Aug. 30, 1888.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



10© 



wtm §ag xnd 



Antelope and Deer of America. By J. D. Caton. 

 Price $2.50. Wing and Glass Ball Shooting with the 

 'Rifle. By W. C. Bliss. Price 50 cents. Rifle, Rod and 

 Gun in California. By T. H. Van Dyhe. Price $1.50. 

 Shore Birds'. Price 50 cents. Woodcraft. By "Ness- 

 fauk," Price $1. Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. Price 

 50 cents. TT>e Still- Hunter. By T. S. Van Dyke. Priced?. 



IN "GALLOGER" DAYS. 



AMONG tbe many charming features of the Forest 

 . and Stream, one is especially pleasing, and that is 

 the stirring of memory by the relation of varied experi- 

 ences by its large corps of contributors. There is hardly 

 a number that does not see the mind running back in en- 

 joyable retrospect through years whose shadows are well 

 relieved by sunny gleams here and there, telling of pleas- 

 ant rambles through forests, by the side of placid lake or 

 dancing stream, on the mountain crest or in the quiet 

 vale, where nature, undespoiled by ruthless man, reigned 

 in all her glory and beauty. 



Such experiences for the most of us are gone forever 

 except in memory, and now when we take the gun or 

 rod and go afield, we wander in treeless fields, by the side 

 of Ashless streams, whose beds are dry for months of the 

 year or swollen bankful, only to subside as rapidly as 

 they filled. The summer sun glares on unshaded farms, 

 through whose brown pastures roam cattle in vain search 

 of herbage, from which to swell their shrinking udders, 

 and the honest milkman makes up at the pump what he 

 lacks from the cow. The woods are for the most part 

 mockeries, being second or fifth growth, where thick and 

 straight grow the saplings and the lonesome chipmunk 

 '"'chipa" from some decaying stump, sole remnant of the 

 giant of centuries gone. Or if some lost partridge whirs 

 away, risking his neck among the myriad spindles, it 

 only serves to make the silence and gloom more intense. 

 If, perchance, a respectable woods is found, the work of 

 the cord wood chopper, whose brush, chips and piles of 

 wood Bhow his tracks; by the rail-splitter, whose stacks 

 of chestnut rails tell of butts and wedge; and by the bark 

 peeler, whose hemlock victims be stripped of their cloth- 

 ing, whitening in the sun that for long years kissed only 

 their lofty tops. The squirrels that once made their nests 

 in their huge trunks and feasted yearly on the toothsome 

 nuts, knowing no lack and fattening on plenty, have seen 

 with wondering eyes and fluttering hearts then homes 

 despoiled, and now deprived of these and sustenance are 

 gone, whither, no one can tell. But gone they are, and 

 it is only at rare intervals that one sees a black or gray 

 squirrel, and the glimpse is apt to be very brief. 



But I set out to say that the articles on the ancient 

 weapon called the Galloger carbine, in recent numbers of 

 the Forest and Stream, bring vividly to mind some 

 charming rambles and very pleasant experiences among 

 the peaks and canons of the Rocky Mountains years ago, 

 when, desirous of killing some game and having no gun 

 of my own, I was kindly armed by my friend Joe Mills, 

 of Georgetown, Colorado, with one of the above-named 

 shooting irons. It was a scandalous old piece, having 

 several coatings of rust on the outside and no telling how 

 much in the bore, and had a general air of abandonment 

 on account of general worthlessness. Joe had no idea 

 when he put it into my hands and rummaged around 

 among the shelves of canned goods, powder, fuse and 

 other miners' delicacies with which the store was fur- 

 nished, for a few mildewed cartridges to match the fusee, 

 that it would ever be of any use to me or danger to any 

 game; but his goodness of heart was appreciated just the 

 same. 



I hadn't much confidence in it myself, but felt better 

 with something in my hands that would make a noise, 

 and that was the gun that could do it. It shot a ball 

 about as large as a grapeshot or small apple, and if the 

 cap was a good one, and the tube was clear, and the vent 

 in the cartridge wasn't stopped up, and you could pull 

 the trigger off, the thing would generally "go Gallagher," 

 and anything within range would surely get a big hole 

 through it, if it was holeable. I was confident that if I 

 ever ran against "Old Ephr'm" or a "lion," and could 

 hold the gun on him when it went off, his hide was mine 

 and his carcass food for the ravens. 



