Feb. 25, 1892.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



178 



out once this fall, and I got two good standing shots that 

 day, and my old rifle wouldn't bust a cap; dunno what 

 was the matter; she neTer failed afore.' 



"We carried a southwest course about a mile toward 

 the river, when we came into what the natives call the 

 hurricane. Here were thousands of logs, across which 

 had fallen the small and large trees uprooted by a cyclone 

 some years before, leaving the younger growth twisted 

 and bent about them in such a way as to make an almost 

 impenetrable mass. In the midst of this Watson caught 

 a glimpse of some animal moving in the tangle, and by 

 a low whistle and a gesture indicated its direction to me 

 just as a large and extremely vicious-looking wildcat 

 came into my view. A rifle shot brought it half bound- 

 ing, half rolling, spitting and screaming so close to me 

 that my Winchester could be used only as a club, and 

 that with such light effect that I was obliged to use my 

 hunting-knife as a weapon of defense. A few well- 

 directed blows from Watson's hatchet gave encourage- 

 ment to me and dismay and finally death to the beast. 

 After we had admired his beautiful form and leopard- 

 like color and appearance for a time, Watson suggested 

 that we had quite enough game for one day." 



The war dance at the camp that evening commenced 

 earlier and was marked with more enthusiasm than 

 usual. 



A native whom Fred had met in the woods that day 

 told him that the officers were figuring on our arrest for 

 violating that part of the game law pertaining to non- 

 residents hunting in the State. This disturbed us not a 

 little, partly because the law leaves a heavy fine and im- 

 prisonment discretionary with the court for this offense 

 (we being entirely ignorant of the law, and thinking the 

 open season was all we had to wait for or consider), and 

 partly because the next day was the 8th, which, according 

 to our camp record, had always been in years gone by a 

 very successful day with us. On the morning of Nov. 8, 

 five years before, some three miles south of this very 

 camp I had killed my first deer, a fine buck, which (being a 

 taxidermist myself) I mounted in full form as an orna- 

 ment for the safe in my front office, a position which he 

 proudly holds to-day. And in the evening of the same 

 day Eli had brought the running mate into camp, his deer 

 having a wider spread of horns and weighing just lOlbs. 

 more than mine (and the rascal is not through tantaliz- 

 ing me yet over that trifling difference in weight), On 

 a corresponding date, two yeaxs later, after Fred and 

 Staff had followed two deer for a long distance through 

 the woods, partly by the tracks occasionally showing in 

 the soft ground, but principally by their knowledge of the 

 particular kind of territory most likely to be selected by 

 the game, finally Fred saw the buck standing at a 

 distance of 100yds., with head erect and nostrils distended, 

 and succeeded in dropping it almost in its very tracks by 

 a single shot from his .32cal. Colts. The report so startled 

 the doe that she bounded several feet above the under- 

 growth, which obscured her when on the ground, and 

 her white markings glistened in the sunshine much like 

 a fish above the water; and they both declare that Staff's 

 shot was fired" before she touched the ground with a 

 broken hip, and a second shot from his .50 express 

 brought her to bag; thus completing a round up that two 

 more experienced woodsman might well have been proud 

 of. These, with many other pleasant recollections 

 connected with that date, were talked over this evening; 

 and we retired early, fearing that the morning would 

 bring trouble, yet hoping it would not. 



