246 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 21, 1895. 



two days, and of seeking new ground in the direction of 

 his own previous efforts. 



A long tramp up the little mountain stream on which 

 we camped showed me that after he had gained distance 

 enough from camp he had turned straight up the moun- 

 tain. I saw into his little game immediately . He knew 

 what I had been so alow to learn, that the deer lay far up 

 the hillsides during the day, coming down to the plateau 

 only in the night. Many times before had I thought of 

 climbing higher, yet the possession of a leg rather too 

 weak for a mountain climber (which had been broken 

 twice in days long gone) had deterred me from the 

 attempt; yet as the two previous days' work had hard- 

 ened my muscles considerably, and as I had now grown 

 very grimly in earnest, I faced resolutely up the moun- 

 tain side like the Chinese Excelsior chap in the parody, 

 Man, man, one galo talkee he, 

 What for you go topside? look, see! 



Like the woodchuck youth, I was now after meat, re- 

 gardless of the question of legs. 



A toilsome climb up a mountain spur showed a changed 

 condition of affairs, and as the sign thickened fast and I 

 noted with delight that a strong and steady breeze, cold 

 as an iceberg, had now sprung up squarely in the face of 

 ray proposed route, it grew very evident that all things 

 were now turned in my direction. 



Never in all my mountain hunting have all conditions 

 accessory to the sport of deer hunting so conspired in my 

 favor as they did on that day. A perfect tracking snow, 

 a steady breeze in my face to drown the noise of my ad- 

 vance, and with deer sign everywhere. 



Soon a fine young buck came into view across the head 

 of a ravine, brush-filled and dense with cover, out of 

 which he sprang, and gaming a position on the open hill- 

 side stared back into the ravine with every appearance of 

 terror. 



What had frightened him I know not. Down he went 

 at the crack of my rifle, and hurriedly dressing him I 

 hung him up in the top of a young pine, bent over for the 

 occasion, and on gaining the top of the ridge beyond I 

 jumped another out of a fallen treetop not 75yds. from 

 me. 



As he dashed down a ravine I took a flying shot at him, 

 and a little cloud of hair flew from his shoulders; but with 

 unabated speed he ran on down the mountain for about 

 200yds., when his curiosity got the better of his fears and 

 he stopped to look at the enemy that had so rudely dis- 

 turbed his siesta. A very careful shot dropped him in- 

 stantly, and an examination showed that the first bullet 

 had shaved diagonally across bis shoulders, plowing a 

 deep furrow in his winter overcoat, but without breaking 

 the skin. This, now, was grand for a beginning; and a 

 further advance along the ridge of half a mile resulted in 

 a successful shot at a doe half hidden in a dense thicket. 

 Success was coming my way now with both arms loaded 1 



I grew strangely eager with accumulating good fortune, 

 and as I now heard shot after shot from my new partner 

 far up the stream, a fierce sort of pot-hunting resolve took 

 possession of me to get ahead of him if possible. 



There was not a fear of the possible wasting of a pound 

 of all the meat I could kill. Of that I was absolutely sure; 

 and as I knew that my time was short, from the fact that 

 we had learned only after our arrival in camp that the 

 mess chest which he had brought from home contained 

 scarcely material for his first day's food, I sprang in search 

 of fresh sign, resolved to stay for nothing but the coming 

 of night. 



I had a lunch in my pocket, but it was not eaten. My 

 ice-cold pipe bowl nestled in my pocket un warmed by fire 

 that day. I was, for the time being, a pot-hunter filled 

 with a fierce eagerness for a record; and when my last 

 shot had felled a magnificent doe just as the shades of 

 evening gathered too thick for another shot at the fawn 

 which ran from the fallen mother and stopped in the 

 thicket beyond, I found that I had jumped nine deer dur- 

 ing; the day, and that six of them had fallen before my 

 rifle — the biggest record I have ever made. 



