482 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 13, 1887. 



Address all comimw/icatimis to the Forest and St/ream, Pub. Co. 



A DAY OF DECEPTIONS. 



TERRITORIAL nobility among the Normans is clothed 

 with the glamom- of distance. The man severely 

 scientific, who seeks the origin and gi'OAvth of things, can 

 find a similar idea developed among our own frontiers- 

 men, in spite of the fulmmations of the Constitution. 

 Heroes of imagination (too often their own imagination), 

 such as Jim Baker or Joe Biidger, have arrived, indeed, 

 a,t that eminence of rank which is distinguished by a 

 free use of the Clmstian name, as is seen in the European 

 examples of William Rufus, Rob Roy or Julius G^sar, 

 but the height of renown is gained in the West Avhen 

 some aspiring hunter gets a "hole" named after him. 

 The eponym of "Jones's Hole," for instance, goes down to 

 history in connection with as large and, perhaps, in the 

 future, as important a tract of land as John of Ga,unt or 

 William of Nassavi. 



For the word hole is elastic. The puncture of a pin 

 is thus called, and the opening at the North Pole, 

 which leads to the inhabited regions in the center of 

 the earth, is called after its discoverer or inventor, 

 "Symmes's Hole" — hut with the possible excei)tion of this 

 last, which has not been exactly measured, the largest 

 regular holes in the world are those which in the Rocky 

 Mormtains carry some trapper's name. Group together 

 the holes of Burns, Brady, Jones and the rest, and we 

 have a mighty State. Taken sei^arately, each is as large 

 as a Dakota county. For in the West, where things are 

 broadly d*one, if the people once give you a hole, it will 

 be no petty sink, but the valley of a gxeat stream, fed by 

 many tril)utaries, holding within its borders peaks and 

 ranges of its own, and only requu-ed to be separated from 

 the rest of tlie country by a mountain wall or a clear-cut 

 watershed. Such is Jones's Hole, on one of the tribiitaries 

 of the Missouri. 



Probably the depression is twenty miles long and ten 

 miles wide. As you approach the region you see across 

 the rim of the rolling sage-gro^svu mesa a vast pyramid of 

 grayish white color, four-sided and regular nearly to its 

 base, so as to look like the work of the lifetime of" a van- 

 ished race. Further on a great bare butte juts into the 

 basin, with only a few groups of stunted trees to relieve 

 its dusty glare. You are amid typical bad lands, where 

 tlie few' trees are but withered dwarfs, where the scanty 

 grasses fail to cloak the yellow clay that cHngs to yom- 

 foot like a fetter wlien even a little moist. Far down 

 near the mouth of the creek rises an isolated mass of ter- 

 tiary strata, whittled into a thousand sharp and spindling 

 forms by the recurrent storms of many ages. If you are 

 a lover of Lowell you think of Ms comparison of the 

 Milan Cathedral — 



"where Milan's pale Duomo liee, 

 A stranded glacier on the plain; 

 Its peaks ai\d pinnacles of ice 

 Glittering with many a rare device." 

 The strata axe tertiary, and that I know, because 

 friend who is acquainted with Brontotheiidcn found one 

 there. Perhaps he said the strata were cretaceous. In 

 that case they are so; but as this cathedral seems to have 

 been built "not for an age, but for aU time," we will not 

 date its origin too precisely. 



Now comes the incident to which the above description 

 is but a prelude. 



We were three. West, long chief of the Crow scouts. 

 Bird, a scientist whose light is veiled only by the bushel 

 of his own modesty, and myself, sometimes known as the 

 Miner, because of my abortive attempts to grow rich in 

 that calling. My two companions, hardened and expert 

 hrmters, smilingly watched me missing, or perhaps now 

 and then bagging, an antelope. My intemperate zeal 

 pleased them. They could remember shooting at those 

 things themselves, but regarding antelope now as mere 

 lumber equivalent to jack rabbits, with an unpleasant 

 musky taste, they reserved their shot for the blacktail, 

 whose country we were invading; and to say the truth, 

 when the deer were found they got them. 



