ixSLY SO, 1891.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



2S 



ands squalling all kinds of crane musie, flying to and 

 from tlie island in all directions. 



On the lawn in front of the cottage were several romp- 

 ing, rollicking young ladies, pictures of health and hap- 

 piness, as women always are in Minnesota, discoursing 

 music from an old guitar. Considering the surround- 

 ings we had extra good luck catching croppies, for at 

 the end of an hour we returned to the hotel with 16 crop- 

 pies, weighing from lib. to l^lbs. each. I felt consider- 

 ably elated over our success, but Will did not consider it 

 much of a catch, said they sometimes brought home three 

 gunny sacks full. We went home, passed the fish around 

 among the neighbors and saved what we wanted at home, 



Mrs, Anderson would not trust a servant to cook iish, 

 so she took the matter in hand herself, and the conse- 

 quence was we had as much pleasiu-e in eating them as 

 we did in catching them. Misfortunes are sometimes 

 blessings in disguise. The cold I had caused me to stop 

 aaid the consequence was that stopping over had given 

 me five of the happiest days of a lifetime and the cold 

 was gone, so I bade my friends good-bye and started on 

 for Helena, over the Great Northern E. R,, believing 

 Minnesota people the healthiest and happiest people in 

 America. Minnesota with its fields of waving gi-ain and 

 endless number of little lakes is a pleasant country to 

 travel through. The country is interesting until you 

 leave the Red River Valley and pass Devil's Lake, North 

 Dakota, the great goose heaven of the Northwest. After 

 leaving Devil's Lake the wheat fields begin to dwindle 

 down and grow poorer until wheat fields should be turned 

 into pastures, the only redemption for parts of the sup- 

 posed wheat country of North Dakota. After leaving 

 the wheat belt the country looks barren and desolate 

 to an Eastern man. 



The opinion of most of the passengers was forcibly ex- 

 pressed by an old gentleman from one of the garden spots 

 of Michigan. He had ridden for miles over the dusty, 

 sun-scorched, barren-looking plains. Taking off his blue 

 glasses and wiping the dust from his eyes, he said: "This 

 is a worthless lookin' kentry, I wouldn't give two shillin' 

 for the whole on 't," Viewed from the car window this 

 country looks like a vast barren waste. You cannot see 

 the short rich grasses that cover the vast plains from the 

 car window. Yet here vast herds of buffalo once roamed 

 and grew fat, their bones now bleaching at tho stations 

 along the road, awaiting shipment to Eastern sugar refin- 

 eries. "But all's well that ends well," Their place is now 

 occupied by herds of horses, cattle and sheep, that are a 

 greater source of profit to man. Yet it is sad to think of 

 the wanton destruction of this noble animal for his pelt 

 alone, and the lesson taught us should be emphatic enough 

 to cause us to enforce our game laws for the protection of 

 the balance of the noble game of this country. 



We experience relief in tlie monotonus plain on reach- 

 ing the Missouri River, and travel begins to be more in- 

 teresting on reaching the foothills of the Rockies. After 

 leaving Great Falls, Montana, the road winds along the 

 Missouri toward Helena, among mountains of rock that 

 fm-nish an ever varying scene of nature's majestic handi- 

 work, and one realizes that he is among the grand old 

 Rockies as he views the ever-changing panorama of 

 ragged and precipitous grandeur aroimd him. We finally 

 arrived at Helena, and the first thing looked for is a bath 

 room, for our hair fairly stands on end from the effect of 

 dust and dry air, 



Helena is built on Last Chance placer mine and is a 

 cross between a mining camp and a model Western city. 

 Although Helena is the richest city of its size in the 

 world, yet one is struck more forcibly with the shift- 

 less condition of things in general than with the beauty 

 of the town. 



Old Mt. St. Helena stands like a grim sentinel to the 

 west of the town and the summit looked like a half 

 hour's walk from the hotel. I left at 6 A. M. for the 

 buttressed peak of this mountain, supposing it to be a 

 half hour's walk, but found the distance could not be 

 judged by a tenderfoot in that clear air, for it was three 

 long hours before I got back to the hotel, thed and 

 hungry. But the first view of the Rockies from the sum- 

 mit amply repaid me for the exertion. One gets a very 

 fine view of the city and surrounding mountains from 

 its crest. If Minneapolis had such a mountain they 

 would build an elevator to the top of it and put a grand 

 hotel there. Then they would terrace the sides and sell 

 it for building lots, scoop a hole out of the inside for a 

 theater, take the dirt from the hole to cover ux? and gi-ade 

 the piles of tailings along the old placer mine on Main 

 street for more building lots, and all the visitors would 

 be taken up in the elevator by enterprising real estate 

 men to see the city. But Helena people are not "built 

 that way." They have money enough, and with but 

 few exceptions are willing to let the city take care of 

 itself. Yet the Broadwater baths and hotel are a monu- 

 ment to the energy of one of its citizens and make the 

 finest place in the State to spend a few weeks at in the 

 summer. Mother Nature made most of the streams in 

 Montana too cold to bathe in. She put a hot spring and a 

 cold spring near Helena that Broadwater has utilized for 

 his monster bath house that the people of Montana ap- 

 preciate, for they now have an opportunity to wash their 

 dusty bodies in a big swimming hole warm enough and 

 large enough to suit the most fastidious schoolboy. 



There is no fishing or hunting nor much else of interest 

 to a sportsman in the near vicinity of Helena, so I took 

 a train for Marysville and took up my abode at the Bon 

 Ton restaurant. 



Marysville is a mining camp of about 1,500 inhabitants. 

