868 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[Dec. 28, 1895. 



being an insurmountable obstruction to navigation— to 

 sportsmen, who can only get through by shooting and 

 fishing their way out, as did our party. Guns and fishing 

 tackle were in active service for hours, and for a time 

 the pleasures of sight-seeing were given over to the ex- 

 citement of sport. 



About one mile above Lake Harney we finally reach 

 and enter the mouth of Econlockhatchee Creek. From 

 this point forward all our party were on unfamiliar 

 waters, and soon made the discovery that the ehannel 

 was so crooked that it was necessary to keep a lookout on 

 the bow of the boat for fear of doubling on our track and 

 ru nn ing ourselves down. We have been unable to learn 

 the meaning of the Indian name of the creek— Econ- 

 lockhatchee — but there certainly must be something 

 crooked in its significance as well as its pronunciation. 

 This way, that way, backward, forward, and in every 

 direction but up or down, we finally threaded the be- 

 wildering maze and found ourselves at last in a plainer 

 but little less tortuous channel. Here, too, the banks 

 were higher above the water, and we found ourselves, at 

 a distance of perhaps five miles from the St. Johns, enter- 

 ing upon the most attractive portion of our cruise. As 

 night was once more falling we again selected a camping 

 place; this time among the immense moss-draped mon- 

 archs of a forest in which, we can readily imagine, the 

 stealthy and solitude-loving Indian once found favored 

 haunts. 



Here the usual interesting episodes of camp life are 

 once more enjoyed. Out of respect for our readers we 

 will refrain from rehearsing them, only mentioning a 

 terrible wild beast which invaded our camp and disturbed 

 our slumbers, and which one of the party failed to catch 

 in a trap which he set for it. No one saw the ferocious 

 animal, but all agreed that its track very closely resembled 

 that of a razor-back hog. 



After a hearty breakfast of fish, duck and squirrel, with 

 all the necessary accompaniments, we once more resumed 

 our journey. We were not long in discovering that we 

 had entered a veritable land of enchantment. 



Before us, winding here and there between high banks 

 which ran back into beautiful heavily-wooded hammocks, 

 flowed the stream, appearing in the morning sunlight 

 like a silver-paved and emerald-bordered highway. The 

 waters, clear and cold, like those of some mountain 

 stream of the North, flowed rapidly downward, yet 

 seemed at times to linger for a brief period beneath some 

 particularly lovely spot to reflect the beautiful picture 

 upon its mirrored surface; then again rushing reluctantly 

 forward to mingle in the general flow. First to the right 

 bank, where drooping willows and alder brush its shim- 

 mering surface with their branches, then in a graceful 

 sweep across to the left, where it laves the bared roots of 

 lofty palmettos and grand, grotesque and gloomy live- 

 oaks, which seem to have stood as silent sentinels upon its 

 shore for ages, the stream flits hither and thither like a 

 restless bird, yet seeming to preserve a dignity becoming 

 to its magnificent setting. 



We find numerous points at which the channel seems 

 to divide, and are allured into some beautiful estuary 

 which seems to have been set there by nature to draw 

 unwary travelers from the main channel. 



The beauty of the stream is not in the volume of its 

 flow, for it has but a narrow channel, but in the pictur- 

 esque and almost bewildering surprises which its many 

 turnings bring into view are presented pictures which 

 the hand of art could not adorn and but nature alone 

 could copy. 



We continued up the stream— not to its head by about 

 thirty miles, but to a point where we found with regret 

 that the narrowing channel and numerous obstructions 

 prevented our going further, and so, after a brief stop, 

 we reluctantly retraced our course. The scenes of the 

 upward trip were presented to us again, but in a new and 

 no less charming light, as we proceeded down the stream, 

 and the panoramic changes that seemed to pass before us 

 were such as to leave a lasting and most agreeable im- 

 pression on our minds. 



It was our good fortune, while coming down the creek, 

 to meet Mr. G. M. Jacobs and his sons, of Chuluota, which 

 place lies some four miles from the stream. Mr. Jacobs 

 has long been a resident of that vicinity, and it is a 

 pleasure to talk with him of the country with which he 

 is so familiar. He informed us that the point at which 

 we turned back was the highest point on the creek ever 

 reached by a steamboat. 



- Passing from the creek we once more successfully thread 

 the mazy channel and find our way into the St. Johns 

 without mishap, thence across Lake Harney to our former 

 camping ground, where we again spend a night in in- 

 vigorating sleep. 



At 8:30 o'clock Sunday morning we resumed our jour- 

 ney, and the gallant little Lolliboy bore us swiftlv home- 

 ward. 



After what we had passed through the homeward trip 

 seemed a tame affair in comparison, but it was neverthe- 

 less enjoyable. At 6 P. M. we reached St. Francis, hav- 

 ing made the seventy-five miles from Lake Harney in a 

 little less than nine and one-half hours. 