We had wandered down the rim of Jones's Hole till at 

 last we camped in a neighboring bottom not far from the 

 Cathedral Butte. 



Away across the river beyond the rolling sage prairie 

 beyond the limestone ridges with their cedar groves, rose 

 the sloping hues of the water shed opposite. 



The stream, hidden in a deep, naiTOw gash, showed no 

 break in the sweep of the strata. The broad, upturned 

 g(jgeg — red, yellow and brown — stretched from one crest 

 to another, wth not a line or shadow to show tlie distant 

 spectator where the crack opened for the river to pass. 

 Really the canon ran through the heart of a lofty, naked 

 hiU. For 2,000ft. the narrow wall rose over the water, 

 which crept along so hidden by fallen boulders that one 

 could catch no sparkle of the current— a grand and im- 

 imssable gorge; but this we faUed to see because of the 

 want of signs visible from afar. 



I myself rode off toward theriverin the afternoon, while 

 the others looked for game: but the sun dropped faster and 

 faster toward the hills, the increasing wind blew colder 

 and colder, and I turned to joia the hunters and help them 

 perhaps to pack home a deer. 



As I neared the Cathedi-al Butte a shot came echoing up 

 from the steep, cliff -girt valley, seeming to grow louder 

 and louder and then dying again, like batteries fired in 

 succession down the line of a long army. 



I hastened to the verge, and after some time saw a 

 daxk object on all fours. It seemed a bear mangling its 

 •prey. Now and then it would rise erect and stand for a 

 monient, then busy itself with the victim on the gi'ound. 

 At so great a distance it was safe to fire, safe, in fact, for 

 us both; but being anxious not to run the risk of f righten- 

 ing a friend, I took another look and decided that my 

 bear was West cleanixrg a deer. 



The ground between us could be traversed only by a 

 bird or goat, but I tried to shout a few questions and 

 thought that the hoarse echoes brought intelligent replies. 

 In the light of future events, I must admit that the an- 

 swers Avere framed out of idle wind by my own fancy. 



With a parting shout, pieced out by pantomime, I in- 

 formed my friend that I would fetch a compass, go 

 around the butte and come down on the other side. 

 This was managed by spuriing my pony up to the divide 

 . behind and then pulling him doAvn the steep opposite in- 



cline by the bridle. He didn't want to follow me, but 

 the friable soU gave him no firm hold, and by a gentle 

 pull I could start him sliding. 



In this way we made the circuit of the entire butte, 

 but when the other side was reached there was no deer 

 visible and no hunter, while my pony, perched on the 

 cliff side, looked almost as unsupported as a bu-d. At 

 last, far down the gulch, I saw a man moving, and him 

 I haUed: "Have you got a deer?" "Yes," broke out from 

 the hillside, with tlie tone of a cannon. Now, West is 

 not a lai-ge man for all his strength, and as he was a 

 mile away, I was the more struck by the power of the 

 sound. And now back and forth were bandied question 

 and reply, as I sought to find where the deer lay. The 

 answers were always swelled to a small-volumed thunder 

 by the time they reached me, though at times a little 

 indistinct. Meanwhile West had gone from sight, leaving 

 only his bodiless voice on the premises, as I thought; but 

 as I had been instructed that tlie deer lay near me, and 

 as he thought of taking the game home on his back if I 

 could not laring my horse down, I summoned a proper 

 pride, jerked the bridle and slid round a projecting point 

 witb my horse at my heels. And there, not one hun- 

 dred yards from the place whence I had been bawHng, 

 lay the deer and its slayer, not W^estat all, but Bird, who, 

 as well as I, had been keejiing up a colloquy, as he 

 thought, with the distant West, while the latter, who at 

 times had us both in view, was partly puzzled and partly 

 amused at our game of cross-ijurposes. 



