FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 12, 1896. 



fuss; but a few more such thumpings as this fellow got 

 may teach him better sense." 



XIV. 



"In all the trade of war, no feat 

 Is nobler than a brave retreat." 



"Exhausted nature seeks repose," said the Doctor, as he 

 crawled into bed. And nature must have asserted her 

 rights with the boys (except possibly One Lung), for they 

 were soon all asleep. And they slept right soundly too, 

 all night, notwithstanding the somewhat restless condi- 

 tion of affairs outside. However, the previous night's 

 experience had taught the marauders to be a little more 

 considerate in their conduct and general deportment. 



The peep of dawn Sunday morning found the boys well 

 along on the trail that led down to the main camp. And, 

 it being all down hill, they reached camp before 10 o'clock 

 A. M, The mules had stuck to the sweet bottom grass of 

 Fish Creek, and seemed perfectly satisfied to spend the 

 balance of their days there. As the boys had anticipated, 

 however, an investigating committee of bears had been 

 in camp and had either eaten or despoiled everything 

 but the canned goods and One Lung's Nordenfelt. 



But then the boys didn't care much, for there was less 

 to carry out. 



A hearty lunch and a couple of hours' rest prepared them 

 for a very pleasant afternoon with the Dolly Varden, 

 rainbow and black spotted denizens of Roaring River, in 

 which sport the whole camp participated. 



And when night came and they had completed their 

 arrangements for an early start home Monday morning, 

 it scarcely need be recorded that the boys all slept soundly 

 and sweetly. Success begets contentment, and content- 

 ment begets sleep. Even One Lung slept the gentle sleep 

 of tired innocence. He had outlived more than a whole 

 week's exposure to all the dangers of the Roaring River 

 country and his scalp seemed to sit even closer than ever 

 to his head this Sunday night; for he was very tired, and 

 reaction from his severe nervous strain had already set in. 

 He had worked hard ; had gone into the elk country with 

 the other boys and had even carried the antlers of a forest 

 monarch down from those dreary realms and was still 

 alive and — tired. Weariness is a wonderful narcotic. 



Monday morning, when the last stake had been drawn, 

 the last hitch been taken on the packs, the last long, 

 lingering look taken at the ashes of the old camp-fire, and 

 the cavalcade had right-about-faced for home, all the boys 

 — yes, even the mules — joined in One Lung's song: "No 

 more fun I" S. H. Greene. 



Portland, Oregon. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



A Dakota Chicken Hunt. 



Chicago, 111., Oct. 5.— As I was saying, a week or so 

 ago, I was anxious to meet my old friend the prairie 

 chicken, and to kill him and be sorry for it. So 1 went 

 aboard the N. P. train at St. Paul one evening and the 

 next morning was in Fargo, N. D., and a few moments 

 later was talking with Clint Smith, who once upon a time 

 had asked me to come up for a hunt. 



"We got thiriy-six the last time we were out," said 

 Clint, "three guns of us. Of course, that isn't very many, 

 but we can promise you those six birds which you say 

 will be enough for you. And, moreover, I think I can 

 show you your old iriend the chicken dog, too." This 

 seemed to me to be good enough for anybooy, so I hung 

 my hat up in Fargo for a while. 



Clint Smith is the village blacksmith, and though his 

 shop isn't under a spreading chestnut tree, because they 

 only have cottonwoods mostly in the Red River valley, it 

 is none the less a gathering place for children, boys and 

 men, who hang about the lorges and take delight in 

 watching the sparks fly lrom the red iron. In my belief, 

 every man ought to have a trade, something that he can 

 do with his hands. The wealth of the world is produced by 

 the men who can do something with their hands. They 

 dig it out, and the fellows who don't try to work with 

 their bauds try to take it away from them, being them- 

 selves mostly robbers and parasites, who have no real 

 right to live, since they do not add to the total of wealth 

 and comforts. If I could only begin over agam, I should 

 not be a blacksmith — in journalism, but a blacksmith in 

 fact. It must be such a comfort to be able to lam the 

 everlasting life out of a piece of iron when you get hot at 

 something or other. And then there is a dignity to any 

 finished product in iron which does not pertain to any 

 other metal. Gold and silver are the metals of women, 

 children and Hebrews, but iron has always been the 

 metal for a man. Look at Clint Smith's arms, for in- 

 stance. What dumb bells would do that? 



"I don't know why it is," said Clint, as he hammered 

 away at a horseshoe he was making for a white-eyed 

 pinto that had to have a rope twisted on his upper lip be- 

 lore he would engage in thought deeply enough to stand 

 still, "I never did know why it is that ever> body seems 

 to like to hang around a blacksmith shop. My friends 

 come in and sit here by hours watching me pound horse- 

 shoes, and they never seem to get tired of it." 