Night had fallen among the hills, and I was miles from 

 camp. Soon as the stimulus of excitement was removed 

 my game leg protested warningly. Of the wearisome 

 exhausting tramp back to camp in the gathering gloom, 

 of the stumbling falls over snow-buried logs, brush and 

 snags, I will not tire the reader with the recital. One 

 thing still upheld me. I had heard Jesse's gun a dozen 

 times during the day and the anxiety as to his day's suc- 

 cess caused me to give slight heed to the almost total 

 exhaustion which possessed me as I greeted the welcome 

 blaze of the camp-fire. 



Tired as I was, I could not hide all my exultation. It 

 most have shone from my eyes as my partner greeted me 

 as I sank among the blankets with— "Well, you got one, 

 did you?" "Yes," I replied: and immediately evading 

 the subject I began slyly pumping him. 



It was easy to start him talking of himself, and my 

 secret delight may be imagined when I found that he had 

 killed only one deer during the day. 



For an hour or more I fought shy of the questioning of 

 the excited boys, and listened with malicious pleasure to 

 the anticipated account to be given of his triumph upon 

 returning to town. I enjoyed it thoroughly; indeed I 

 should have kept him at it much longer, but the questions 

 of the boys finally became so insistent that the truth had 

 to come out. 



Poor Jesse! One glance at him was enough to make 

 me ashamed of my triumph. His face turned perfectly 

 blank and lengthened visibly. Of course there was 

 nothing now for me but to praise his skill, and insist 

 upon nothing myself. Vexed as I had been over the silly 

 affair, I could not help feeling sorry for him. 



That day was spent in hauling in the dead deer, and on 

 the following morning the sled was packed for the return 

 to town. In adjusting the load a queer fancy took posses- 

 sion of us to display our game in unique style. Piled 

 among the dunnage of the camp were the nine deer in 

 suqh a manner that each one of the thirty-six tan-colored 

 legs stuck up from the surface until the sleigh looked like 

 a corpulent "thousand-legged worm" turned feet upper- 

 most. It really looked bewildering and suggested almost 

 any possibility. 



"How many have you got, Jess?" yelled the first man 

 we met as we glided swiftly by. 



"Only eighteen!" shouted Jess. Orin Belknap. 



The Forest and Stub am is put to press each week on Tuesday, 

 Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 

 latest by Monday, and as much earlier as practicable. 



WOODLAND NOTES. 



The observant visitor to the woods will find many con- 

 vincing indications that autumn, a season ever glorious, 

 is surely and truly with us. Already many significant 

 changes are observable. The autumnal insect chorus, 

 ever mournful, yet soothing to the tired sportsman, is 

 heard in never-ending billows of sound throughout the 

 night. There is a strange, weird undertone to the music 

 furnished by this woodland orchestra, broken only by the 

 sharp strident voice of the katydid, that is irresistibly fas- 

 cinating to the wanderer afield after nightfall. This 

 sleep-inviting monotone of tiny voices, this thrumming 

 and tuning, fiddling and fluting, these trombone solos in 

 minor kpy, are marvels of tireless musical energy. Be- 

 neath it all there is a lesson freighted with messages of 

 moment to mankind , if mankind will only incline its ear 

 and pause. 



Then the birds. How shy and retiring is the robin. No 

 longer does he pose as the gay and exuberant Beau Brum- 

 mel of the garden walk, essaying a cheery snatch of song 

 at the magic hour of sunrise. 



He is big and fat and a bit riotous in behavior, given to 

 thrashing about among the catbriars with his fellows and 

 then flitting away to the sequestered retreats of a near-by 

 tree at one's approach, as though he felt a trifle ashamed 

 of himself. The woodthrush is silent. Occasionally 

 the catbird shrieks in surly alto. The cuckoo, always a 

 bird of charmingly easy flight, daily increases the length 

 of his aerial voyages. The oriole, ardent wooer when the 

 year was young and tricked out in its attire of elegant 

 green, has made his final staggering flight and disap- 

 peared. In glen and dale and on carpeted hillside the 

 feathered battalions revel in general training days prepar- 

 atory to the approaching southward journey. No longer 

 pastmasters in the art of song and of love-making, they 

 have become the silent, retiring occupants of the wood- 

 land intent only on looking after the more serious inter- 

 ests of life. Unmistakably the bird life of the woods be- 

 speaks the fainter pulse beats of the season. 