It was very dark when we got to camp with that deer. 

 The wind was stronger and colder than ever, so that our 

 prospects of sleep were poor, but West, with an energy 

 equal to so good a cause, set us to work raising the tent, 

 and after a stout struggle with the wind om- house was 

 built and our peace secure. H. G-. Dulog. 



"BIKE." 



rT now becomes my duty to write the second and last 

 chapter of his story; the fii'st one of which appeared 

 in these columns a few weeks ago.* It is with a feeling 

 of sadness and remorse that I recall my part in his ex- 

 perience. And if there is aught in his story to lessen my 

 regret, it is the circumstance which first excited the 

 emotion within me — his illness and untimely death. His 

 short life is a sermon in behalf of the heart's affections, 

 whose mute eloquence must always appeal to those who 

 knew him best and who brought him away from his own 

 people, never to do the like again. Dming'Ms last iUuess, 

 wliich lasted through a fortnight, he Avas well cared for 

 by almost his best friend, Dr. Keith, who was Avith Mm 

 often after his condition became serious, and Avho did all 

 that a kind but misguided physician could to save him. 

 I say misg-uided, because of an incident of the night 

 before he was attacked by his severe symy>toms. It had 

 not yet occurred to me that a bear could desire anything 

 more than a life of pampered captivity in St. Louis. It 

 Avas late, and everybody had gone home, when I, on my 

 way tMther, dropped through the Chib House to the 

 tennis coui-ts to see liim. There was a suspicion of rain 

 in the atmosphere, and many clouds were in the sky, con- 

 stantly obscuring the moon in their feverish haste toward 

 some tempestuous rendezvous. I found him hastily, 

 nervously pacing the semi-circular track Ms feet had 

 worn so smooth at the end of his chain, now and then 

 giving expression to his feelings in a suppressed whimper 

 like that a child makes in some lasting pain or grief. 

 And when he saAv me he straggled to his feet and strained 

 at his chain until I reached him, when he put Ms paAvs in 

 mine, pointed his sharp muzzle upward as he looked 

 searchingly at me, and gave vent to a howl that was half 

 a moan of sorrow and half a sob of comfort at seeing a 

 familiar face above htm, and feeling a famihar hand on 

 his woolly pate, I had expected to go out there a minute 

 and say, "HeUo! Bikey, old feUoAv; how's yom- stomach?" 

 —that AA'onderfully elastic and abnormally distended 

 organ being a constant source of wonder and amusement 

 to us— and then go home; but there was something in the 

 tone of his voice that night that stopped me, and I stood 

 there a long Avhile without speaking, the silence being 

 broken oMy by some straggling raindrops and his short 

 and plaintive whimperings. 



And while my eyes sought the moving sky, my mind, 

 moved by that strange alchemy AvMch sometimes extends 

 its influence over man and beast, rendering the confusion 

 of tongues betAAdxt them of no avaU in the presence of a 

 syiiipathy that bridges their intelligence together, betook 

 itself to the mountains, up, up miles above the Vermejo 

 Plaza, imtil there arose against the sky the ghostly out- 

 line of a mountain, the crevices of Avhose summit held 

 banks of snow, but whose sides held many a sheltered 

 patch of grass and willows. And down its side in one of 

 those luxuriant fields, my mind's eye perceived a group 

 of clumsy, velvety animals disporting themselves in the 

 moonlight, snortiiig and sniffing in the cool and rarified 

 night, in that contentment which, it seems to me, reigns 

 noAAiiere on earth but over wild beasts safe from mankind 

 and hunger, Apart from the large forms I thought I saw 

 two little babv bears— children bears— m a little nest they 



sluggish and distrait, and many a warm-hearted girl— his 

 friend — deplored the unwonted indifference to the apple 

 she had brought him, sadly turning away to her work 

 with the wish that physicians, who know the art of heal- 

 ing, also possessed the' power to save life. 