Many a happy day have I spent alone among the rocks 

 and whispering pines listening and watching for deer and 

 sheep, camping at night on the mountainside with a 

 huge rock at my back, a companionable fire in front and 

 the ever ready and generally harmless cannon by my 

 side, while I munched my bread and meat, watching the 

 dancing lights and shadows among the encircling trees, 

 wondering how it would seem and what I should do if 

 suddenly from out the darkness beyond the flame two 

 burning orbs should glow as the huge cat noiselessly 

 swung his tail and contemplated the strange scene 

 before him. But 'twas never necessary to do anything, 

 and I never knew how it would seem, for my camp was 

 never molested nor my sleep disturbed except when my 

 feet and the fire grew too intimate, or the wind rising 

 during the night roared among the branches, driving 

 sleep before it. How delicious was the sense of loneliness! 



Yet there was no lack of company, and best of all, one's 

 own choosing, the very choicest kind. The "everlasting 

 hills" were on every hand, "mute but eloquent," a per- 

 petual study and soothing delight. Rank upon rank 

 they rose into the heavens, "majestic monarchs of the 

 clouds," looking afar with bared brows on a scene of 

 surpassing grandeur. The magnificent forest encom- 

 passed you with its myriad companions, stately and 

 graceful, always attendant with benignant arms and 

 gentle whisperings. Deep down between precipitous 

 mountain sides the Hmpid stream sang to its trout as it 

 laved the glistening rocks, chafing but always cheerful. 

 The coney from his lookout on the rockslide, barked a 

 sharp warning to his fellows and incontinently dove for 

 security. Tbe pine squirrel chattered and scolded on his 

 perch as he watched the intruder and tore apart the cone 

 for his lunch, raining the hulls in a careless shower 

 through the branches beneath, and the startled grouse 

 with his companion rose to a convenient limb and faded 

 motionless into the foliage. As I sit amid nature in her 

 tamer aspects, diverted in great measure of her wondrous 

 beauty, I long for 



The rocks and the rills, 

 The vales and the hills, 

 where I can once more know truly what it is to be alone. 



Once I followed trie track of a Hon nearly all day in a 

 three-inch snow as he wandered apparently aimlessly 

 about, zigzagging here and there over the mountain, 

 away from a mining camp, to which he had made a noc- 

 turnal visit in search of something appetizing. He was 

 accustomed to make such a viRit occasionally, and some- 

 times woke the boys as he nosed around the cabin, 

 which he could do with impunity, as the boys had no 

 gun. 



Several times that day I thought there was about to be 

 trouble, as the track entered a patch or mat of dwarfed 

 wind-swept spruce, flattened and spread out as though a 

 Titan had put his huge foot on the top of a tree and 

 crushed it downward, as a silk hat is crushed when some 

 one accidentally sits on it. It would have made a capi- 

 tal resting place for the beast I thought; but it was not 

 to his taste, as the track always reappeared on the 

 further Bide; and finally, when it took a shoot down a 

 clear two-mile slope toward a creek and wooded moun- 

 tainside beyond, I gave up the qliegfc, and it being well 

 along in the afternoon, I turned back on Republican 

 Mountain and proceded to see what the Galloger would 

 do toward obliterating a grouse's head and neck, for I 

 had noted several during the afternoon and succeeded in 

 beheading several and wasting a number of cartridges in 

 so doing. I have thought more than once since that day 

 that it was— 



O, well for the Galloger man, 

 As ho prowled around that day, 



That he got no glimpse of the tawny cat, 

 Nor brought that feline to hay. 

 Speaking of rifles reminds me of the Forest and 

 Stream's report of the Schuetzen shoot at Newark 

 recently and the editorial thereon. I suppose all those 

 sharpshooters whose sole idea of a gun is that it is to shoot 

 at a target with, and who haven't the faintest expecta- 

 tion or desire to test their skill in the field, are privileged 

 to turn themselves inside out, other end to, tie themselves 

 into a knot, or shoot backward between their legs at a 

 mark, and so secure medals and badges to ornament 

 their brave bosoms with, but their positions have always 

 seemed supremely ridiculous to me. It is difficult for me 

 to conceive of a rifle as a piece of mechanism to be used 

 solely for amusement at a target. Such it is in the minds 

 and hands of thousands. But even so, Avhy not stand up 

 like a man and shoot it? Of course there are thousands 

 of shooters, as evidenced by the attitudes they assume, 

 who are so rickety and lacking in control of their nerves 

 and muscles that they are unablo to stand forth in a 

 manly way and shoot a rifle, and for such, of course, 

 harness and portable rests and the hip racket are indis- 

 pensable. I don't see why such unreliable persons are 

 permitted to have guns. If a man is not able to hold a 

 gun alone,, he had better "shoot the gun." Just imagine 

 a hunter after moose or deer in a tussocky bog, flopping 

 on his back in the mush, while he makes a sawbuck of 

 his knees, ties his left arm around his neck and waits for 

 the scared game to get in front of his telescopic wind- 

 gauged artillery. Or picture to yourself a hunter wal- 

 lowing on the ground on his stomach, shooting squirrels 

 out of a hickory tree, or carrying lumber around with 

 him for a rest while he hunts antelope, or caroming on 

 his hip with his elbow as though he had colic while he 

 shoots a charging grizzly. There is a just pride, an exhil- 

 aration, a feeling of confidence that comes from being 

 able to hit the center, standing up like a man, with a rifle 

 at "arm's length," in true off-hand style, that these hip 

 and other rest men have no consciousness of. There is 

 manly grace in such a position worthy of emulation and 

 admiration, and whenever it becomes necessary to use a 

 gun in an emergency such a marksman will "get there," 

