FOREST AND STREAM. 



[March <j, 18954, 



BUFFALO EXTERMINATION FORETOLD. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The extinction of the American bison or buffalo is 

 often spoken of as being due to the immense slaughter 

 of these animals within the last few years: and in view 

 of this fact, the following extract from an old book may 

 be interesting, as showing that it was fully foreseen 50 

 years ago. The book referred to is "George's Commerce 

 of the Prairies," published by Wiley and Putman, in 1844. 

 Josiah Gregg was an old Sante Fe trader, and published 

 two very interesting romances, giving an account of eight 

 expeditions by wagon across the prairies, over the old 

 Santa Fe Trail, and says as follows: 



"This animal furnishes almost the exclusive food of the 

 prairie Indians, as well as covering for their wigwams, 

 and most of their clothing; also their bedding, ropes, 

 bags for their meats etc. ; sinews for bowstrings, for sew- 

 ing moccasins, leggins, and the like, besides sustenance 

 for the numerous travelers and trappers who range upon 

 their grazing regions. 



"Were they only killed for food, however, then natural 

 increase would perhaps replenish the loss, yet the contin- 

 ual and wanton slaughter of them by travelers and 

 hunters, and the still greater havoc made among them 

 by the Indians, not only for meat, but often for the skins 

 and tongues alone (for which they find a ready market 

 among their traders,) are fast reducing their numbers, 

 and must ultimately effect their total annihilation from 

 the continent. It is believed that the annual export of 

 'buffalo rugs' from the prairies and bordering 'buffalo 

 range' is about 100,000, and the number killed wantonly, 

 or exclusively for meat, is no doubt still greater, as the 

 skins are fit to dress scarcely half the year. The vast ex- 

 tent of the prairies on which they now pasture is no 

 argument against the prospect of their total extinction, 

 when we take into consideration the extent of country 

 from which they have entirely disappeared ; for it is well 

 known that within the recollection of our oldest pioneer, 

 they were nearly as abundant east of the Mississippi as 

 they now are upon the western prairies; and from history 

 we learn, that they once ranged to the Atlantic coast. 

 Even within 30 years, they were abundant over much of 

 the present States of Missouri and Arkanses; yet thevare 

 now rarely seen within 200 miles of the frontier. Indeed, 

 upon the high plains they have very sensibly decreased 

 within the last 10 years." 



So you see, the prospect 'of their extinction was pro- 

 phesied long ago, but such warnings seem to be of no 

 avail against the combined greeds of lucre and slaughter. 

 Let us only hope that men may get sufficiently wiser, so 

 that the elk, the mule deer, the grouse and the turkey, 

 may not be exterminated like the bison. Von W. 



Charlestown, N. H. 



A HUNTER OF THE KANKAKEE, 



IF you have been near the Kankakee River you have 

 heard of Hosey Barnes. Until old age, with its at- 

 tending infirmities, came upon him, he was the mighty 

 hunter of that famous river. He settled on its erratic 

 banks somewhere 'in the '40s, and ever since he has seen 

 its swift current slip by his door, and has breathed the 

 miasma coming from the adjoining marshes. Slight of 

 body but strong in character, he pursued the even tenor 

 of his simple way, carving out of the wilderness a com- 

 fortable home and layirjg by enough for his needs. He 

 built his house a few miles east of English Lake, as the 

 ducks fly, but many miles by the river^ on the border of 

 that vast expanse of marsh, dotted with little wooded 

 islands, which became the paradise of sportsmen and 

 trappers. He knew every kink and turn of the river for 

 many miles, and every slough where the ducks came to 

 roost, and could pilot the hunter through the cane by 

 night or day with unerring instinct, when it seemed to 

 the bewildered senses of the novice like going into 

 another world. The hunting season was his harvest, 

 and he made it so agreeable that his hospitable house 

 became the Mecca toward which the eyes of many sports- 

 men annually turned. 



Fortunate was he who could get Hosey's individual 

 services; he was sure of a large string of birds at night, 

 and he was sure of an entertainment that always comes 

 from a decided personality. 



When a man is of a positive temperament, self- con- 

 trolled, self-reliant, self-assertive, and yet lacking qual- 

 ities that would raise him out of the common herd into a 

 clear and imposing individuality, we say he is a "char- 

 acter." Perhaps they did not know how otherwise to 

 estimate him. There was that about him t^hat com- 

 manded respect, although one was easily aware of his 

 limitations and his weakness. 



Personally, his figure was rather slight when I first 

 knew him, and his shoulders rounded, a long gray beard 

 hung from a square jaw, his mouth was firm and his 

 dark eyes looked at you in an honest unhesitating way, 

 his step was quick and decided. 