I did not tire of it mj self, though Clint grumbled be- 

 cause there was so much of it that he could not get off 

 chicken hunting till the next day. So we talked shoot, 

 and tied up horses' upper lips and nailed on shoes and had 

 a good time till evening, and then Mr. C. E. Robbins, of 

 the First National Bank, came around and took me out 

 for a little trap shoot, there being a club meeting that 

 afternoon. Here we met several very pleasant gentle- 

 men, who cheerfully and easily beat me shooting targets, 

 which seems to grow much the same in the Red River 

 valley as elsewhere. And Mr. S. S. Lyon gave me a fine 

 fat prairie chicken for breakfast, he having accumulated 

 the same out of some friend's buggy, I presume. We ad- 

 mired together the beauty of the big brown bird, agree- 

 ing that no land produced a handsomer game bird. It 

 had been years since I had eaten a prairie chicken (for I 

 make it a point never to buy game, and will not eat it 

 unless killed by myself or friends), and it seemed to me 

 that if handsome was as handsome did no criticism could 

 be urged against this wild chicken of the prairies. 



It is customary, in describing a fall shooting trip, to 

 mention the "crisp autumn air." A story is no good 

 without crisp autumn air, with puffs of brown feathers 

 floating in it. It is with regret, therefore, that I say that 

 on the morning set apart for our start on the chicken 

 shoot the air was by no means crisp enough to be consid- 

 ered up to the artistic standard. To the contrary, it was 



just the other thing, moist, damp, clammy and of a 

 nature to remove the last trace of curl from the hired 

 girl's bangs. (By watching the hired girl's bangs you can 

 always tell when the shooting conditions are favorable. 

 On bright, crisp days the hired girl's bangs curl tight and 

 aggressively, with positiveness and vigor. On rainy days 

 they hang stringy, limp and helpless. This is a good 

 barometer). But time was short, and we decided to start 

 anyhow, crisp or no crisp. Clint Smith and Ed and 

 Charlie Bowers have a hunting rig with canopy top and 

 close side curtains, so it doesn't make much difference 

 whether it rains or shines, for all the hunting in that 

 country is done by wagon, the shooter never getting out 

 except to walk up to the dogs on point. Into this tidy 

 carryall we bundled ourselves and belongings and pulled 

 out into the rain about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, intend- 

 ing to drive out about eighteen miles to Mr. Sam Corbett's 

 farmhouse, there to pass the night and hunt m the neigh- 

 borhood the following day. There were these four of us, 

 and we had three dogs, to wit: Nancy, black pointer; Don, 

 ancient liver and white pointer, and Joe, pointer puppy, 

 of small experience, but with ideas of his own. 



In the East, when a man goes hunting, he walks, so 

 that he can crawl through fences and thickets. In the 

 South, he rides horseback over the fields, where he could 

 not with any wheeled vehicle. In the West, the real 

 West, where there are not yet any fences, he rides in 

 light wagon or buggy. We used to hunt chickens so in 

 Iowa when I was a boy, but now Iowa has been fenced 

 up into measly little farms and is no good any longer. 

 Up here in Dakota we were still on the prairies, the 

 actual, unfettered, unfenced, open prairies that you read 

 about, but don't olten see. Far as the eye could reach the 

 ground was absolutely flat and treeless. This was the 

 wonderful Red River country, that great, gold-lined allu- 

 vial plain, with soil black as your hat, which lies up and 

 down in Dakota and Minnesota about 60x200 miles in ex- 

 tent. This is the wheat granary of the world, and every 

 foot of it is worth $25 an acre now. I called it the 

 prairie, but it is only apparently so. There is no prairie 

 left. It is a continuous wheatfield, with only strips of 

 grass and scarce a cornfield in a dozen miles. The 

 chickens actually nest in the wheat, and we saw their 

 nests marked by the eggshells, and farmers told us of 

 seeing many nests during their fall plowing. The birds 

 simply refused to give up this country even alter the farm- 

 ers had sowed it all over with wheat instead of the 

 ancient grasses. 



We drove on out over this vast prairie that is no longer 

 a prairie, meeting never a fence in forty miles. The dogs 

 worked wide, forward, back and across, as only real 

 chicken dogs know how. Poor old Don, the veteran, 

 could not stand the gait he once could, but he kept going 

 wide as he could. Joe was not so winded. But Nancy, 

 the pointer of color, was all the dog we needed. I have 

 never seen a better chicken dog for just this sort of work. 

 She ranges very fast and wide, and is absolutely staunch. 

 Moreover, she knows why she is running, and she uses the 

 wind perfectly,- and knows where her birds are when she 

 scents them. In short, she is a chicken dog of the good 

 old sort, devoid of frills, but full of sense, and of just the 

 sort to assist prairie chickens into a canopy-top buggy. 