 while these other fellows are considering what particular 

 style of rest they will choose for the occasion. Away 

 with this rest business! It ought to be relegated to the 

 shades of flint locks and percussion caps. O. O. S. 



THE STORY OF THE WHITE BUFFALO. 



MACDONALD'S POINT, N. B., May 8.— Editor For- 

 est and Stream: Of the many New Brunswickers 

 who acted on the advice of Horace Greeley, perhaps none 

 was more widely and favorably known, after seven years 

 of "Western life, than Edgar Hendry, late editor of the 

 Helena (Mont.) Independent. By his death last December 

 New Brunswick lost one of her most gifted sons, and 

 Montana an able journabst. His description in his paper 

 of two trips through the National Park did much to 

 awaken interest in that land of wonders; and he had 

 picked up a vast fund of interesting stories of travel, 

 sport and adventure, from persons whom chance threw 

 in his way. 



In boyhood our homes were only a few miles apart. 

 Later, we "began life" in the same business. During '78 

 and '79 we were members of a select circle of five young 

 men, who met every Saturday evening for mutual im- 

 provement and amusement. Hendry, Editor Belyea, 

 of the Grant county Herald, Minnesota, and Dr. Mac- 

 donald, now of St. John, N. B,, were the talent, life, and 

 a large fraction of the brains of the party. Those were 

 good times — long to be remembered by at least one. 



It is therefore with pleasure, not unmixed with sad- 

 ness, that I read the anecdotes, sketches of Western char- 

 acter and travels in the note books which, with his 

 other persona] effects, came home to his friends. In one 

 of them I find the inclosed, which I thought perhaps you 

 would like to publish. I have copied it word for word, 

 save that it showB every sign of having been hastily 

 written, and the writing is not always plain, there may 

 be a letter or two wrong in some of the proper names, 



L. I. Flower. 



STORY OF THE WHITE BUFFALO. 

 (Told the writer by W. O. Gabriel.) 

 The color of the American bison shades from a dark 

 brown to almost a black and any specimen, varying 

 markedly from that, may be considered an accidenta 

 freak of nature, like a white crow or black fox. Once a 

 yellowish or very fight brown buffalo, (sometimes er- 

 roneously spoken of as white) was killed in the Yellow- 

 stone region. I also heard of a "white" buffalo among 

 the taxidermists' display in the Dakota department of the 

 New Orleans Exposition; but those who have seen it say 

 it was far from that color. I have myself seen several 

 of the fine "silk" robes, as they are called from the pe- 

 culiar soft character of the hair; but the only white buf- 



falo of which I ever heard any authentic account, is the 

 one that forms the subject of this sketch. 



In the summer of 1875 I was with a great hunting 

 party of Yanktonnais Teton-Sioux. The band con- 

 sisted of about 200 lodges under Medicine Bear. Besides 

 myself, the white men with them were John Freeman, 

 Charlie Ingram and Frank Beatty, plainsmen; and Dr. 

 South worth of Rochester, N. Y, then Agency physician 

 at Old Fort Peck. We were on Frenchman's Creek, a tri- 

 butary of the Milk River, about eighty miles north of the 

 Missouri and fifteen or twenty from the Canadian bound- 

 ary. We were following the mam herd of buffalo. 

 We had stopped six hours that morning to let it pass, and 

 a great body of the animals stretched out over the 

 prairie. 



With the herd was this white buffalo, which I after- 

 ward found to be a cow about four years old, and of a 

 uniform color, even to her hoofs and horns, I had dis- 

 missed the stories previously told by the Indians concern- 

 ing the creature as mythical tales and Indian folk lore. 

 They had seen her with the herd the year before. They 

 said she was always surrounded by other buffaloes, which 

 protected her from the hunters; that she was very fleet, 

 and had been known to mysteriously disappear. They 

 thought her a spirit — one of the many embodiments of 

 good or evil, which the Indians see in all material objects, 

 for the peculiarities of which they cannot account. As 

 they had been unsuccessful when they saw her first, she 

 was therefore an evil spirit — '"bad medicine," and as such 

 must be killed, and an order to that effect had long since 

 gone forth. 