But the Arabs of the desert say that there are two days 

 when it is useless to arm oiu-selves against death: the day 

 when God orders Azreel to strike us, and the day when 

 he forbids him to approach us. And to-day orders had 

 been given him, so that,, in through the oj'cn. door, past 

 the groups of gentle women, perhaps vnstling a rose-hued 

 ribbon here and there, came Azreel upon his mission. 



And up in the Mgh mountain fields the little children 

 bears again absorbed themselves in childish glee, and 

 beside the little boy bear and the little girl bear, his sister, 

 there was a little tame bear from the Ioav country, a little 

 oi^phan, cousin bear, and may the God of bears rest his 

 soul and give iiim a life of never-ending play! 



In his death, the club lost its most miregencrate mem- 

 ber. Precept and example, threat axid entreaty, had aUke 

 proved futile in Ms behalf. Selfish, greedy, irascible, 

 quarrelsome, and even now and then danacrinis, lie left 

 beMnd Mm the paradoxical spectacle of a N\ i(]e group of 

 disconsolate friends. Never before had Satan succeeded 

 in makiog vice so lovely. A smgle virtue \vould have 

 rendered it possible for us to forget Mm, one noble deed 

 for us to have traduced him. Ahriman. 



St. Louis, Mo. 



A WOOD ROAD. 



IN an unfrequented, desolate place, a cart road branches 

 off from the highway and plunges into the forest, to 

 degenerate into an abandoned woodpath, a brace of tm- 

 kempt, strolling wheel ti-acks that ramble on together 

 over all sorts of obstacles and into all manner of inacces- 

 sible places, with an utter Avant of regard for the propor- 

 tions of any vehicle that might choose to follov,-. 



First among chips and stumps and tangled imderbrush 

 into a groAvth of saplings, where they thread their way 

 Avith increasing difiiculty among the encroaching stems, 

 for here and there a little one has foimd a footing in the 

 pathAvay, and the larger ones are pressing forward to 

 weaA^e an overarching grasp and question the right of 

 Avay. Then clattering recklessly doAAm the hillside, they 

 enter the solemn, deep-toned Avoods, and go jolting cau- 

 tiously over stony places, or sinking along thrt^ugh fern- 

 fringed, loamy ruts, that sometimes stray among patches 

 of perennial green, or crush tlirough l ieds of woodland 

 hemes; then turn aside to avoid a boulder, glide under a 

 fallen log, and disappear in a dark, glassy pool that holds 

 a miniature forest in its bosom. Emerging all blaclc and 

 dripping, their identity is lost for a time Avhere a pile of 

 brush was strewn to cordirroy tlie swamp. 



There is a place w^here the forest ch-aws back on either 

 hand from a pleasant inteiwale that stretches away toward 

 the foot of the hiUs, where a brook comes hm-rying 

 through, SAveepmg past beneath a primitive bridge of logs. 

 In the autumn it has time to pause, and then comes back, 

 rising higher and Mgher, till the cranberry meadows are 

 all a Avinter lake. 



There are long sunny stretclies, Avith endless perspec- 

 tives, among the pmes, where the wind in the topmost 

 branches is quietly strcAving a carpet to mend the gaps 

 where the ruts expose the stratified layers of years. The 

 vast, funereal silence that dAvells here reigns so supremely 

 that every movement of Nature is hushed in so strained a 

 stillness you might almost hear the footsteps of Time, save 

 Avhen a muffled flight of wings rises in the distance. No 

 life is visible, but there are traces among the roots and 

 stones where some shrewd-nosed creature has been bur- 

 rowing. 



The journey ends in a deep solitude where some slight 

 CAidence still remains that the hand of man was Active 

 here many years before. No trace of a dwelling is seen, 

 but down'in a hoUoAV some few relics remain of a former 

 attempt at a New England orchard. Tlie boundary wall, 

 which once kept out the advancing forest, has tumbled 

 before the onslaughts of successive generations of youth- 

 ful nimrods, and now tlie fruit trees mingle Avith the 

 native growth in democratic confusion. The former, 

 however, are sadly in the minority, and many have given 

 up the struggle for existence, to lay themselves down a 

 pile of crmnbling branches. 