Then, too, there is an autumnal glamour in the woods 

 and a touch of faded green on the trees. 



The green, robust aspect of the woods is no longer ap- 

 parent. No new growth of wood is visible. The iron- 

 wood tree flaunts leaves of the primrose hue. Patches of 

 umber glint among the chestnut trees, while traces of 

 radiant lake colors, from deep to light, linger along the 

 outermost branches of the sturdy oak. Gorgeous color 

 effects, sure to be intensified a few weeks later, illumin- 

 ate the deep recesses of the woodlands. Adown shady 

 lanes and into dark, cool byways the sun pierces with 

 daily lengthening gleams. Soon he will hurl his shafts of 

 warmth into the deepest and gloomiest copse. The 

 sumacs are aflame and the hickories are resplendent in the 

 first rare garniture of autumn. Ripe and fast ripening 

 seeds confront one on every hand. The stock paths are 

 no longer fresh trodden and sparkling with generous 

 splashes of vivid green. They are hard and dusty and 

 travel-stained. Into the tangled thickets they plunge, 

 flecked with berry stains and little burrows of dust, where 

 perchance the wood dove, in his Quaker outfit, has taken 

 his dirt bath. The little streams that wind and twist and 

 writhe about, noisy and ceaselessly scolding in early sum- 

 mer, have dwindled to faintly murmuring ribbons of 

 water. The clematis, twirling around the gracefully 

 swaying elm, is fading into a sad reminder of its once 

 lovely self. A prophecy of "sere and yellow leaf," of 

 golden maturity, burdens the air. The luxurious verdure 

 of midsummer has given way to the September witchery 

 of the woods. 



To the sportsman who invades the mellow, gold-tinged 

 retreats, of the woodlands in search of the gray knight of 

 the treetop performing his feats of daring on the far- 

 reaching branch of a towering hemlock, or in quest of the 

 noble grouse or the swift-speeding hare, these suggestive 

 forebodings of the season's decline convey a lesson of the 

 "eternal fitness of things," to which the most stoical will 

 find himself impelled to respond. M. Chill. 



Ithaca, N. Y. 



THE OUTING OF SIX.-IV. 



The Desert and the Timber Reserve. 

 Passing through the Kanab field, where the farmers 

 were busy with their hay, we reached the edge of the 

 desert. Mr. Stewart had not yet left town, so we drove 

 slowly, collecting as we went. Four miles from Kanab 

 we crossed a little ridge — the boundary line between Utah 

 and Arizona. Before us was a solitary butte where the 

 gray of the shinarump conglomerate capped the rich 

 maroon of the peruvian; and beyond that an oasis in the 

 sand and sagebrush, the little settlement of Fredonia. 

 After a traveler comes to know this country a barometer 

 is unnecessary in determining relative altitude. Geolog- 

 ical formations and changes in timber are the best guides 

 for elevation. 



At Fredonia we watered our horses and put a keg of 

 water on each buckboard. We had at least 25 miles to 

 travel before reaching the next spring. Soon our guide 

 caught us and until 3 o'clock we journeyed in a general 

 southerly direction. The journey would have been 

 monotonous were it not for the viewB of distant moun- 

 tains and for variations in the flora. The prevailing gray 

 of the white sage is relieved by the fragrant Coiuania 

 mexicana, by cactus orchards in full bloom and by scores 

 of more humble plants that in another two weeks will be 

 as dry and dead as the sand that supports them. 