ThuB ended a trip which will not soon be forgotten by 

 those who participated in it. To Capt. Harris is due from 

 the party a vote of thanks for the pleasures the cruise 

 afforded. Those in pursuit of sport or pleasure will do 

 well to place themselves under his care and guidance for 

 a like trip. w. S. Smith. 



Bt. Frakcis, FJa. 



Five Hundred Dollars for a Buffalo. 



Chanote, Kan., Dec. 17.— It may be of interest to you 

 to know that a carload of deer and buffalo passed through 

 here this evening en route from Cedarvale, Kan., to Kan- 

 sas City. The circumstances are as follows: 



Mr. Ed Hewins, a prominent stockman of Cedarvale 

 recently sold his ranch of 1.600 acres, on which was an 

 inclosed park of about forty acres, which he has for 

 many years kept stocked with deer and buffalo. Being 

 unable to take them with him to Woodward, I. T. where 

 he is no w located, he sold them to Kansas City parties 

 and yesterday they were all killed and shipped to market. 



fourteen deer and one immense buffalo bull, which had 

 been m captivity over sixteen years, were killed, Mr. 

 Hewms himself tiring the shot that laid low the monster 

 bull which weighed, after being disemboweled and ready 

 to ship, l.SOOlbs. He had for years been very ferocious 

 and could not be approached. • 



tiL U ? de i? tai i d - Mr - ?S w i ns re ceived $200 for the head, 

 f 100 for the skin, and $800 for the carcass, Q, H.15 



HOW FUR IS CAUGHT.— V. 



Life in a Lumber Town. 



The village of Woodruff, Wis., is in the fishing season 

 the port of entry for Trout Lake and the Manitowish 

 muscallonge waters, and at that time it has a sort of 

 transient fife. In the winter season it is dull, squalid 

 and tough with a toughness not easily to be paralleled. I 

 think there is no population in America of so low a 

 grade as the riff-raff of the lumbering regions. The 

 small towns of the Western frontier are tough, but they 

 have a brilliant wickedness which gives them a fascina- 

 tion of their own. The logging town is low, sodden, de- 

 graded, and does not rise to the dignity of wickedness. 

 The inhabitants, or the transient loggers who enable the 

 inhabitants to live, are assorted foreigners of beast-like 

 habits and tendencies. Cleanliness is unknown. Dirt, 

 vulgarity, depravity, low-downness are the character- 

 istics that meet you. One can mingle with clean wick- 

 edness without personal discomfort, but dirty vulgarity 

 is far worse in consequences. Even the style of fighting 

 (and where cheap whisky abounds fighting must ensue) 

 is of poor type in the, pine woods. In the Rockies we 

 used often to see gentlemen who were in their cups have 

 disagreements, and pull their guns and shoot it out like 

 gentlemen, others not interfering. In the lumbering 

 regions the weapon is the fist and the hobnail. Etiquette 

 demands that when one has knocked an enemy down he 

 shall stamp on him or pound him. Often half a dozen 

 will set upon one man, and custom seems to dictate that 

 all one's friends shall help him pummel a single adver- 

 sary. Woe be to the "river jack" who starts into a fight 

 without a "gang" behind him, for if the other man has 

 a "gang" with him they will all go into action as soon as 

 it seems safe. There are many nationalities, and the 

 feuds between the different clans always break out at the 

 bar where the red-eye moveth itself aright. All the 

 hotels are small, and the bar in each is the biggest half. 

 Quiet is there unknown. As I could not personally ap- 

 prove of the style of fighting customary in this region, I 

 was a good deal bored during my three days' stay at 

 Woodruff, while I was waiting for my camera to come 

 up from Chicago. Moreover, the express agent was of 

 the smart- Aleck class, and no doubt thought I was a lum- 

 ber jack out of a job, as I had adopted the costume of the 

 country and perhaps looked a trifle hard. I relieved my 

 feelings by discourse with him about himself, in return 

 for which I believe he held my package over a day for 

 me. It was a bad time I had of it, alone at Woodruff in 

 the winter, and had I not found a good fellow by name 

 of Glover, who ran a jewelry store, I should have perished 

 of fretting. Glover sells cheap jewelry for cash to the 

 Indians, and cheap watches to the lumber hands on time, 

 having out agents who visit the camps and "stand in" 

 with the foremen. He being something of a hunter, and 

 having a quiet room to sit in, we got along well together. 

 Since then he has wandered away out to the gold fields 

 of Washington, and I don't know what I should do if I 

 had to loaf three days in Woodruff now, 



Hitting the Trail. 