In my chicken days we hunted on a grass and stubble 

 country, and had certain hours of the day and certain 

 sorts of country which we considered in our plans. Here 

 in Dakota these seemed to be of no service. The birds 

 were scattered all over, as apt to be found in the middle 

 of the stubble in the middle of the day as not, and it was 

 impossible to figure on their habits. It was now the 21st 

 day of September (as we might have known from our 

 equinoctial storm), and the birds having been shot at for 

 a month were very wild. During the evening we saw I 

 suppose 100 to 150, in bunches, single and small coveys, 

 but the rain had made them rtstless, and we got small 

 chance at them, the Btubble offering no close cover. But 

 they were great, glorious, strong- flying fellows, and we 

 felt all the more oelighttd when we did get one. Clint 

 and Ed Bowers shot one sharp-tailed grouse between 

 them (the only one we saw on the trip), and then Clint 

 shot a chicken out of a half dozen wild fellows that got up 

 in the dusk, and I was led up to shoot over the last point 

 of the evening, which Nancy made for us. This bird we 

 found to have a l»g already freshly broken by a former 

 shot, so the boys asked me if cripples were the only sort 

 I could kill. Total for the afternoon, three birds. But 

 none the less, under Mrs. Corbett's kind care, we slept 

 well that night after a big supper, and hoped for the mor- 

 row. 



But the morrow wasn't any crisper than the day before 

 it. The cold equinoctial rain continued to fall. The boys 

 pulled on big tur overcoats and didn't complain of the 

 heat, and 1 lound a mackintosh none too warm. We 

 started out in the morning with dogs and were shivering, 

 and the curls of the hired girl were limp and desolate! 

 None the less, within our curtains all was merriment and 

 joy, and we concluded that the weather was something a 

 sportsman should never mind— provided he has curtains. 



Our persistence was finally rewarded. My chicken trip 

 to Fargo was a success. By noon the rain had nearly 

 ceased. The dogs kept up their fine work, black Nancy 

 fairly proving a wonder. We began to find birds, a few, 

 a few more, a good many, in droves and strings and little 

 broken coveys. We all did fairly well, and the pile of 

 big brown, plump birds in the back of the buggy began 

 to grow. We got that half dozen birds which 1 had said 

 would satisfy me, and then began on another half dozen. 

 Then we made it a dozen and a half, and before 

 night it was two dozen. With a long shot Ed Bowers 

 killed our 25th bird just before dark, and then we drove 

 home, perfectly contented so far as 1 at least was con- 

 cerned. I had seen my old friend the chicken and felt 

 sorry for him, and had seen also my old-time friend the 

 genuine Western chicken dog, which comes in all sorts of 

 breeds and all kinds of shapes. (Nancy is about the shape 

 of a small greyhound.) Moreover and most of all, I had 

 once more met with the courtesy and kindness of the 

 shooting craft, which is much the same the country over, 

 always very goed to know. I suppose I killed rather 

 more than my six birds to my own gun, and that is 

 plenty, I can testify, to make one feel he has had a grand 

 time with a grand game bird, and to feel grateful to those 

 who offered him the chance. 



My friends Clint Smith and the Bowers boys know 

 about as much of the chicken shooting around Fargo as 

 any of the shooters there, 1 presume, and they tell me the 

 chickens are unusually scarce this year. On their open- 

 .ng hunt they only got seventy odd birds in two days to 



three guns. The week before I was with them they bad 

 been out with the success above stated, and they averaged 

 a hunt each week. They thought the rain and hail had 

 hurt the nesting in the spring. They said they knew of 

 very little illegal shooting and believed the law was bet- 

 ter observed each year. They expected the shooting to be j 

 better rather than worse next season and perhaps it will. 

 The prairie chicken is certainly not yet extmct in the Red 

 River valley, though that country no longer has charms 

 for the "sportsman" tourist who wants to kill 50 or 100 

 birds each day himself. 



The stock of chickens and sharp-tailed grouse all over 

 eastern Dakota is annually affected by migration of the 

 game. In October and November great bands of these 

 birds come down from the north, no one knows from 

 where. Often thousands in a day cross Fargo going 

 south. They stop only temporarily and are very strong 

 and wild. They go south into lower Dakota and Nebraska, 

 where they can winter on the cornfields. In the spring 

 they work back north again, many, of course, nesting all 

 along this line of migration and so keeping up the local 

 surply, subject, of course, to local conditions. The 

 sharp-tailed grouse cling among the sandhills about 

 thirty or forty miles south of Fargo, while the pinnated 

 grouse breed more in the open prairie and hang about the 

 stubble fields. 



At Sheldon, forty miles southwest of Fargo, I saw a 

 great many pinnated grouse while riding over the country 

 during the greyhound races there. I should think one 

 could have had very good shooting there, though local 

 men said the crop for "95 was short. 



