May IS, 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



47 



A HUNT WITH INDIANS. 



I THINK that most Eastern sportsmen are under the 

 impression that Indians are good hunters, or are bet- 

 ter than frontiersmen, or men who have been in the 

 mountains for a number of years. This is not the case. 

 Indians are very poor marksmen, and as for tracking 

 game that is wounded they are no better than the aver- 

 age mountaineer. 



A few years ago an Indian came to my claim, and 

 wanted I should go on a hunt with him and his friends. 

 I told him I could not spare the time, but I would go for 

 two or three days. So I packed up my traps while he 

 went and drove up my horses, and we were soon on the 

 road to the Indian camp, distant about ten miles. On 

 the way to camp we saw a number of deer, but as we 

 made so much noise driving our pack horses we did not 

 get a shot. At camp there were fourteen Indians, and 

 as I was acquainted with them they were very glad to 

 see me, and from the way they laughed and talked I 

 knew I wa3 the subject of many jokes, but as I could not 

 understand Indian I did not care. 



Next morning very early camp was astir. Some went 

 after horses, while some rubbed up their guns, of which 

 there was a great variety in the camp, yet I think Win- 

 chesters had a small call over the others. I had the 

 lightest gun of the lot, while an Indian by the name of 

 Joseph had a 121b. Sharps .45 120. This day we were to 

 hunt on horseback, and when everything was in readi- 

 ness I was told to go up a small branch, follow it to some 

 thickets, and from thence to the divide between my creek 

 and the one on which we were camped. "When we were 

 stretched out we presented a mile and a half of front. 

 Same Indians up to my right ran two deer down near me 

 but the brush was so thick I could not get a shot, but in 

 a few minutes the Indians to my left opened fire on them. 

 I counted seven shots. I kept on until I reached the 

 divide, where I found ten Indians waiting, and in a few 

 minutes the other four came up. A number had got 

 shots that I had not heard, yet not one had killed any- 

 thing. 



After they had all taken a smoke, I was told to keep 

 down about half a mile from the divide and we would 

 meet near the spring on the big mountain. I had not 

 gone far, when I heard some one shoot down to my left. 

 I kept a good lookout, but I did not see anything. I 

 kept on to our place of meeting, when I found"! was the 

 last one to put in an appearance. Here they took their 

 regular smoke. 



After finishing it I was told we would let two of the 

 oldest men take the horses, and the rest of us would go 

 on foot through a big fir thicket in a canon, and would 

 meet on the divide on the head of the creek on which we 

 were camped, I was to keep around as near the height 

 we were on as I could, while mo3t of the Indians kept 

 below me. You may talk about thickets, yet I dare say 

 there are but few of your readers who have any idea 

 what a thicket is. 



This was about half a mile wide and a couple long, and 

 the young pine, fir and tamarack stood nearly as thick 

 as wheat. 



There were but few places in it where you could see 

 six feet ahead of you. These thickets are a famous re- 

 sort for old sharp bucks. I had seen a number of fresh 

 beds, and when about half way through I heard a deer 

 jump up and start through the brush. I hallooed so that 

 the Indians might run for a place where they could see 

 as much open ground as might be in his vicinity. Pretty 

 soon I heard a shot, then another, then another, and still 

 they kept on. Finally they ceased. 



I got through at last, and found about one-half of the 

 Indians waiting. They wanted to know if I had shot. I 

 told them no, I had not seen any, but I had heard one, 

 sure. They told me my friend had killed a very big 

 buck. He had taken his horse and had gone down after 

 it. When he came up with his deer we separated, some 

 went one way, some another: while quite a number of us 

 went straight for camp, which we reached about 4 o'clock, 

 tired and hungry. Oar supper was soon ready. It con- 

 sisted of frying-pan bread, baked squash, and boiled 

 jerked venison and potatoes, and dried fruit stewed. 

 When all had returned and got through with their 

 suppers and gathered in a big tent, they counted up how 

 many shots had been fired. There were 42 shots fired , 

 and one deer was the result. I have no doubt that a good 

 many were wounded. The women had prepared a lot of 

 dry wood, so that they would be able to jerk all that 

 should be killed that day, as it was intended to move 

 camp next day over on to my creek. 



Next morning we were up early, but the men did not 

 go after horses. We were to hunt on foot, leaving the 

 women and children to move camp. I fixed up my traps, 

 so that they would not be any bother to them. I was 

 shown a bald spot on the mountains and told we would 

 meet there. I was perfectly familiar with, the mountains 

 here, or it would have been an utter impossibility to have 

 gone to the place selected. 



