880 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Not, 20, 1890. 



ELK ON SNAKE RIVER. 



[Continued from Page SS0.2 



NOV. 6. — Had an early breakfast this morning and 

 Charley and I hitched up to one of the wagons and 

 drove across the park to bring in the three elk killed by 

 Hunt and myself yesterday morning. After loading them 

 in the wagon, I was picking out a road for Charley to 

 drive out through, as it was fall of down timber in here, 

 when I ran into a fine flock of grouse. I called to Charley 

 to stop a moment and I would try my hand at shooting 

 grouse. At first shot I took the head off of one up in a 

 small tree: the second shot I cut a bunch of feathers off 

 one's neck, but it flew away. My third shot was at one 

 on the ground, and I took its head off clean. I was just 

 going to quit at this when I saw two sitting on the ground , 

 and by squatting down I could get their necks in range; 

 I told Charley to watch me cut their necks both off at 

 once: which I did, striking them both low down on the 

 neck, and cutting them all off except a little skin. We 

 now returned to camp and put the saddles on our hunting- 

 horses and struck out for a day's hunt. Some two miles 

 from camp we came to a deep canon. Here we left our 

 horses. Charley tied his to a pine tree and I turned old 

 Prince loose. We hunted hard all day: and saw a number 

 of straggling bull tracks, but did not get a shot. On re- 

 turning to our horses. I found Prince had left for camp. 

 Taking a short cut I overtook him, and mounting rode 

 leisurely along toward camp, Charley being half a mile 

 or so behind me. As 1 came out in the park, half a mile 

 or so from camp, I came suddenly upon twelve elk cros&ing 

 the Park going west. They were not over 100yds. off, 

 and I jumped off my horse thinking I could do better 

 shooting; but as I raised my gun to fire, the old rascal 

 threw up his tail and away he went down the trail, 

 directly toward the elk and almost in the line of my fire. 

 This of course frightened the elk and away they went, 

 and I missed my game, but fired again and wounded a 

 fine young spike bull, which Charley soon overtook on 

 his horse and finished by a ball in the head. The rest of 

 the band took the road leading down to the Snake River, 

 and just beyond camp, then ran on to George and Stub 

 coming up with their horses packed with provisions. 

 Hunt's negro boy is gone to-night; has rode off Hunt's 

 mule. They think he has started for Laramie City, as 

 they had been teasing him about going, and told him he 

 might take the mule; but had no idea the fool would at- 

 tempt such a thing. Con is quite uneasy about him, for 

 fear he starts across the range, where he would be sure to 

 freeze to death now. Con will start after him early in 

 the morning. I think he will be all right, for he has eaten 

 up all the sweet cakes I and Charley had in camp, and 

 most of the honey and crackers. Had a fine grouse stew 

 for supper in both tents to-night. 



Nov. 7. — Snowed again last night. Con got up his sad- 

 dle horse and started on the hunt for the boy. Charley 

 and I take a horse and skid in our elk killed last night. 

 Having a good fresh tracking snow we all strike out east 

 of camp and go up in the hills, expecting to find a band 

 of elk in a short time: but we are. disappointed, and after 

 a long tramp we seperate, Charley and I going to the left 

 and circling in toward camp. When we strike the edge 

 of the park, where Hunt and. I killed the three young 

 elk, we cross a fresh bull elk trail. As it is some time yet 

 until dark we conclude to follow it. After following 

 about a mile down in a deep cafion we jump him up out 

 of a bunch of willows. Charley is nearest to him and 

 fires, but misses. I run up the side of the mountain to 

 my right in order to get above the willow brush when I 

 see the bull making good time up a well-worn trail on the 

 opposite side of the gulch. I at once cover him and fire, 

 when he comes rolling down the hillside some 50ft. to 

 the bottom of the gulch. On going up to him we find he 

 is an old "scab." or mangy bull, that has been driven out 

 of the herd by the younger bull3 and is not good for any- 

 thing except hi* horns, which are a nice even pair of six 

 points on each beam. I take his head, while Charley car- 

 ries both guns, and we make for camp. It is a long hard 

 pull up the cafion, but we arrive at camp at dark, tired 

 and covered with blood from the elk head. Think this is 

 the poorest, scabbiest old bull I ever saw; and no doubt 

 it was a merciful act to kill him, as it saved him spread- 

 ing the disease among the healthy elk. We found Con 

 and the boy safe in camp. The boy had stopped at a 

 ranch over night, down on Snake River, and when Con 

 got there he was trying to get the mule on the ice and 

 across the river. The boys have him badly scared to-night 

 telling him "Hunt is going to have him arrested when he 

 gets to Laramie City for stealing his mule." 