He was known far and near as "Hosey," and if one 

 said he was going to "Hosey's," it conveyed as clear an 

 idea of destination as if he had said he was going to Chi- 

 cago. His speech was frank, as became an honest heart, 

 and having a clear idea of right and wrong, he did not 

 hesitate to express his opinion of any dishonest action. 

 One would have felt uncomfortable to have done a mean 

 thing in his presence. Being, then, a man of integrity, 

 he early made his influence felt and naturally became a 

 justice of the peace of his township. His stern sense of 

 justice became apparent to those who had occasion to 

 test it. 



. He welcomed ail hunters alike, making no distinc- 

 tions; he made them feel at home and gave much of bis 

 time to their personal wants, while it was very evident 

 that he trusted largely to his good wife to appease the 

 appetites that must have seemed at times very formidable. 

 I never knew him to misrepresent the shooting; but 

 when the "fever" came on— that delicious indisposition- 

 many used to go down there, although Hosey's advice 

 had been to wait awhile. I never saw any one who did 

 not have a good time, however poor the shooting might 

 be. It must be said, however, that there are many things 

 a party of hunters can do in comfortable quarters, ten 

 miles from a railroad and two miles from the next door 

 neighbor. Hosey was a constant companion of his visit- 

 ors, always the last to retire and the first to get up, not 

 seeming to care how much time elapsed between these 

 two events. No doubt the "stock" and household duties 

 suffered at this season of the year, for he was not over 

 fond of manual labor, except as it had a direct applica- 



tion to hunting. He was always ready for ducks, politics 

 and "seven up," and it didn't make any difference how 

 these came, when they came, whether singly or in pairs. I 

 One usually found it to his advantage to acknowledge 

 Hosey's superiority in the first and last of these, and to 

 avoid as much as possible any allusion to the second. 



Hosey was a Democrat of the old school, and his faith 

 in the party was beautiful in its simplicity. He seemed 

 to think it could do no wrong. His assumed superiority 

 in duck shooting and seven up came largely from the 

 conviction that whatever he did and whatever he had 

 were the best of their kind and therefore of much conse- 

 quence and worthy to be talked about. His mental 

 horizon was contracted, and like harmless egotists gen- 

 erally, he had an appreciation of facts out of all propor- 

 tion to their significance. On driving over from the sta- 

 tion we would have our attention called to the excellent 

 points of "that cream pony;" this would be good for sev- 

 eral miles. I remember that one night when he and I 

 were on the marsh he killed a towering mallard with his 

 little gun after I had fired both barrels ineffectually. I 

 promptly acknowledged his skill, but this was not suffi- 

 cient; the incident assumed such proportions in his own 

 estimation that he must refer to it many times and in- 

 form each new comer, relating the details with exasper- 

 ating minuteness. But one easily forgot his little weak- 

 ness he was such a good companion and entered so fully 

 into all the sports of the hunter. 



It is all passing away, hunters and hunting alike. The 

 river will be drained, and then the cane will be turned 

 into corn, and the kingly mallard, looking to the right 

 and left will, seek in vain for a roosting'place. Fortun- 

 ate are those who can say they were on this Kankakee in 

 the palmy days of duck hunting, when every day was a 

 "red-letter" day. They have a priceless store of memor- 

 ies against the time when men are said to live over again 

 their early lives. R. 



Kalamazoo, Mich. 



"FOXES CLIMBING TREES." 



I HAVE no special acquaintance with the habits or ac- 

 complishments of foxes, but have noticed some dis- 

 cussion in Forest and Stream with a caption similar to 

 the above. An incident of yesterday's turkey hunt near 

 Fort Myers will dispose of the question. 



Riding toward Myers, after the hunt, I heard the dog 

 barking in the edge of the cypress. I slipped two buck- 

 shot cartridges in my gun and ran down to the edge of 

 the swamp, and there found a red fox astride of the first 

 limb of a leafless and Iperfectly perpendicular cypress, at 

 least thirty feet from the ground. The dog had chased 

 him up a tree, but how he climbed it is a mystery, for, as 

 Uncle Remus says, he is "a creetur' which has no claws." 

 The tree he was on was fifty feet from any other tree. 

 St. James City, Fla., Feb. 21. F. S. J. C. 



Aluminum. — I am glad to see that my query as to 

 aluminum has struck a responsive chord on the shores of 

 tbe Pacific. It shows the wide circulation of Forest 

 and Stream, It does not seem to have hit any of your 

 advertisers yet, though, and I would like to suggest 

 further that as I see it advertised in large lots at 65 cents 

 per pound, and as it only weighs one-quarter as much as 

 copper, an equal bulk of it, in a reel, a drinking cup, or a 

 match box, can be furnished as cheap as "bronze," which 

 is a compound of copper and tin, and as the weight in 

 one of these small articles is only an ounce or two, the 

 cost of the material even at $1 per pound would add only 

 two or three cents to the cost of the finished article. 