I had not gone far, when an Indian on my left got a 

 shot and killed a deer. That seemed to start the shooting, 

 for every few minutes some one would shoot. I reached 

 the place among the first, and we had to wait nearly an 

 hour before we got all our crew, and not then until we 

 had done a good deal of whistling and some holloing. I 

 was laughed at a good deal for not killing anything. 

 "Well," I said, "I have not had a shot yet, and I am the 

 only one who has not had a chance to try his skill." 



When all was ready, we started again, and were told 

 to meet on the summit. I hunted very carefully, and 

 had just come out of a sarvis thicket on to a fir'bench 

 where the timber was open, when a big black-tailed doe 

 jumped up and whistled. Her fawns lay still with their 

 beads on the ground, hiding. I shot "one through the 

 head, and as they were about twenty feet apart, the other 

 never moved and I shot it through the head. They were 

 nice and fat, had shed their spots, and weighed 521bs. 

 each. 



I dressed them, hung them up out of the way of the 

 coyotes, and kept on to our place of meeting. Quite a 

 number had got there ahead of me, and they were specu- 

 lating on what I had shot at. They all seemed to think 

 that it was I that had done the shooting, although a num- 

 ber of other shots had been fired. I told them I had killed 

 two little ones. We made another drive down to where 

 they had told the women to c:mp. When we got there 

 we found the women had made camp and had dinner 

 ready. 



I took my horse and traps and went back to where my 



deer were, gave one to an old man, and then I struck out 

 for my cabin, distant about seven miles, which I reached 

 before dark, tired and hungry. I have never yet been 

 hungry enough to relish Indian cooking. When 1 go out 

 with them, I take bread enough to do a couple of days. 

 This day there bad been forty-seven shots fired and three 

 deer killed. They generally take three or four boxes of 

 cartridges, and but few ever kill as many as a dozen deer 

 in the fall, when the deer are fat and nice. For any 

 hunter can kill six poor deer to one fat one. 



Lew Wilmot. 



"PODGERS'S" COMMENTARIES. 



rpHE opening editorial of last week's Forest and 

 A. Stream reads charmingly on the beauties of spring, 

 and must have been written on one of the very few 

 pleasant balmy days we have had (I can remember but 

 one). I read it in a suit of winter clothes and an over- 

 coat, and at the present writing lay down my pen every 

 few moments to blow on my benumbed fingers. Per- 

 haps by the time the next number appears the weather 

 will have moderated so that your beautiful tribute to 

 spring may be a better fit. It is to be hoped so, for this 

 cold, raw temperature is discouraging, and a damper on 

 all plans for excursions into the country to interview 

 those lovely marsh marigolds and see tho3e little squirrels 

 frisk around. If the temperature is no improvement on 

 what it is at this moment, Mr. Squirrel will do very little 

 frisking, but be curled up in his bole, under the impres- 

 sion that there is some mistake somewhere, and that it is 

 January instead of May, and that his almanac is a fraud. 



Speaking of the country suggests the inquiry as to 

 where we can find that elysium we are all pining for, 

 where fishing and sailing can be had at moderate cost — 

 some place where the tennis young man and his blazer, 

 and tne masculine young woman do not materialize, 

 where boiled shirts are not de rigeur, a log camp or old- 

 fashioned country hotel, and plain, cheap fare, either on 

 the coast or in the wilds; and where black flies and 

 mosquitoes do not make life a torment. Can not some 

 reader of the Forest and Stream tell me and perhaps 

 others of such a paradise at $7 a week, where we can 

 paddle our own canoe or sail the seductive catboat, on 

 fresh or salt water? Who will earn our blessing by in- 

 forming us? 



That cut last week of the antlers of the extinct Irish 

 deer suggests the wonder how such animals ever got 

 through the forest. That may have been his business, 

 but a practical view of the case is not thus easily satis- 

 fied. Again, what manner of man hunted him, or did 

 he hunt the man? There were no Winchesters in those 

 days and the young idea was too young to know how 

 to shoot, and when the hunter did succeed in capturing 

 one of these gigantic animals, what a relief to the com- 

 munity in which he lived that there was no room for a 

 big lie about the size of them, the case being so thoroughly 

 anticipated. It is to be hoped that the present fad of 

 converting antlers into hat-racks did not exist in those 

 days, for what room would there have been for the 

 hunter in his presumably very primitive habitation? On 

 the whole, we are glad that sized horns have not been 

 handed down to this generation with many other over- 

 grown specimens of the first attempt to stock the world 

 with game. Being found a little too much of a good 

 thing the scale was modified, but there has not been 

 much modification in the big yarns we read; at the 

 present day the game is smaller, but the stories main- 

 tain their size. 