According to the characters nervously made in my note 

 book under date of Nov. 8, we were astir earlier than 

 usual. Breakfast was not ready, however, when a soli- 

 tary horseman rode up to camp; and on invitation came 

 in and behaved himself very naturally. Nothing occurred 

 to arouse our suspicions, nor was there anything different 

 from what we might expect from any visiting native, 

 until he refused to eat breakfast with us. Our worst 

 fears were confirmed a few minutes later when he arose 

 to his full height, about (J ft. 5in., and assuming an air of 

 one clothed with authority, cleared his throat to a depth 

 of eleven inches and said, "By virtue of the papers I now 

 hold in my hand I command each and every one of you 

 to appear forthwith before Squire Merideth." And no 

 amount of moral suasion or immoral promises to pay 

 would swerve him from his purpose, so before Esquire 

 Merideth we went, partly because the esquire's office was 

 six miles directly on our way to the station and partly on 

 account of reasons already given. We changed our 

 minds about hunting another day or two, and before the 

 sun was high enough to dispel entirely the gloom that 

 had fallen about us, we had broken camp and were under 

 march with Constable Skip worth in full command. Upon 

 reaching the Squire's home — a double log house joined 

 together by one clapboard roof covering also an entry 

 way between the two cabins— we found his honor not 

 only at home, but expecting company. He was an older 

 man than we expected to find, not handsome, very tall 

 and thin, somewhat dignified in his general bearing, and 

 had determination of character enough to bear up an egg. 

 Besides a long sandy goatee, he wore a pair of large cow- 

 hide shoes, quite a distance above which could be seen 

 the frouzled ends of a pair of cottonade breeches of the 

 same color as his sack coat, which came down below his 

 knees and was buttoned from there to his chin, evidently 

 in an effort to cover up the fact that he wore no shirt. 

 He called us to order in a voice that I have had no diffi- 

 culty in recollecting so far. 



The only book in sight was a leather-covered volume, 

 which proved to be a copy of the statute laws of the 

 State of Arkansas, which his honor proceeded to open at 

 a page marked with a seven spot of diamonds, and as my 

 luck never ran with odd numbers a tremor of superstition 

 passed over my entire system. I felt my lower jaw drop, 

 and suddenly realized that all eyes were upon me. I 

 hurried it back into position, but as the card was still in 

 sight I felt it drop instantly, and one motion followed the 

 other so rapidly that my teeth chattered like a chipmunk. 

 At this junction the Squire without removing his glasses 

 arose, and leaving one foot on the hearth planted the 

 other with a sullen thud well toward the center of the 

 floor. With the same motion he placed his left hand 

 (still clutching the book mark) across the small of his 

 back. His right (looking like a 5 Lb. bass) he held, in front 

 of his breast with its fingers pointing directly toward me. 

 Knowing imitation to be the most pleasing of all forrm 

 of flattery, I at once threw myself into an attitude as 

 near like the position occupied by the Squire as it was 

 possible for me to do. The excitement of the occasion, 

 together with the business-like proceedings of the justice, 



had so dazed my faculties that for the moment I had for- 

 gotten that it had been agreed with my full kno wledge 

 and consent for me to act as spokesman for my nine boon 

 companions, who now stood with me in our deadgrass 

 uniforms trembling in this temple of justice. Realizing 

 that the time for action had fully come, my chest heaved 

 with a latent oratory, dormant since the school exhibi- 

 tions of my boyhood, and I broke forth with an energy 

 that not only astonished our party, but bowed the form 

 in front of me as twenty years addition to his age might 

 have done: and as my argument closed with a clearly 

 defined course of action for his honor, following a care- 

 fully woven network of flattery, his eye was full of 

 moisture when he dismissed court, and asked us to make 

 his home our headquarters while on our next trip, and 

 offered to act himself as special guide and director. 



NOCTUS. 



THE COUNTRY CLUB. 



WE have received from Secretary J, M. Quay, of the 

 San Francisco Country Club, an interesting note 

 of the club's condition. It was organized in the early 

 part of 1890, and ten-year leases were secured of a large 

 territory in Marion county. The preserve contains about 

 7(5,000 acres, with 60 miles of ocean front. The roads for 

 driving are all good and the scenery is unsurpassed. 

 There are numerous lakes and trout streams, and an 

 abundance of deer, quail, snipe and duck, with sea fish- 

 ing and salmon fishing in Tomales Bay. 