Some few in favored spots are keepmg up a show of 

 former prosperity and the topmost branches are flauutmg 

 their slrriveled fruit, but a numerous progeny of suckling 

 shoots crowding about the parent stem are threatemng 

 to absorb its little remaining vitality. 



One spreadmg monarch, the patriarch of them all, has 

 long been dying by inches, till now he stands from sheer 

 force of habit. The sap receding from Ms ancient frame 

 left the limbs to be stripped and mutilated by the wood 

 bu-ds hke vultures around a wounded carcass. Altogether 

 a melancholy spectacle. Jefferson Scribe. 



TRAVELS IN BOON GAH ARRAHBIGGEE. 



FROM THE DIARY OF JOSEPH GOATER. 



had there in the grass, roUmg over and over each other m 

 mimic semblance of snarling rage, from undernealh 

 which surface play there came a steady stream of bearish 

 hilarity. And the little she bear that bit and scratched 

 the harder, making her brother the more realistic in his 

 rage, Avas Avell nigh hysterical in her delight, and the little 

 he bear, thus reduced" to anger, became fairly intoxicated 

 in his glee. , . 



And all at once, when these happy little bears, moved 

 by a common instinct, had at lengih scampered over to 

 their dam Avhose udders called for their unctuous atten- 

 tions, tMs little bear of ours, givrag a destdtory side bite 

 at my trousers, made me look down at him standing there 

 against me on his groggy legs, shivering, tAvitcliing, per- 

 plexed, awed by the mystery of some pain that was mak- 

 ing Mm suffer. " For pain afflicts Avith double severity 

 those who have not only been unused to it themselves, 

 but whose ancestors were strangers to it. And the little 

 bears in beaiiaud faded away and I involuntarily ex- 

 claimed, "Poor little devil !" and after a >rhile left him. 



The next afternoon a great many ladies were at the 

 club. Some plaving tennis outside, Avhile others inside 

 helped brothers'^ and husbands to gaily decorate their 

 cycles with parti-colored riblx)nds and Japanese lanterns 

 in preparation for the morrow's parade. And little Bike, 

 stretched out on the mat in the gymnasium, appeared 



*T'oB.EST ANB Stream, Oct. 7, 18S6. 



EDITEl) BY F. H. TBMPtB BEtiiEW. 



(Continued.) 



* * * \/l7ITH the exception of the huge plantigrade T 

 VV had so fortunately depatched with a smgie 

 shot in the eye rmder the palisades, we had not so far 

 met Avith any beasts of great ferocity or size, stiU we kept 

 a sharfi lookout in all our excm-sions against surprises, 

 not knoAving what might turn ui> at any moment. In- 

 deed there were vague traditions among the native 

 islanders, of huge and dangerous monsters someAvhere in 

 the region, lying further north. It seemed that then ig- 

 norance of this part of the country was attributable to a 

 dread of encountering some enemies with Avhom they 

 were unable to cope, and it was only then unboimded faith 

 in the Little Goorta (myeelf ) and Ms fire sticks (rifles) 

 that gave them confidence to venture so far as they had 

 ah-eady done. The mainlrmd natives, of whom I had 

 only two Avith inv presr nt d"ia.:iimenl. not having any 

 traditions, though far lt..s ' ourageous and efiicient than 

 the others, had no special fears, on the principle of the 

 old sea captain's motto, '-Them as knoAvs nothin' fear> 

 nothin'." . , ^, ^ , - c 



We did not make many excm-sions to that hive or am- 

 mal life, the cliffs, having so many other places to explore 

 in different directions; but I fully intended before leaving 

 the neighborhood to make a thorough inspection of this 

 colony, taking with me my warriors in full fighting rig, 