Nov. 8. — Moved camp to-day about fifteen miles. Went 

 across the Snake River and up in the hills beyond Mcln- 

 toshe's horse ranch and went into camp at the foot of a 

 huge cliff, known as "Gibraltar." Rather poor camp, 

 with no grass for stock. 



Nov. 9.— Saddled up old Prince early this morning and 

 struck out for the head of Slater Fork. Followed down 

 the fork a few miles, when I struck an old elk trail of 

 about 100 elk heading back into the hills toward, camp. 

 Having seen no fresh sign on my way around I was sat- 

 isfied the elk were still in there; so I took the trail, and 

 in about a mile discovered a small band high up on a 

 mountain side feeding, where the sun and wind had 

 taken the snow off, and the elk grass was nice and green. 

 Leaving my horse in a warm grassy cafion, where he 

 could pick some grass, I attempted to make a sneak up 

 the mountain and get in range of the game; but a wary 

 old bull on picket duty soon discovered something not 

 just suited to his notion and led the band over and 

 around the south side of the ridge into a lot of timber. I 

 followed slowly, and in about half an hour discovered 

 them mostly lying down. I circled tho hill and was 

 crawling up on the ridge to the south of them, when 

 looking up I saw about fifteen or twenty of them stand- 

 ing on the ridge looking at me. Knowing it was now or 

 never I leveled my gun on what I thought was a youn°- 

 bull and fired. The elk all disappeared and went 

 thundering down the mountain. I ran around the 

 point of the ridge to see where they went, when I 

 saw the entire band of about one hundred come out in a 

 little park about 600yds. away, and form in a round 

 bunch, just as if they were in a round-up corral. I 

 think it was as fine a picture of a band of elk as I ever 

 saw. Going over to trie trail to look for blood I could 

 not discover any, so I took the back track. It was quite 

 a steep climb up the point to where the elk stood when I 

 fired, and was thickly covered with small green pines 

 and red spruces. When I got almost to where the elk 



stood I came suddenly on my elk stone dead, shot through 

 the shoulders. He was a bull calf coming a yearling, 

 and the largest I ever killed of his age. I pulled him 

 through the snow a few feet to the edge of the ridge, 

 when he went down for about 50ft. into a little basin 

 clear of timber and with about 2ft. of snow. Here I soon 

 had him dressed and turned over belly down to keep the 

 magpies out of him. To get my horse was the next 

 thing on the programme. I had about a half mile to go 

 up the mountain and then it was all down hill. I made 

 good time and was soon on my horse heading in what I 

 thought was a direct line for camp. I soon found myself 

 high up on the mountain in thick timber full of logs and 

 poles. TJp here I jumped another elk, but 1 was not elk 

 hungry just now, for it was getting dark and I was in a 

 strange country. Just as darkness had fully settled 

 down I came out on a high point and could see our 

 camp-fire far below me, with a lot of timber and small 

 gulches between. After getting down into the timber I 

 heard the .boys firing their guns for me. I answer with 

 a few shots, and was soon sitting down to a steaming 

 supper of warm bread, elk steak and coffee. 



Nov. 10.— No one saw anything yesterday except my- 

 self, so we concluded to move camp again to-day and try 

 to get nearer to where the elk range. The hills between 

 camp and where I killed the elk were full of elk beds and 

 trails, and it appears as if game were plenty in here. 

 Moved camp around to the southeast some five miles; 

 have a good warm camp ground, but poor feed for stock. 

 It is snowing great guns to-night. Stub lost his horse; it 

 went off in the night, and he struck out on his trail this 

 morning and is not in yet. Probably he is up at the horse 

 ranch. We are now about 250 miles from home. Snow 

 getting deep, oats getting scarce, and horses weak and 

 thin. Looks rather gloomy to-night, and Charley and 

 Con have not yet killed a hoof; don't like to go home 

 empty. I have as much and more than I want for my- 

 self, but not enough for all. Will try it a few days more 

 and then we will pull for home — game or no game. Am 

 afraid the snow is now too deep on the range for us to go 

 back the way we came over. Have good wood and our 

 tent is warm and snug to-night; the horses have good 

 warm blankets on, and are standing humped up with 

 their backs to the driving storm . A. A. K. 



NEW JERSEY DEER HUNTING. 



THE open deer season in this State was ushered in on 

 the l?t inst. by the hustling of buckshot and yelping 

 of dogs all through Atlantic county. Several deer and 

 one man have been killed. Same old exasperating story 

 of rustling of bushes, shooting without view and slaughter 

 of a companion. Now the shooter is reported to have 

 become deranged. If his eyesight or buckshot had been 

 deranged when he so thoughtlessly shot at a noise, how 

 much happier the whole occasion. But it's so every year. 