When we reached the bounds of the hunt that morning 

 the bucks or soldier band had broken into the herd, and 

 in every direction were riding down stragglers, detaching 

 small bands from the struggling mass, whooping, shout- 

 ing and spearing. My companions and I were watching 

 the scene when an exclamation from a squaw near us 

 drew our attention to the white buffalo. She had been 

 seen more quickly by the hunters than byu?, and a num- 

 ber of the most active of the young bucks, anxious to 

 display their prowess, though perhaps secretly half afraid, 

 were in hot pursuit. We were so much interested that we 

 started in the direction of the race. As one after another 

 of the pursuers dropped out to join the main hunt, it 

 looked as if it would be another victory for the "spirit," 

 for the stories of her fleetness had not been exaggerated 

 to the usual extent. But one young buck, after a hard 

 ride, succeeded in coming up with her and killing her. 

 His peculiar whoop drew the attention of the chiefs of 

 the hunt, and they, followed by the entire band, hastened 

 to him. 



We were amoner the first to arrive. The successful 

 hunter had dismounted and stood silent and stolid by the 

 side of the carcass, which he had been careful not to 

 touch. After a brief council the chiefs stripped him of 

 all arms and clothing, excerjt his breech-cloth, took his 

 horse from him and directed him to walk back to the 

 home camp on the Missouri. This was intended as a sort 

 of penance to appease the wrath of a possibly offended 

 god. The cow was then skinned and the hide fastened 

 to the top of an upright pole, as an offering to the Sun — 

 the supreme god of the Sioux. Then began a sort of re- 

 ligious ceremony, in the form of a dance around the pole, 

 accompanied by their peculiar chant or prayer, which 

 continued the remainder of the day and extended far into 

 the night. They asked for plenty of grass on which buf- 

 falo feed, succes's against their enemies, gpod luck in then- 

 hunts, and a number of minor favors. After the outfit 

 moved on in the direction of the herd, runners were 

 regularly sent back to see that the sacrifice was in its 

 place on the pole. 



We whites, whose feebngs of reverence for the robe 

 reached a no more advanced stage than admiration, 

 thought it a pity that it should stay there to be ruined 

 by the elements. We had a great desne to "reduce it to 

 possession." One night, around the campfire on the out- 

 skirts of the Indian encampment, we discussed how it 

 could be done. Among the Sioux was a young French 

 half-breed, who was a little less superstitious than the 

 rest. We knew that his absence from the camp would 

 not be likely to be noticed. A little mild ridicule of his 

 fears stirred his pride, and the promise of a bright new 

 eagle stimulated his cupidity to such an extent that he 

 rode back and got the skin, with which he stole into our 

 camp and delivered it a little after midnight. We kept 

 it carefully concealed among our blankets during the 

 rest of our stay with the savages. 



The next courier who went back to look after the offer- 

 ing, reported it gone. The Indians immediately con- 

 cluded that the Sun had taken it, and expressed much 

 satisfaction at the good omen. The remarkable success 

 of the continued hunt fixed the belief that the removal 

 of the robe by the sun was a signal mark of favor, and 

 that the killing of the cow had brought good luck. The 

 young man who killed it was amply rewarded at the 

 close of the hunt. 



Dr. Southwortb took tke skin to Fort Peck and tanned 

 it with chemicals. Soon after he returned to his home 

 in the East, and took the robe along with him. There 

 was a rumor that he presented it to some institution in 

 Philadelphia; but I have never since had any reliable 

 news either of him or of the hide of one of the most 

 beautiful and singular animals I ever saw. 



J. E. Hendry. 



Game in Texas.— Fort Worth, Aug. 16,— Editor Forest 

 and Stream: Chickens are scarce, though by taking a run 

 up the. Denver to the borders of the Nation one can get 

 good sport. Turkeys are very numerous— the largest 

 crop for years. Quail very abundant. They all left last 

 year or died from the droughts, but are here in large 

 quantities now, and good sport is expected next month. 

 Plovers are very plentiful. By the way, I noticed a long 

 article in your columns from some old woman in Deca- 

 tur, Texas, last spring, not very complimentary to me or 

 to my feelings, about plover and slaughtering them by the 

 million, etc. All bosh from beginning to end. I suppose 

 she got the idea from some advertisements of mine in the 

 papers. I conclude she was an old woman. It might 

 have been some fellow jealous of my trade in sporting 

 goods here, which I am glad to say is out and out the 

 best in this section. If you or any friends ever think of 

 visiting Texas for a hunt I shall take particular pains in 

 putting you on all the good things, though you did turn 

 me round in your paper last spring for shooting plover. — 

 Arthur Stert, 