The club house is situated on the Divide, midway be- 

 tween the entrance to Bear Valley and the ocean, three 

 miles from Point Reyes, the railway station. The build- 

 ing is on high ground, with lawn in front, and is sur- 

 rounded by large pine trees. The club house consists of 

 a general sitting room, dining room, kitchen, store room, 

 wine room, armory or gun room, bed room, bath room, 

 etc. Tne building has a covered veranda 150ft. long by 

 10ft. wide. 



Trout Lake (in which fly-fishing will be permitted after 

 April 1) has been stocked with 16,000 New Hampshire 

 trout, and Bear Valley Creek with 2,000; Black Bass 

 Lake, Ocean Lake, Little Lake and Wildcat Lake with 

 black bass. This spring Crescent Lake will be stocked 

 with landlocked salmon. There have been turned out 

 30 Mongolian pheasants, 24 Arizona quail and 100 Chinese 

 quail. This summer the club will receive from England 

 and Oregon pheasant and partridge eggs, and the experi- 

 ment will be tried of hatching them out under Bantam 

 chickens. 



Since July 4, 1890, there have bean killed on the pre- 

 serve 5 deer (previous to March 31, 1891), 2 825 quail, 1,603 

 snipe, 19 canvasback ducks, 70 mallards, 134 sprigs, 155 

 widgeon, 147 teal, 16 black jacks, a total' of 541; 1 black 

 swan, 3 geese. 66 rail, 8 wild pigeons, 75 doves, 13 plover, 

 92 robins, 4,038 trout. 



The members who participate in trap-shooting meet on 

 the last Saturday of each month at the club house, in 

 Oakland. The annual picnic and pigeon shoot will occur 

 at Hotel del Monte, Monterey, on. Saturday, Aug. 27, 

 Ladies and friends of members are invited to attend. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff Correspondent.l 



CHICAGO, 111., Feb. 13.— Buffalo Jones is in town and 

 has a copy of Forest and Stream in his pocket, 

 date of Feb. 4. The story of the European bison is of 

 especial fascination to him. The engravings of the ani- 

 mals shown impressed him very much. 



"I must have a cross from those animals," he said. 

 "Do you know any way in which it can be arranged?" 



I told him I supposed Forest and Stream could fix 

 the matter up for Iritn some way with the Czar of Russia, 

 and as Buff alo Jones has a good deal of confidence in the 

 paper, I don't doubt that his wishes will ultimately be 

 realized. 



There is a possibility that Buffalo Jones will join forces 

 with Buffalo Bill at the World's Fair in buffalo matters, 

 or at least negotiations to that end are now in progress. 

 Buffalo Bill has been in town for several days, planning 

 for room at the grounds of the great exposition. We saw 

 the ex-scout in his quarters at the Leland. As compan- 

 ionable and pleasant as ever, and as straight and vigor- 

 ous apparently as in his younger days. Col. Cody's hair 

 now shows signs of gray, and he seems a trifle thinner 

 than the recollections of him on his last visit here. Odd 

 experiences he has had. He showed us a fine photo- 

 graph of his troupe, taken in the far Orient, with tur- 

 baned natives on one side and a group of elephants back 

 of the party of Crow Indians. It was as singular a spec- 

 tacle as could be conceived. 



Buffalo Jones showed me pictures of his buffalo-har- 

 nessed to carts and apparently tractable. It is his inten- 

 tion to train them for chariot racing, in which they will 

 be shown at the Fair. The herd has been moved from 

 Garden City, Kas., to McCook, Neb., the headquarters of 

 Mr. Jones's irrigating operations. The animals are all 

 doing well, and photographs of occasional bunches in the 

 herd show unique phases in what Mr. Jones calls his 

 "cataloes" or "cateloes," crosses of buffalo and domestic 

 cattle. This name is of Mr. Jones's own invention, and 

 he thinks it is a pretty good word. The herd will be 

 increased this spring by twelve calves, one a cross of 

 buffalo bull and Galloway stock. 



From all this it may be seen that the wilder West will 

 not be devoid of good representation at the great Fair. 

 There will be much, very much, to interest the sports- 

 man and the naturalist. 