Mr. A. A. Lesueur's article on camping out contains 

 many valuable hints and should be cut out and filed 

 away in the pocket of every hunting coat for future ref- 

 erence. The undersigned having lived for three consec- 

 utive years under canvas can fully indorse the hints ou 

 the question of tents. The suggestion of extra flies is 

 valuable. A good fly over your tent insures no leaks or 

 dampness from driving raia'on a single thickness, and if 

 your extra flie3 are waterproofed they will protect your 

 duffle, when spread over it, from possible damage. 



One suggestion in addition to the outfit may not be out 

 of place— the result of much discomfort from cooking at 

 an open fire from the smoke in the eyes from whirling 

 airs and winds, always a source of irritation and annoy- 

 ance. 



A great convenience is a mess chest carrying your 

 dishes, cups, knives and forks, pepper, salt and many 

 small necessities. Let this be a wicker basket to be light, 

 covered with canvas to be waterproof and exclude dust, 

 then have a sheet-iron box made without top in which to 

 drop your basket, with handles, and on the bottom, holes, 

 similar to the openings of a cook stove, with covers of 

 sheet- iron on a pivot or rivet whereby to turn them off or 

 on; also a hole for a short joint of stovepipe, or two 

 joint-! each a foot long. When you reach camp lift out 

 your basket, turn your sheet-iron box bottom up, clap on 

 your joints of pipe, and there you are, with as good a 

 cook stove as a cast-iron $25 affair, on which you can cook 

 as well, and the annoyance of smoke is entirely avoided. 

 By having a square hole cut out low down in front for 

 draft, you can have a rousing hot fire and boil your cof- 

 fee in five minutes with what twigs and fuel you have at 

 hand. The device also avoids all danger of setting the 

 grass on fire. When you break camp, turn your stove 

 over and drop your basket into it, and there you are 

 again. 



The iron protects your basket from wear and chafing 

 in the wagon, and adds only the thickness of the iron to 

 its bulk and but a few pounds to its weight. The iron 

 should be of sufficient thickness to keep its shape and 

 not be warped— a sixteenth will do probably. I have 

 used this kind of an outfit and would not go into camp 

 without such a great convenience. 



I do not agree with "Awahsoose" as to his belief that 

 the increased number of accidents from guns is caused 

 by the (as he says) unsafe principle of rebounding locks. 

 In my experience I have had three accidental discharges 

 of my gun, fortunately resulting in no more serious in- 

 jury than in one instance shooting off the toe of my hunt- 

 ing* boot. In each case I was using a gun not supplied 

 with the rebounding lock, but with the old-fashioned 

 lock, carried at half cock. In nearly every case it will 

 be found that a blow of the force requisite to set off the 

 rebounding half-cock will set off the other. Try it and 



settle the question, using several guns for the experiment 

 to get an average strength of spring. 



The article on "A California Trout Stream." by 

 "Marion" carries me back not "to old Virginia," but to 

 California. I know the ground she describes well; have 

 climbed those same "elevations" and caught many a big 

 basket of trout from that same stream, (No, I am not 

 going to tell a big fish story.) I seldom returned the 

 same day, but usually camped, as to have to return the 

 same day one loses the best fishing — evening and next 

 morning, especially the evening, as it is a peculiarity of 

 the fishing in many California trout streams that the 

 fish will not bite until the sun is up, and the early-bird 

 fishermen have no luck until the sun begins to throw its 

 beams on the water. The habits of the California trout 

 differ very much from those of our Eastern trout, the 

 latter being very shy as is well known, and they will not 

 rise in bright sunshine, nor after tbey have seen you, 

 whereas the California trout is not so fastidious, and after 

 seeing ynu and running away down the stream for a dis- 

 tance will think better of it, stop and take the fly. The 

 real truth is, if I as a Californian do say it (no reference to 

 the truthful or untruthfulness of Californians) the truth 

 is that the California trout does not possess the gamy 

 and high aristocratic characteristics of the Eastern vari- 

 ety, and the wonder is that he should be brought here to 

 stock Eastern streams, for it is really the fact that he is 

 the least bit of a mongrel, and it does not require half 

 the skill and caution to catch him that it does to capture 

 the genuine Eastern beauty. Perhaps that is the reason 

 the Californian is imported to stock Eastern streams. It 

 is making the punishment fit the crime, i. e., the fish the 

 the skill and capacity of the fisherman. (Who will pitch 

 into me for that insinuation?) I am greatly indebted to 

 "Marion" for her carrying me back to the dear old Sul- 

 phur stream; I rather think 1 would like to have been 

 one of the party just to have known the charming writer, 

 presuming the name does mean what it implies — a woman 

 — and that those bright blue eyes she speaks of were her 

 own. 