In the middle of the afternoon the low line of cedars 

 that we have seen bef oralis for hours is reached and at 

 ' 'Cedar Knoll" we make a dry lunch camp. After we had 

 disposed of our canned salmon, bread and (somewhat 

 stale) water, I climbed the knoll and viewed the magnifi- 

 cent panorama to the north. Far to the west was Mt. 

 Trumbull and beyond and above it the faint outlines of 

 what I supposed to be the Pine Valley range. On the 

 east the view was bounded by the white cretaceous walls 

 of the Paria. In front and opposite extended the famous 

 Pipe Springs promontory, and back of that to the very 

 crest of the lofty plateaus extended in their characteristic 

 colors each geological period and group from Permian 

 base to Upper Cocene, each well defined except the Creta- 

 ceous, which was hidden in a mass of tolus ,and somber 

 pines. From Cedar Knoll our course lay westward rather 

 than south, as we paralleled and approached the Little 

 Buckskin range. Here Mr. Stewart and I left the rest of 

 the party and plunged into a little caflon, reaching one of 

 his sheep cabins about dark and rejoining the outfit at 



Warm Springs about 11 o'clock. The cafion was so black 

 and the trail so washed out that we had almost to feel our 

 way. At Warm Springs the water was poor, but it was so 

 good by contrast with that which we afterward drank 

 that it now leaves a pleasant taste. In the troughs for 

 watering the cattle, Andrew, Perry, Collie and Ted took 

 a midnight bath. I was too tired to indulge and Doc was 

 sick. The sudden change of water and altitude produced 

 serious results and before we returned to Kanab all but 

 Andrew were victims to the malady, and of course our 

 journey was not nearly as enjoyable as it had been here- 

 tofore. 



Thursday morning we rode up Warm Springs Canon to 

 Rigg's cabin. Our way was through the carboniferous 

 platform, the main Buckskin range being on our left, the 

 Little Buckskins on the right and the faulting more ap- 

 parent than we had seen it before. The eastern side 

 showed the gray of the Upper Aubrey, the hard, cross- 

 bedded sandstones and the brilliant-ribboned red of 

 Lower Aubrey. It was a rare day for the collecting of 

 typical fossils. In elevation we climbed from 6,200ft. to 

 7,400ft., and the junipers and mountain mahoganies were 

 succeeded by long-leaved pines and a few spruces. About 

 10 o'clock we passed Naegle's ranch, where a spring 

 bursting from the hillside makes possible the cultivation 

 of about twenty acres. But from Warm Springs until 

 we reached Point Sublime the country was absolutely 

 ' 'sheeped" out. It was more barren than the desert itself, 

 and where Capt. Dutton describes the parks as rich with 

 knee-deep grasses each wind now blows the barren sand. 

 It seems a shame that in that grand and picturesque 

 Timber Reserve sheep and cattle should entirely destroy 

 grass and undergrowth. Already the effect is noticeable 

 in deficient rainfall, and unless Uncle Sam interferes the 

 results will be serious to both Utah and Arizona. Only in 

 caflon cliffs and beneath the densest timber of the higher 

 ridges could we botanize with any degree of satisfaction. 

 On this particular morning we found as characteristics of 

 the rocky ledge flora the willow ash (Fraxinus anomala, 

 Torr.) and the mission berry (Berberw fremontii, Torr.). 

 The local name "mission berry" was given by the early 

 Mormon missionaries whom its fruit is said to have saved 

 from starvation. 