But at last my camera came, about 3 o'clock in the 

 afternoon, and I hurriedly got ready for the start into the 

 woods again. I wanted to get over to O. W. Saynor's 

 place on Plum Lake, expecting there to get to a trapper 

 by name of Joe Blair, who was a guide on those waters in 

 the fishing season. There was a new line of railroad 

 built up through that country to Star Lake, but there 

 were no regular trains running on it, except that a log- 

 ging train went up from Minocqua every day. No one 

 could tell what the prospect was of that train stopping at 

 Woodruff Crossing, and no one knew where it would 

 stop up in the Plum Lake region. Evidently Minocqua 

 and Woodruff were not friends. Moreover, as proof of 

 the general looseness and inaccuracy of the human intel- 

 lect in that region, no one could tell me how far it was to 

 Plum Lake— or rather, no two could tell it alike. It was 

 somewhere between eleven and twenty-one miles, I sup- 

 posed, those being the limits assigned. And I was to take 

 a trail which led to the left from the railroad, a<fter cross- 

 ing a high trestle over the first big creek. There was no 

 main trail but the railroad, and the snowshoeing there 

 was bad, for the snow was melting between the ties, and 

 there was no ballast on six or eight miles of the roadbed. 

 These being the circumstancas, and only an hour of day- 

 light remaining, it seemed best not to run the chance of 

 lying out all night in the snow; so I only went four miles 

 that night, stopping at the little sawmill town of Arbor 

 Vitse, on the lake of that name. 



At Arbor Vitas I was directed to a good boarding house 

 kept by a Mrs. McGregor, who was out visiting when I 

 called. I hunted around among the neighbors until I found 

 her, and asked her if I could stop over night. She looked 

 at me critically for a few moments, and then said- 



"No, we don't keep anybody from the lumber camps. 

 We don't dare to. I have always kept a clean and re- 

 spectable house, and I don't let just anybody in." 



When I heard this it seemed funny to me, and I 

 laughed a long peal of silvery laughter, which startled 

 Mrs. McGregor very much. We then engaged in conver- 

 sation, and when I said I was from Chicago, and proved 

 it after much difficulty, the lady began to thaw out, and 

 eventually invited me to go over to her house and take off 

 my pack. (Everybody carries a pack in that country.) 



At Mrs. McGregor's house I was very well treated, and 

 in the morning I got an early start after a good breakfast, 

 having decided to take no chances on the railway train' 

 but to go on through on foot. It was bad going, part 

 hard walking and part wretched snowshoeing, but 1 made 

 the distance, whatever it was, 7, 9, 11 or 17 miles, by about 

 noon, luckily hitting the faint trail in the snow which led 

 across the railroad to Plum Lake, The wind had blown 

 snow over the trail, about half a mile from the railway, so 

 there was no telling which way it went, but I could then 

 see the lake. Going next on the ice, I saw a windvane 

 whirling on top of a tall pole near the shore— the only sign 

 of a human agency— and pushing on over, I found Saynor's 

 house, where I was well received. Mr. Saynor keeps 

 a good summer resort, and often has Chicago parties up 

 in the summer time, enjoying the fine muscallonge fishing 

 of those waters. 



I learned that Joe Blair was living en baclielor, over on 

 Big St. Germaine Lake, about six miles or so from Mr. 

 Saynor's place, and that probably he would go out on a 

 trapping trip; so Mr. Saynor and I walked over to Bi^ St, 

 Germaine after lunch and interviewed Joe. 9 



The Trapper's Cabin. 

 Here I found the trapperiest looking cabin I had seen, 

 full of the dozens of handy appliances the lone man in 

 the woods usually gets about him. There were traps, 

 paddles, knives, spreaders, all sorts of things interesting 

 to handle and talk about. Joe himself, middle-aged, 

 long haired, dressed in buckskin and wide hat, made a good 

 figure of a trapper, and proving to be also companionable 

 and cheerful, I concluded I had blundered into pleasant 

 places. He said he was just going over to look at some 

 new otter country, near Buckatabon Lake, some thirty 

 miles or so, and if I cared to go along he should be glad 

 to have me. We agreed to start from Mr. Saynor's the 

 next morning, and I arranged to spend the night with 

 Joe, Mr. Saynor going on back home. 



That night Joe and I had fresh perch for supper, just 

 out from under the ice in Big St. Germaine. And we 

 baked some bread, and had beans (of course) and tea (of 

 course). Then we sat down and had a long talk about sport 

 and work in general, and trapping in particular. 



Trapping Lore. 

 Joe told me that nearly every winter he caught an otter 

 or two on Lost Creek, a little stream near his cabin. He 

 had lately caught one, and showed me the skin, a very 

 large and beautiful one, stretched nicely on the spreading 

 boards. He had heard of a black fox being seen that winter. 

 (Billy McArthur, on Trout Lake, the winter before, had 

 caught one black and one silver-gray fox, and this winter 

 had caught a black fox. He got only $75 or $100 for the 

 best of the skins, and was probably worsted by the dealer, 

 as prime skins of the silver-gray often bring twice or 

 three times that amount.) 