 Whoever "gets on to the market" first with such articles 

 is sure to make money out of it. — Von W. 



English Snipe Arrivals.— Edit or Forest and Stream: 

 Will not brother sportsmen, especially in the East, give 

 some notes on the habits and earliest dates of spring ar- 

 rival of the English snipe. I think this will strike a key- 

 note of interest with the "fraternity" everywhere, as it 

 seems to me this royal little game bird is very little 

 known about among sportsmen generally. — A. W. Jones. 



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

 Price $2.50. Wing and Glass Ball Shooting with the 

 Rifle. By W. G. Bliss. Price 50 cents. Rifle, Rod and 

 Gun in California. By T. S. Van Dyke. Price $1.50. 

 Shore Birds. Price 15 cents. Woodcraft? By "JVess- 

 muk,' Price $1. Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. Price 

 50 cents Wild Fowl Shooting; see advertisement. 



The full texts of the game laws of all the States, Terri- 

 tories and British Provinces are given in the Book of the 

 Qame Laws. 



TROUTING IN THE CASCADES.-X1I. 



THE MOLALLA COUNTRY. 



GEORGE knew when he had enough of a good thing, 

 and soon went back to the flesh-pots of Portland. 

 But Harry and I sorrowed after our mountain idols and 

 would not be comforted. We hungered after the weird 

 chasms, the ghostly pools and demoniacal rapids of 

 unknown regions. We craved for communion with 

 nature in her own wild realms, where she reigned, su- 

 preme and unrestrained queen of freaks, fissures, caverns 

 and the other monstrous offspring of her own power and 

 vanity. 



It was now two days since we returned from the North 

 Fork expedition. Our muscles and tendons were recover- 

 ing their elasticity to a degree; the cracks in our bones 

 were healing, and already we were planning another 

 tour of investigation. 



There is a class of anglers that are never satisfied. I 

 must admit that I belong to that class. If I knew that I 

 could go down here to the bank of the Willamette and 

 catch a barrel of trout in an hour, I would disdain to play 

 the part of the piscatorial swine. But if some one should 

 suggest a trip into the rugged mountains to some half 

 mythical stream about which nobody could furnish us 

 with any definite information as to distance, country or 

 fish, I would be ready in a minute^ It is my misfortune 



and I am the sufferer— always promising reformation, 

 and always seeking new waters. The first question to 

 be determined was, wether we would follow the crest of 

 the mountain until we got above the crevasse of the 

 North Fork, and then working down to the stream, fol- 

 low it into the domains of the "big burn," or tackle the 

 still more uncertain South Fork. I was in favor of the 

 North Fork while Harry favored the South Fork. 



We flipped a quarter and Harry won, of course. So we 

 set to work preparing for what proved to be the most 

 severe trial in all my fishing experience. 



With light rolls of blankets, but otherwise well supplied 

 with the necessaries for a three or four days' trip we were 

 on our way the morning of the 12tb, to unravel the 

 secrets of the mysterious South Fork. For once I was a 

 little dubious about results; not that there was any un- 

 certainty about rapids, pools, wild scenery or trout, but 

 serious questions respecting our comfort and even our 

 safety presentsd themselves. Half a mile above the 

 Forks we found a place on the stream, which although 

 not exactly impassable, was too suggestive of danger to 

 suit me. 



High above, on the precipitous walls that confined the 

 stream, innumerable boulders were hanging as if bv 

 threads, apparently ready to descend at even the suspi- 

 cion of a jar, and as we would have to work our way 

 through the chasm upon the little shelves and jagged 

 points of the broken strata, I rather seriously demurred. 

 Harry was bolder and rather more disposed to take the 

 risk; but while we were arguing the question, the sudden, 

 comet-like plunge of a giant boulder, with its rattle and 

 roar and splash into the foaming river among its erratic 

 brethren, brought Harry around to my view of the mat- 

 ter, and we quietly retraced our steps, fishing as we went, 

 to the forks and thence up the divide, with which, to the 

 crest, we were now somewhat familiar. As we rested on 

 the same old log the dogs commenced to growl, and a voice 

 behind us exclaimed, "Kla-how-ya, ni-ka kwass kow- 

 mux." (How are you? I'm afraid of the dog.) Turn- 

 ing, we saw an old Indian grinning at us, whom we took 

 to be Indian Henry, spoken of by Uncle Billy Vauhn. 

