white birch. The calf fell back in 

 its efforts to follow, then started up stream. L., sitting with 

 rifle in hand in the midship, had a good chance for a shot 

 but failed to improve it. I held the bow paddle, but ex- 

 changed it for my rifle just before the calf went out of sight 

 around another bend in a thicket of alders. Johnny swung 

 the birch just in time so both could shoot. The game went 

 out of sight but was found dead on the next stretch with one 

 bullet wound. Cutting out the meat and shouting engaged 

 our attention awhile. As we came into the pond a shout, 

 sounding like "halloo, you!" greeted us. I suggested going 

 ashore, as in all probability some one was in distress. At 

 this the guide, a backwoodsman, gave a quiet chuckle and 

 kept on the course. I was about chiding him for his inhu- 

 manity, when he explained that it was a bear, whose halloo 

 was incited by the scent of the meat. On the opposite side, 

 about a third of the way up, was a cove with sandy beach 

 and a huge pile of dry drift wood. Here we pitched camp 

 long enough to jerk the meat. On the thoroughfare were 

 large meadows of wild grass "and their margin was cut in 

 frequent places by moose paths. Every day and night we 

 saw or heard moose, but though near enough often, never 

 tried to shoot another. We had been told at the camp how 

 a man the year previous had killed over seventy moose for 

 their hides, leaving the meat to rot. This had a due effect 

 upon us. We would not kill to waste. 



That was a very dry season, and the streams had shrunk 

 so as to leave a wide margin everywhere, and all the shores 

 were completely tracked up by moose, bear and wolf, and 

 many other animals. Every night the wolves were howling 

 about us. One night while camped at the head of the pond 

 the pack had congregated nearly at the end of a big moose 

 path, and we gave them a shot from the two rifles and an old 

 musket carried by Johnny, which was loaded with buckshot. 

 In the morning we found blood and hair to show we had 

 warmed them. Our staples now gave out about the time we 

 set out to return, but in the two weeks we had lived a 

 hundred years, and it was the commencement of the life in 

 the woods for the writer. His companions, alas, have long 

 since gone to the happy hunting ground. Good men and 

 hunters, and generous, steadfast friends. Peace to their 

 manes. The return trip was devoid of startling events, only, 

 as we came in view of Bangor at set of sun, a fine deer 

 crossed the road out of a little clump of brush, cleared the 

 fence by several feet and was out of sight ere the rifles could 

 be gotten out of their covers. In those days deer were "thick 

 as hoppers" in the immediate vicinity of Bangor, but none 

 were found in the vicinity of Moosehead Lake, so I was in- 

 formed, nor were there many caribou. 



I forgot to state that on the boat, returning down the lake, 

 was a hunter-farmer from 'Suncook, having quite a large 

 bundle of moose hides, a calf moose which he shot that 

 morning in the river just below the "carry" and a magnifi- 

 cent set of antlers which he sold at Greenville for the then 

 munificent price of five dollars. 



About ten years ago, while camping on the Moluncus, I 

 met Sam Smith, of Veazie, a veteran hunter and lumberman. 

 We swapped yarns, as hunters will, and I related, among 

 other things, my trip as here given, dwelling, at length, on 

 the great number of moose I found. I was^ some in doubt 

 how he would receive it, but was relieved when he replied, 

 saying, "O, lordy! that's true enough. Why," said he, "I 

 was booming logs that very fall at the head of 'Suncook, 

 and one day in September, when moose were 'traveling up,' 

 I counted fifty-two, and wasn't looking for moose neither." 

 Sam, too, dear fellow, has gone to his rest to the deep regret 

 of many, and none who knew him will doubt the truth of 

 his statement. And what of that noble game? Alas! too, 

 going, going, and soon will be gone. 



Corporal Lot Warfield. 

 Camp Reynolds, N. B., May 1, 1886. 



NORTH CAROLINA DOINGS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As I carefully oil and clean my guns and lay them away, 

 recollections of the past season's shooting and outings crowd 

 upon me, and I feel like reviewing them and writing them 

 up, thus affording myself some pleasure in the retrospect, 

 and it may be a moment's relaxation to some of your readers. 



The past season's shooting has not been much for me to 

 brag of in the way of big bags or fine shots, though I have 

 managed to get lots of solid enjoyment and unalloyed happi- 

 ness out of it. My outings up to February, 1886, were more 

 numerous than usual, but game seems to have been educated 

 up to the point of being self -protecting; and this knowledge, 

 of which it avails itself by remaining in thick cover during 

 the best of the open season, when more guns are in the field 

 than at any other time (that is during December and Jan- 

 uary), together with our game laws, which are beginning to 

 be respected, promise us plenty of quail (or partridge) shoot- 

 ing for years to come. The birds were seemingly abundant 

 during the months of October and November, and some fine 

 bags were made; but in December and January they retired 

 from the fields and betook themselves to the depths of the 

 thickest and most impenetrable woods, and during those two 

 months one might do a great deal of hunting and have very 

 little shooting. Most of our local shots therefore retired 

 from the field, and very few birds were killed. In the 

 months of February and March I only made a few excur- 

 sions after birds and found them in abundance, but owing 

 to poor health on my part and the extremely robust condi- 

 tion of the birds, my game bag was but poorly filled ; so, 

 early in February I concluded to give it up, and only took 

 my dogs out a few times afterward to keep them under 

 control. Thus many healthy, fine birds have been saved over 

 to multiply for next season's shooting. 



During the early fall of 1S8^, together with some congenial 