"I will show you how I trap otter when we get out 

 together," said Joe. "For foxes I don't care so much, for 

 a common red fox is only worth a couple of dollars or so, 

 and a prime otter may bring $10 or $12 this winter. 



"Foxes are sort of mean to trap, but you can trap 'em — 

 you can trap anything. I mostly find it easiest to trap a 

 fox around an old camping place. A fox will come up to 

 a dead camp-fire and move around and pick up scraps. I 

 make a bed in the ashes and put a trap under it. A fox 

 will he down in a bed that way, like a dog. Sometimes 

 a lot of straw or chaff will attract them that way. Some- 

 times I put a trap at a stick or tree which they are using, 

 and sometimes I use scent for them, at a water-set, put- 

 ting the trap under some moss a little way out from the 

 bank, so the fox will step on it. He don't like to get his 

 feet wet, you see. 



"A lynx is a fool, and can be trapped anyhow. I use 

 castor scent for lynx a good deal. Sometimes I put up a 

 red rag near the trap. 



"Nearly every fellow has his favorite scent. Castor is 

 good, and the oil from decayed fish is good, but the best 

 scent is made by putting in the bottle certain parts of the 

 female animal. That is good for f oxea, for mink, or most 

 any sort of animal. 



"Wolves are poisoned easiest by putting strychnine in 

 lard and putting it in a hole or narrow place, where they 

 lick it out or get it a little at a time. You can fill a whole 

 deer carcass up with poison, but somehow you won't get 

 many wolves; anyhow, not unless the poison was put in 

 as soon as the deer was killed, bo the poison could be 

 absorbed by the blood all through the body. 



"I would rather trap bears than anything else. I 

 usually set a deadfall for a bear. We are going over into 

 a good bear country, and we will build a deadfall in there 

 somewhere. It won't be long now before bears begin to 

 come out and travel. They are hungry at first and there 

 isn't much to eat, so they go right into a pen of any kind 

 for a chunk of meat. 



"You have seen how to trap marten, fisher and the like. 

 In my trapping I use a 'natural set' for about everything. 

 I never build a house for anything but a marten. Some- 

 times I catch them by covering the trap with a bark or 

 slab house for the marten to poke his head into. Usually 

 the less monkeying you do around a trap the better it is. 



"Of course there are some 'secrets' about trapping, but 

 the best secret is to use judgment and common sense, and 

 to keep your eyes open and not be .in too big a hurry. 

 Every fellow learns something for himself and trappers 

 don't all work alike. For instance, maybe not everybody 

 knows about the beeswax bait for bears. Sometimes I take 

 two red hot flat rocks and put a big chunk of beeswax be- 

 tween 'em, and let it smoke and burn. That smell will 

 go a long way on the wind, and if there is a bear any- 

 where in the neighborhood he'll come to it, sure. 



' 'Then sometimes I go out through the woods in a big 

 circle and drag a piece of meat to make a track for the 

 bear to follow to the trap. I don't always trap alike, and 

 no good trapper does. If he is any good he will act the 

 way circumstances seem to show him is best." 



The Deer Range. 

 I had seen a great deal of deer sign that afternoon and 

 spoke of it to Joe. He said there were few better deer 

 countries than that around Big St. Germaine. Deer win- 

 tered in a heavy thicket there. He thought the law was 

 not broken much in winter, except that the residents 

 might once in a while kill a deer to eat. In the summer 

 hundreds were killed illegally by night shooting around 

 the edges of the lakes. Most of this was done by city 

 fishermen, nearly all of whom brought rifles in with 

 them. He knew one so-called sportsman who fired at 

 seventeen different deer one night on Big St. Germaine, 

 using a shotgun. He killed one and wounded a number^ 

 which were afterward found dead. 



"But I suppose it was a sportsman that did that," said 

 Joe, reflectively, "so it isn't so bad as if I had done it." 

 (Yet on another occasion that same "sportsman" was 

 fined over $100 for illegal shooting of deer.) 



Muscallonge Waters. 

 Joe said that Lake Big St. Germaine had not been 

 fished by the 'lunge anglers much for six or eight years. 

 He thought the fishing ought to be good. The biggest 

 'lunge he ever saw came out of that lake. He admitted 

 that one spring he speared two 'lunge (illegally), either of 

 which weighed over 4olbs. He told me of a party of 

 gentlemen fishermen from Kansas who putupat Saynor's 

 place the summer previous. They sold their fish and 

 marketed over l,000lbs, (80 Gaynor told me also), but they 

 kicked because they did not pay expenses! There was an 

 amateur photographer in that same Kansas party who 

 sold Saynor pictures of his house at $1 a picture. It would 

 seem that the Kansans put up rather a hard game for r, 

 Saynor to lay up money on, 