At Moorhead, Minn., which is just across the Red River 

 from Fargo, I went out for a few miles one evening with 

 Mayor A. A. Lewis and his friend Mr. Djuglas, and even 

 so late in the season and so near the town we saw forty 

 or fifty birds and bagged five fine ones. It seems clear 

 that with fair observance of the game laws all this part 

 of Dakota and Minnesota would continue to furnish mod- 

 erate shooting for moderate men during an indefinite 

 period yet to come. 



Speaking of Illegalities. 

 Speaking of illegalities in shooting reminds me of a 

 little incident of which I got track at Moorhead. A few 

 of the shooters of that city, I regret to say, and men who 

 should not have been guilty of such an act, could not 

 wait for the season to open, but began shooting ahead of 

 the date. They would Bneak out and bring their birds in 

 under cover, and they thus had on hand about 200 birds 

 before the season opened. They hung these down in a 

 well, as offering the coolest and safest place of conceal- 

 ment. Unfortunately one day the rope broke. The 

 illegal shooters loBt their chickens and their well at the 

 same time. 



The Upper Mississippi Valley. 



Chicago, 111., Oct. 5.— Mr. H. B. Jewell, Mayor of 

 Wabasha, Minn., and known to Forest and Stream read- 

 ers as Wapahassa, writes me that he was last week out 

 in southwestern Minnesota and had one day's shooting, 

 but met very bad weather (no doubt the same storm which 

 struck us at Fargo). He says: 



"I would rather hunt in my old haunts in the grand old 

 bottoms of the Mississippi and get only a few birds where 

 we are sheltered from storms and wind than to shoot a 

 hundred on the prairie. 1 wish you could have been here 

 and helped me eat some of the big fat mallard baked that 

 we had for dinner yesterday, also some of the broiled 

 jacksnipe and teal another day. 1 got seven ducks right 

 near home over the river, and jacks are very abundant. 

 The prospects lor game in the Mississippi Valley about 

 here are better than tor some years, owing principally to 

 the rise of the river and the late heavy raintall. 1 have 

 put up my big tent "down in the marsh" twelve miles 

 below town, in the prettiest camping spot imaginable, 

 and I expect to spend considerable time there this tall. It 

 is one of the bet>t duck grounds in this part of the country. 

 Wish you could come and spend a few days with me. 

 Not so very much game, but a mighty tine place to spend 

 the time.". 



IndlansZandZDuck Eggs. 



Mr. W. J. Gilboy, of St. Paul, Minn., now a conductor 

 on the "Soo" line, personally told me of an instance of 

 Indians gathering the eggs of wildfowl in great numbers. 

 "I was on the Great Northern Railway then," said he, 

 "the next year after it was put through. The track end 

 was away out in Montana, near one of the Milk River 

 tributaries, along which there was and is to-day a vast 

 marsh. At that time this marsh was alive with ducks 

 and geese, and it was in the nesting season. The Indians 

 went out and gathered thousands of the eggs and brought 

 them in to the railroad to sell. They had no good way of 

 carrying them, bo they loaded them into their blankets 

 and brought them in that way, holding up the corners of 

 the blankets. Of course they broke most of the eggs, and 

 most of the rest were addled or partly hatched, so the 

 Indians got very little for the eggs, but they kept on 

 bringing them in, actually by thousands. That was on 

 the marsh near Malta, 1 think. C. F. Waldo was then 

 division superintendent and saw all this egg industry. 

 To-day there are very few ducks and geese on that 

 marsh." 



Away Down South. 



It should be the mission of the true newspaper man to 

 spread peace, calmness and content about him as he 

 walks through life, never to incite mutiny, foster se- 

 dition and cause heart-burnings. Col. A. B. Pickett, 

 editor and manager of the Memphis Evening Scimitar, is 

 a true newspaper man, as anyone who sees the Scimitar 

 must know. Yet I must accuse him of violating the soft 

 and soothly mission of the perfesh; for that he with de- 

 liberate intent and design prepense has invited me to 

 have the best time in all my life. And I can't go! Truly, 

 it is one's friends who break one's heartl But listen to 

 the siren song of this man in Memphis, and say if it is not 

 enough to cause a man to go home and kick the dog — 

 provided he couldn't accept the invitation; which I can't, 

 Deing obliged to do a little work once in a while, to sort 

 of jolly my job along a little. Col. Pickett says — if he. 

 will allow me to quote from his letter: 



"On the 31st day of October I leave Memphis on special 

 car for Aransas Pass, Tex., over the Cotton Belt Route. 

 Mr. S. G. Warner, the General Passenger Agent of the 

 Cotton Belt, and Mr. Martin, of the Aransas Pass Railroad, 

 are doing everything in their power to make the trip a 

 pleasant one for our party, and we are all very anxious to 

 have you join us. We expect to remain about two weeks. . 