 If these men and boys (who have no more business with a 

 gun than a child has with dynamite) were readers of 

 sporting papers and could read therein repeated warnings 

 against such criminality, it might be different. But it is 

 just this class that don't read and never will. It is the 

 kerosene servant girl, and the fellow who didn't know it 

 was loaded, and the man who pulled his gun muzzle fore- 

 most through the fence or out of the wagon, and the man 

 who shoots at a noise, who are doing all in their power 

 to bring more misery into the world under the guise of 

 sport. 



It is positively dangerous to go deer hunting in Jersey. 

 A party may go out with dogs, and by the time stands 

 have been filled several more parties are likely to put in 

 an appearance, all with dogs; and if a deer is started the 

 best place for safety is up a tree or down in a hole in the 

 ground. You see it is three years since there has been an 

 open season on deer, and there is an awful fever on. 

 Hunters are as plentiful in Atlantic county as the mos- 

 quitoes; and between them both, deer and everything else 

 catch it. If a deer is started, it runs across some member 

 of a second party, who mayhap breaks a leg, and some 

 third or fourth party fellow kills it or wounds it again, 

 and another party's man kills it. Then there are four 

 packs of dogs and men mixed up in the claim, and if the 

 matter is settled without serious dispute each man gets a 

 pound or two of meat. If there is a dispute, maybe he 

 loses all the deer meat and a pound or two of his own. 

 Or it may be, as happened a few days since, that one 

 party starts the deer, a second shoots it, when it runs 

 away and dies, to be carried off by some other party. 

 Then when the first two parties find it out there is gnash- 

 ing of teeth and sulphurous canopy. 



There are a few quail and hares hereabout, scattered 

 widely, and forty-three men and some dozen boys to 

 each head of game. Each hunter keeps a beagle or 

 foxhound or two, and a hare's life is a miserable failure. 

 The quail break for the oak thickets and swamps at the 

 first blush, and by the time a person has poked and pushed 

 through the dense covers an hour or two, got his face and 

 hands well studded and lacerated with briers and stubs, 

 he begins to think he has earned a thousandfold more 

 than he gets. 



Nevertheless there be spots where the bunnies do abound 

 as I can bear witness. A friend and I and dogs started in 

 the early gray of one of several mornings since, and 

 riding several miles met at the rendezvous other hunters 

 and dogs for a rabbit hunt. Seven men and six dogs 

 there were. There ought to have been one more dog, but 

 we couldn't fetch it. As it was, there was music in the air 

 all that day. My cocker Tobv jumped the game, or a 

 number of them, and the hounds' took up the tune where 

 he left it. The dense thicket or the swamp was of no avail 

 to cottontail. He had to keep moving until some gun 

 spoke and he turned up his toes. At noon when we gath- 

 ered at the farmhouse for an ample, appetizing dinner, 

 eleven hares and one ruffed grouse were turned out of 

 game pockets. At night seven more hares and a grouse 

 showed up, and we rode home at twilight of a lovely In- 

 dian summer day well pleased and tired. O. O. S. 



VlNELAND, ST. J. 



Business and prof essional men do much toward making 

 up the crowd of hunters and fishermen that yearly spend 

 their brief vacation season in t he woods, and on the lakes 

 and streams. This is explained from the fact that promi- 

 nent among the business and professional men of to-day 

 are the men who were reared in the country and on the 

 farms, many of them in the backwoods even, where the 

 rod and line and the fowling piece were the principal 



sources of amusement. A love for the forest and the 

 stream was thus acquired that lasts through life, and the 

 short respite from the cares of the after busy life are all 

 the more sweet, because they bring back the scenes of 

 days gone by. 



E. M. Gillam, commercial editor of the Boston Adver- 

 tiser, has just returned from his annual vacation of two 

 weeks. With his brother, A. M. Gillam, of the editorial 

 staff of the Philadelphia Record, he has spent his vacation 

 in New Jersey. The boys went home to the hallowed 

 spot where the aged mother resides and made their hunt- 

 ing tours from there. They were joined for one day by 

 M. M. Gillam, another brother, who is the manager of 

 the advertising of the world -widely-known John Wana- 

 maker, who puts some $30,000 a year in advertising, the 

 most of which advertising is worded by Mr. Gillam. 

 The brothers are as fond of the dog and the" -gun as they 

 were when they were boys on the farm and dug out their 

 first woodchuck. They also love the hounds as fondly as 

 in days gone by, and they can scarcely take kindly to the 

 idea that there is a better method for hunting the'deer of 

 to-day than hounding them. E. M. and A. M. Gillam 

 both had their bird dogs with them and they found rare 

 sport among the quail, which they found very abundant 

 in Cumberland and Atlantic counties, though the frost 

 had not yet rid the trees and brash of 'their foliage, and 

 this made the hunting a little slow. They also had rare 

 sport with rabbits. Duck shooting tbey tried at Avalon, 

 near Cape May, where they found the bay covered with 

 black dtick and mallard. These ducks were wild and 

 hard to approach. They tried them the second day with 

 decoys, but the weather was so fine that the ducks did 

 little flying. 