Next September Buffalo Jones will move to Chicago, 

 buffalo and all. But what is this contained in the follow- 

 ing brief floating paragraph? 



"The Kalispell Graphic says: Chas. Allard, of the Flat- 

 head Reservation, will send two carloads of his buffaloes 

 to the World's Fair. Mr. Allard'sherd is the largest now 

 in existence." 



I confess intense ignorance of this "largest herd in ex- 

 istence." How is this, Mr. Jones? 



Mr. Roger Williams, who will be one of the judges in 

 the forthcoming wolf race between the Eastern Barzoi 

 and the Western greyhounds or deerhounds, raises an in- 

 teresting question when he asks whether "wolf" means 

 coyote, and if not, where shall any better sort of wolf be 

 found. Western Kansas is suggested. There are plenty 

 of coyotes there, but no gray wolves, unless one by mere 

 chance passes through. On the cattle ranges of the Indian 

 Nations the grays have been hunted and poisoned so 



systematically that they are hard to find. If that now 

 celebrated race is to be decided on a genuine gray wolf 

 basis, the hunt will have to go to a cattle country, and 

 that means either Texas or Montana, the former probably 

 the better country in practical features, though incon- 

 venient for the owner of the Western dogs who lives in 

 Montana. If they jump a regular gray, either a Texas 

 loper wolf or a Montana timber, the contest will ba easy 

 of judging if only two dogs are slipped, and the owners 

 would do well to take a basket along to carry back the 

 fragments. Even a big coyote will make a good fight 

 with twice that many good dogs. 



It would be pleasant to see fchi3 wolf race deferred until 

 it has grown to larger proportions. It is a long way to 

 Montana to see three or four runs. If some of the older 

 wolf hunters of Kansas, Mr. Luse for instance, should 

 become interested, and a few of the old wolf dogs of the 

 greyhound packs be gotten together, we could have a 

 great meeting of genuine sport, new and exciting in its 

 variety. Greyhounds will go to a wolf ahead of either the 

 Russian wolfhounds or the deerhounds, and if the better 

 class experienced wolf dogs of greyhound breed can now 

 be found, they should win in such a contest. The grey- 

 hound Yonder He Goes, which is named as one of the 

 dogs Mr. Dougallwill enter against the Barzoi, is of recent 

 experience, if any, in wolf killing. In Kansas, before Mr. 

 Luse sold him to Montana, we knew him as fairly fast 

 only, a little crafty on jacks, but a tremendous stayer. 

 He could run all day, apparently. It' he has sines then 

 been killing wolves, big wolves, gray wolves, he is the 

 dog to put against the wolfhounds. If not, he is simply 

 an unknown factor. The dog which will actually run 

 into and close with a big wolf is a very different animal 

 from the one whose owner thinks he would do so if he 

 had a chance. Two dogs will have a serious time with a 

 gray wolf. I have at my table a fine gray-wolf skin, 6ft. 

 Sin. in length, given me by Mr. D. R. Streeter, whose 

 cattle range is just below Kiowa, on the line of the 

 Cherokee Strip. Two greyhounds ran into and threw this 

 wolf, but he rose and was fairly dragging them both, one 

 on each side, when Mr. Streeter ended the fight with a 

 pistol shot, not wanting to see his dogs cut up. These 

 dogs were a blue and a red fawn greyhound, either of 

 which would weigh over 701 bs., 1 should think, the largest 

 greyhounds I ever saw. Wolf hunting, if the quarry be 

 the gray wolf, is wild sport enough to make the blood 

 tingle. I should like to see this contest, if it were so 

 handled that a number of good dogs could, compete in a 

 practicable country where something bigger than coyotes 

 can be found. But I should not care to see less than four 

 dogs slipped on a gray, for less would not render the fight 

 equal to a point less than cruelty to good servants. 