No more space to spare, did you say, Mr. Editor? All 

 right, I will subside. Podgers. 



SPRING SHOOTING. 



HAVING some years since passed the age allotted to 

 mortals, I can but feel that the rod and gun must 

 be laid aside for younger heads and more supple limbs. 

 But my interest in camp life and outdoor recreations has 

 not waned, and one of my sources of comfort during 

 "shut-in" days is in recalling past experiences— some 

 pleasant, and some not so pleasant— in forest camps and 

 ducking boats and blinds, with good guides and genial 

 companions. Alas! howfew remain this side the stream, 

 and every year their number is growing less. 



In thus reviewing the past those experiences that were 

 interwoven with the most toil, exposure and roughness 

 generally, are the ones most deeply impressed on mem- 

 ory's tablet and oftenest spoken of. Where is the sports- 

 man who has passed safely through deadly peril or 

 laborious toil who was not ever after glad of the experi- 

 ence? 



Still, there are many "red letter" days, when sky, air, 

 water and woodland were in such perfect harmony with 

 themselves and with our physical and mental condition, 

 that to live was a luxury— all care and worry forgotten 

 while thus floating on life's current. 



But what inspired me to write at this time was that I 

 might thus express the satisfaction I feel in the fact that 

 the subject of "Spring Shooting" is being discussed, in 

 fact, ha3 come to the front; and that the practice will 

 ere long be entirely prohibited by suitable laws, that can 

 be understood and enforced. Anti-spring shooting has 

 long been a hobby with me, and I am happy to be able to 

 say that never but once have I indulged in the sport. 

 That once was nineteen years ago, in April, and then I 

 only killed three black ducks, and one of those, having 

 fallen on the ice, was swooped on by an eagle and de- 

 voured within my sight, but out of reach of my gun. 



In evidence of the growth of right sentiment aiuoug 

 sportsmen, notice the frequent allusion to the wrong 

 done by spring shooting in the Forest and Stream, 

 editorially and by correspondents, and other respectable 

 papers, and then compare these utterances with the 

 action of the Albany convention of sportsmen held 

 several years since, at which the late John R. Wiltsie, 

 of Newburgh, was the presiding officer. The object was 

 to prepare alterations aud changes in the game laws of 

 the State and. to present them to the Legislature for 

 adoption. 



At that convention, which proved to be largely in con- 

 trol of hotel keepers— notoriously so by one from Coopers- 

 town— the writer offered a resolution ,which was seconded, 

 "that all spring shooting be prohibited, etc.," and advo- 

 cated its adoption by the convention, to the best of his 

 ability. No one else spoke in its favor; though many ad- 

 mitted that the principle was right, but were not prepared 

 to vote for the resolution. The outspoken opponents were 

 mostly from Long Island; their main argument being, "If 

 we don't shoot in the spring others will, and we might as 

 well have some of the fun as other States." The reply 

 was, "Let the Empire State do right and other States will 

 follow." So strong was the opposition that the president 

 saw there was no chance of an affirmative vote, and 

 asked me to withdraw it. I said, "Nol let a vote he taken." 

 The result was, that except my own and two other votes, 

 the "noes" were unanimous. 



Should a similar resolution be brought before a State 

 convention of sportsmen at the present time, or in the 

 near future, who does not believe the affirmative would 

 have it by a large majority? 



There is every argument— but greed— in favor of pro- 

 tecting mated game birds; and the sooner such protec- 

 tion is given, the better will it be for all— sportsmen, 

 farmers, guides, hotel keepers, and even pot-hunters and 

 market-shooters. J. H. D. 



POUGHKEEPSTE. 



Natural Game Preserves of North America. 



It is well known by all who have given any attention 

 to the hunting grounds o£ North America that the 

 country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad is 

 rich in game and fish. This company has for several 

 years past given special attention to hunting and fishing 

 in the country tributary to this line, and under the above 

 title have recently issued a guide to the hunting and 