At Rigg's cabin we gathered several species of mammi- 

 laria, eoMnocactus, cereus and ojmntia, and the pines 

 seemed to be the favorite haunts of wrens and nut- 

 hatches. Here, too, were great ground squirrels and a 

 few porcupines. In the afternoon we left the beaten trail, 

 and chopping trees and driving over fallen timber, we 

 crossed several of the highest ridges of the Little Buck- 

 skin at an elevation of 8,200ft., and under the firs and 

 spruces we found many botanical rarities. Most of these 

 I have not had time to classify, but that rare orchid 

 Cor alio rMza macraei, Gray, was identified as soon as 

 found. That night we camped with Uncle John's sheep 

 herd at Bee Springs, and as he intended moving camp, 

 Andrew and I walked on Friday to Pareahshewaupats 

 (Elk-spring-in-the-midst-of-the-woods), Collie was quite 

 sick and I felt under the weather, but believed that I 

 could walk off the malady. None of us were feeling in 

 first-rate condition. Even the horses were getting thin 

 on a sheep camp diet. 



Andrew and I learned by our morning walk how easy 

 it is to get lost in the Buckskins. There are no landmarks 

 but a succession of similar pine-clad hills and open glades. 

 Wherever the sheep had not been there were plenty of 

 deer signs and once we got within 10yds. of a sleeping 

 doe. When we reached Pareahshewaupats the sheep and 

 camp were already there. We were within two miles of 

 the "Breaks," where we had every reason to believe deer 

 were to be found and so an early hunt was on the docket 

 for next morning. Saturday was my miserable day; 

 headache and cramps and a touch of mountain fever. 

 There was no hunting for me, but Ted and Andrew were 

 off before daylight and returned at 7 o'clock with a fine 

 buck. Again Andrew was the lucky one. They had 

 seen many more, but wanted only enough meat for camp. 

 They had been to the brink of the cafion and had seen the 

 grandest of sunrises. Their glowing tales made such an 

 impression that after breakfast Doc, Perry and Coilie each 

 mounted a horse, took a rifle and started for deer. We 

 thought they would return in about two hours, so we 

 packed the buckboards, changed the papers on our plants 

 and waited. Noontide came and 1 o'clock, but no boys. 

 We unpacked and got dinner, still no signs of Doc. It 

 was almost 4 o'clock when they did reach camp and then 

 they came by the direction opposite to the one whence 

 they set out. They had another deer. Doc had frightened 

 it and Perry killed it. We had no time to skin it, so it 

 was strapped with the other carcass on a buckboard and 

 we set out for Dry Park through the blazed timber. We 

 saw where the boys had lost themselves in the morning 

 and had it not been for Perry's knowledge of woodcraft 

 they might yet be searching for Pareahshewaupats. 



Our route lay through the highest part of the Little 

 Mountain and it was dark when we made camp. I had 

 to get into the blankets before supper was ready, but 

 Andrew and Doc spent the night in jerking the venison 

 and when morning came there was a gunny-sack of meat 

 that lasted until our return home. The water at Dry 

 Park was horrible and we were glad to get away from 

 the spot. 



Early Sunday morning we were packed and away. I 

 felt much better and really enjoyed the scenery and the 

 mountain air. We drove two miles eastward and then 

 turned abruptly to the south. In a hundred yards every 

 able-bodied man was handling an axe, and before we had 

 gone a quarter of a mile the trail was found to be abso- 

 lutely impassable. The buckboards were lifted around 

 and we headed back for the camp of the previous night. 

 Under a spruce tree we halted, while our guide went off 

 to find a trail over which he had traveled some eight 

 years before. It was 1 o'clock before our final start was 

 made, and then for four hours we had an up-hill climb, 

 chopping our way and lifting logs, going up, with snow- 

 banks on either hand, until at 5 o'clock we were on the 

 summit of the Buckskin Mountains, more than 9,000ft. 

 above the sea level. 



From this point it was but a short distance to De Motte 

 Park, through which we rapidly drove. Before this park 

 was eaten off, with its broad meadowland and noble sur- 

 rounding of firs and spruces, it must have been one of 

 the most beautiful natural parks in the world. Now the 

 hundreds of cattle had destroyed the grass to the very 

 roots, but in many places the soil was covered with acres 

 of moss pinks (phlox) that filled the air with their per- 

 fume, Passing to the south end of Little De Motte Park 