The men had a pair of hounds with them. They were 

 to try the deer. They tried over the same grounds where 

 only a few days previous several deer had been shot. In 

 fact eight or ten had been reported killed since the open 

 season began. The dogs were put out by one of the 

 brothers, and the others lay by the runways. All day 

 they waited. The hounds were heard distinctly baying, 

 but later they ceased. At nightfall the hunters wended 

 their way homeward, but to find the brother there before 

 them, with the report that he had lost the dogs early in 

 the day, but when he reached the house he found them 

 comfortably asleep by the fireside. E. M. Gillam says 

 that the deer are wonderfully plenty in that State, where 

 they had almost disappeared previous to the three-year 

 close time. Special, j 



"ALL AROUND" THE GUN. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have read from time to time during the last few years 

 many articles giving the ideas of your readers on the per- 

 fect rifle or shotgun, also the "all-around" sporting weapon. 

 There may have been two of all this number whose ideas 

 coincided, but I do not recall them. Like most of the 

 writers I have shot quite a number of rifles of different 

 makes, muzzleloading and repeaters, and have been in 

 "snaps" where I had a rifle and wanted a shotgun A T ery 

 badly, and again with a shotgun when I would have 

 given a handful of nickels for a rifle. I have been all 

 around the gun lots of times, and it has been all around 

 with me on divers and sundry occasions. (Just here my 

 black cocker Tobe pushed the door open, and, wagging 

 his bud of a tail, as if to say "you'll consent of course," 

 hopped up into my lap and lay down. What for? Why, 

 he knew I was writing about the gun and wanted, as he 

 always does, to get as near the subject as possible. Talk 

 about the intelligence of animals! Weil!) 



As I was saying, we each have different notions about 

 the ideal gun and always will have, still I think "Shongo" 

 in your last is on a hot scent. Of course for an al I- around 

 gun the scatter gun and rifle is the weapon, the question 

 being only as to the combination. I have always (since 

 the manufacture) thought that the Daly three-barrel wa3 

 about the thing, and for special adaptation why not have 

 the right barrel cylinder bore or "straight cut" as "Shon- 

 go's," and the left either cylinder or medium choke? It 

 seems to me that would beat "Shongo's" gun by one point. 

 There you have your rifle, large ball, andif necessary 

 buckshot, or rifle, ball and shot, or rifle and two shot. It 

 might be that so many combinations would puzzle the 

 shooter so that before he had decided which to use the 

 game would be gone. I put this out as a feeler. The 

 manufacturer of the Daly is welcome to it. I've gone 

 out of the business. If I hadn't I should certainly make 

 one for my own use and try to get together a deer and a 

 bear and some ducks for experiment. O. O. S. 



[We have for next week an interesting note from Mr. 

 H. W. S. Cleveland, describe g a combination ami in- 

 vented years ago by Dr. Eu vvard Maynard, of Maynard 

 rifle fame.] 



DEER IN MICHIGAN. 



DAYTON, O., Nov. 15.— The last of the deer hunters 

 of this vicinity returned from Michigan and Wis- 

 consin to-day, and report that notwithstanding the fact 

 that railroads have penetrated the forests and the num- 

 ber of hunters increases each year there is no perceptible 

 decrease in the number of deer and skill required to hunt 

 and kill them. A much larger number of big buckshave 

 been killed this season than usual, and the hunters there- 

 fore come home with grand trophies of their sport. 



While in some respects the presence of the Indians in- 

 terfered with the whites because there were so many 

 more skilled hunters they often were of service in direct- 

 ing a lost man to his own camp. They tanned deer and 

 bear skins for the hunters and cured the venison. Five 

 young Indians located about two miles from a logging 

 camp out from Sagola, Michigan, and in two weeks killed 

 thirty deer, one of them the largest buck reported this 

 year, a magnificent six-pronged fellow that weighed 

 25olbs. after it was gutted. These Indians brought in 

 another buck that weighed 2301bs. 



The party from Eaton. O., Mose Thompson, Gus Pot- 

 ters, Jas. Wilson and Thos. Leach, killed twenty-two 

 deer in the Wisconsin woods and brought eight home 

 with them. The Sidney hunters, Hudson Gartley, Cbris 

 and Wm. Kingseed, Joseph Laugh lin, John Bush, Nick 

 Gross and Geo. Lentner, and Louis Myer, of Anna, were 

 also very successful in Wisconsin. Hudson, who is cash- 

 ier of the German National Bank of Sidney, killed three 

 deer. Dr. B. F. Kiester, of Arcanum, took his wife with 

 him on the Western hunt. The Doctor killed five deer 

 and Mrs, Kiester killed a fine buck. Brown, 