 "Kla-how-ya six, chah co yah-kwa six pu wa-wa," said 

 I, as I put my foot on old Mike's neck. "Hy-as kloshe," 

 said the Indian, as he approached and sat down. Knock- 

 ing the ashes out of his pipe, he grinned again and 

 queried, "Kirn-oolth?" I handed him my tobacco pouch, 

 from which he slowly abstracted not only a pipeful but 

 a little for a rainy day. Handing me the pouch, which I 

 was glad enough to get back, he remarked, "Mes-see, 

 hy-as kla-how-yum ni-ka, me-si-ka hy-as kloshe." (Thank 

 you, I am very poor, you are very good.) 



After a pause, during which he puffed away valiantly, 

 he inquired, "Ik-ta mi-ka tik-eb?" "Trout," I responded. 

 After another pause be asked, "Ik-ta mi-ka tum-tum 

 6-coke ill-a-he?" (What do you think of this country?) to 

 which I responded, "O coke hy-as kloahe." (It is very 

 nice.) Another pause, and I thought I would interrogate 

 him a little. "Kon-si lo-lo mi-ka mit-lite yah-kwa?" 

 (How long have you lived here?) I asked, to which he re- 

 plied, "Kwon-e-sum ni-ka mit-lite" (I have always lived 

 here). 



I would have liked to "wa-wa" longer with Lo, but, 

 not being a professor of Chinook, I concluded that it 

 would be a waste of time to try to get much information 

 out of his "untutored mind" with my untutored tongue, 

 and we left the poor old aboriginee to the enjoyment of 

 his la-peep and kim-oolth and trudged along. We worked 

 our way to the south along the ridge for a mile or more. 

 It was not yet night, but we decided to take it easy and 

 camp on the mountain for the night. It became decidedly 

 uncomfortable as night shut down. 



The wind came directly down upon us from the eternal 

 snows of old Mt. Hood and chilled us through— all ex- 

 cept those portions of our anatomies fried by the roaring 

 camp-fire. About midnight Harry sat up in bed, his 

 teeth chattering as if he had the ague, and I soon fol- 

 lowed suit. Sleep was entirely out of the question, so we 

 stirred the fire and sat and counted stars, and timed the 

 withered moon in her slow flight while we patiently 

 awaited daylight. Like a kettle that never boils when 

 watched, the sun disdains to gratify peepers that 

 anxiously watch for the tints that betoken approaching 

 day. But other people had to be accommodated even if 

 it didn't matter much about us, and finally we stole 

 enough gray streaks from the lazy morning to see to pre- 

 pare our coffee. As the sun found out that we were 

 getting along without him he hurried up from behind 

 the mountains to enjoy our miseries during the day. So 

 we packed up and struck out through the forest for the 

 South Fork. 



For a mile we pushed through the tangled sal-lal and 

 fallen trees. At last we could hear the roar of the clam- 

 orous stream. We reached the edge of a precipice and 

 gazed down into the depths. Half a mile below or, 

 rather, under us a streak of silver was writhing and 

 twisting like a serpent and howling like the storm. This 

 was the South Fork again, in her morning dress. We 

 worked along until we struck an incline, created, prob- 

 ably, by an avalanche. We slid down, and I can assure 

 you that we fully appreciated the trials and tribulations 

 of the ordinary avalanche. There's nothing in it. But 

 when we arrived within about 40ft. of the stream we 

 found ourselves headed off by an abrupt perpendicular 

 wall, down which it was impossible even to slide, so we 

 cooned it down an old tree that had evidently been driven 

 in and tilted up against the cliff by some winter freshet. 

 The fates must take care of the return trip, and we 

 ignominiously dismissed reflections about the hardships 

 in store for us that crept into our minds now and then. 

 Maybe we were affected by the madness of our distracted 

 surroundings and had ourselves gone mad. 



The water was green, whether from reflecting the 

 verdure of the mountains or with rage at the impeding 

 boulders that tormented its mad flight I do not know. 

 Tne lapping, foaming, bellowing torrent seemed larger 

 than the main Molalla, and as we were forced to cross at 

 each rapid we were soon wet to our hips. At each bend 

 in tbe stream a deep pool had been gouged out of the 

 bluff that was absolutely impassable. Without our packs 

 we might have got along easier, but we must keep them 

 with us or suffer even greater hardships from hunger and 

 cold. 



Jumping from boulder to boulder like mountain goats, 

 but with occasional slips, falls and free baths, we worked 

 our way slowly up the stream. At noon we stopped long 

 enough to clean our fish and make our coffee. We 

 wrapped the trout in bright green ferns and suspended 