 ~Xt is often a source of wonder that a gun can burst in a 

 shooter's hands without fatally injuring him, though 

 numberless guns have burst without such result. Not so 

 in the case of J. T. Combs, of Newmarket, Iowa, this 

 week, whose gun burst while we was out with a charivari 

 party. The metal separated, two pieces going entirely 

 through Combs's head, killing him. Others were also 

 hurt by fragments of the metal. The affair seems sin- 

 gular. 



My friend the daily reporter describes a horrible mur- 

 der this week, and discovors that it was done with a 

 "six-caliber revolver." 



Mr. Edward Bingham, late of Ohaha, late of Kansas 

 City, is now of Chicago, and on Monday morning goes 

 to work with Montgomery Ward & Co., where be will 

 have to do with guns and loads. Montgomery Ward & 

 Co. are now agents for Henry C. Squires, and have put in 

 a $5,000 stock of Greeners. They will also establish a 

 market for their own hand-loaded and machine shells. It 

 looks as though Mr. Bingham had hit the right place, as 

 indeed every one does who comes to Chicago. 



Mr. G. De Long passed East this week after a brief 

 visit with his friend Mr. Hirth, of Spaldings. It is said 

 that Mr. De Long contemplates removing to this city. 



Mr. S. D. Thompson, of this city, is said to have the 

 best camping and sporting outfit of any Chicago man. 

 H s usual headquarters are on Gogebic. He has just pur- 

 chased for u^e on that lake a 16ft. sailer, built by the 

 Detroit Boat Works on their canvas-lined principle. 



Mr, H. B. Tefft, of Milwaukee, was over looking 

 through the dog show with his friend Mr. Dick Merrill, 

 and rejoiced with the latter at the further triumphs of 

 that amiable little dog Paul Bo. Mr. Tefft thinks Mil- 

 waukee will have a good contingent over on Washington's 

 Birthday for the shoot at Cumberland Lodge. 



Mr. Geo. Andrews this week goes on the Rial to for E. 

 A. Mulford, the railroad ticket man. 



Chicago ships live pigeons to Philadelphia for the 

 Riverton Gun Club. Mr. J. Emory Soule, of that club, 

 says they are the best birds they ever shot. Over 4,000 

 have bsen shipped, 1,000 in the last lot. 



Sweep? at birds and targets held Watson's Park to-day . 



Feb. 5 closed the legal selling season for game in 

 Chicago. Beyond the two cases early in the week against 

 Small Bros, and Warder Bros., both on the West Side, 

 Warden Bortree reports nothing. 



The directors' meeting of the Kankakee Association last 

 Monday evening adjourned without a quorum on account 

 of bad weather. 



Unusually hard weather for February. Snow has fallen 

 off and on throughout the week. 



Chicago, 111., Feb. 20.— A serious accident befel one 

 of the most popular and best known sportsmen of 

 Chicago last week, and one which bids fair to be fatal, 

 although at this writing it is thought that serious danger 

 of so sad a result is past. Dr. J. M. Hutchinson, well 

 known as a physician and as an able and finely educated 

 gentleman, was at Jupiter Point, Fla., Feb. 9, and was 

 fishing from a boat, in company with Mr. J. L. Wilcox 

 and Dr. Peck, also of this city. A flock of ducks came 

 in sight, and Dr. Hutchinson caught up his gun to try 

 for a shot. Pausing to wipe the sea water from the bar- 

 rels, in some way the gun was discharged just as his right 

 hand was across the muzzle. The third finger was de- 

 stroyed at the knuokle joint, and the hand sadly injured. 

 The boat was at once hurried ashore. Mr. Wilcox char- 

 tered an engine and ran to Lakewood, forty miles, but 

 could get no doctor. Dr. Hutchinson aided himself as 

 best he could, and on the following day thn party went 

 by steamer to Rock Ledge, and met there- the surgeons 

 from Jacksonville who had been summoned by wire. 

 There appeared in a Chicago daily a later statement that 

 it was feared amputation of the arm would be necessary, 

 but yesterday Mr. Wilcox telegraphed personally that 

 Dr, Hutchinson's condition was the best possible, He 