 The town is built of yellow pine, sawmill finish princi- 

 pally. Some of the store fronts and a few dwelling 

 houses are decorated with a coat of paint. The Drum- 

 lennon mine and stamp mills, ranning 130 stamps in all, 

 fm-nish employment to 300 men and yield 1100,000 worth 

 of bullion i^er month. 



I staid at this camp until the hunting season opened, 

 and became so familiar with the country that the sun 

 rose in the east and I then dared trust myself alone in 

 the mountains. Blue mountain grouse are the game bird 

 most sought after among the five kinds of grouse in Jlon- 

 tana, and are called chickens there. 



One beautiful morning I started alone for the top of the 

 divide, with my gun and plenty of shells loaded with No. 

 8 shot, in pursuit of chickens and Neenan Bros.' mine 

 just over the divide on Bald Butte Mountain. I was not 

 loaded for bear, and I will say right here that I did not 

 see any; for I know by experience that a tenderfoot 

 always expects to meet a grizzly when traveling alone 

 amoug the Bockies^ and I don't want jroa to worry all 



the time you are reading this about a bear that I did not 

 see. 



I found Bald Butte Mountain all right, and roamed 

 around until noon without seeing anything except grand 

 and beautiful mountain scenery. Hearing a blast fired 

 near the top of the mountain, I turned my steps in that 

 du-ection, and found a miner on his way to his cabin to 

 dinner. The way of the world there is (thanks to my 

 lucky stars about that time) to always invito a stranger 

 to dinner, and his first question was, "Have you been to 

 dinner?" I replied I had not, so we went in to the cabin. 

 The cabin was built of logs, roofed with dirt. The floor 

 was the surface of the earth. The furniture was sufficient 

 for the necessities of man. He soon had a dinner cooked, 

 and I never enjoyed a dinner any more thoroughly than 

 I did thei'e. 



After chatting a while he showed me the way to the 

 mine I was looking for, and told me to look for chickens 

 in a huckleberry patch about half way to the mine. I 

 found the huckieoerries and enjoyed eating them, but 

 foimd no chickens. After eating iny fill (a tenderfoot's 

 stomach is a thing of unlimited capacity) I started for the 

 mine. Looking ahead among the scattering trees, I saw 

 the gray back of an animal about the size of a setter dog 

 running away from me. Not having shot my gun, I 

 made up my muid to shoot that animal if he didn't get a 

 gait on him, so I took after him as still as possible, I 

 soon got near enough to shoot, and the fourth shot ended 

 him, and I found I had killed a badger. I found Neenan's 

 Mine, went through it. had a good visit, and went back 

 to Marysville without a chicken. 



A few days after this I went out and found five chick- 

 ens and shot four out of the five. I can compare moun- 

 tain grouse shooting to nothing but shooting Plymouth 

 Rock hens in your own dooryard, only they are harder 

 to locate. John V. Cole. 



[TO BE CONCLUDED.! 



CAMPERS AND CAMPERS. 



AN "unfortuitous concatenation of circunnstances" has 

 prevented me this year from taking my usual spring 

 outing, and just now a flourishing crop of "Job's com- 

 forters" has laid me by the heels. These facts, in con- 

 junction with a plentiful absence of reading matter, have 

 given memory a chance to get in her work, and my mind 

 has been running upon some of the "fellows "l have 

 camped with," in "days of auld lang syne." ^ 



The born camper is scarce. To be in perfection he 

 needs a dash of Gipsy blood in his veins, mixed with that 

 of the Indian, the Negro, the Aryan, the Gentleman and 

 the Scholar. 



The Gipsy— that he may be able to live luxuriously, not 

 only upon the fat of the land but upon the lean as well— 

 80 that if he cannot get venison and trout, hedgehog and 

 water-puppies will serve his turn; if fresh vegetables and 

 canned goods fail him he can concoct healthfiil, if not 

 toothsome, dishes out of roots and yarbs and the berries 

 that grow in the hedge. 



An Indian— that he may possess the "sixth sense," that 

 of "direction," so the most trackless forest or pathless 

 prairie shall be to him as familiar as the home farm to a 

 country boy— that he may be so skilled in nature's lan- 

 guage that all signs of wind and weather, all tricks of 

 fur and feather, are better known to him than the multi- 

 plication table to a Newton; with a body so trained that 

 he can stand heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue 

 and sleeplessness, and storms and black flies and mosqui- 

 toes, as though such things were not. 



The Negro— that his cheerful jollity may never desert 

 him in the most adverse surroundings— that he may take 

 the goods the Gods provide aiid vex not his soul by 

 thought of the morrow; and that sunshine and storm, 

 good or bad luck, may find and leave him in the same 

 cheery, equable frame of mind. 



The Aryan— that he may have tenacity of piirpose and 

 fixity of soul, courage undaunted by fa'te's worst frown, 

 inventive genius that can build a cantilever bridge out of 

 saplings and bark or make a fresh-water condenser from 

 an old tin can and a gun-barrel; and adaptabihty to cir- 

 cumstances that makes him equally at home on a desert 

 island or in kings' palaces. 



A Gentleman — ^not in the Old World sense of one who 

 has no business in this world, and spends his life in doing 

 it, but one who recognizes others' rights, and respects 

 them, their prejudices, and regards them, their frailties 

 and pardons them — who is clean oE tongue and pure of 

 heart, and in all things and under all conditions keeps 

 his own self-respect and gains the respect of others. 



A Scholar— that, in moments of loneliness or enforced 

 idleness, on rainy days in camp, or long waitings on an 

 empty runway, he may have kindred spirits— David and 

 Shakspeare, Homer and Brovvning, Descartes or Darwin 

 — with whom to hold converse— may find new beauties in 

 a vagrant bumble-bee, or fresh instruction from the busy 

 ant — ^that he may besufiicient company unto himself, and 

 not dependent upon other for mental rest and refresh- 

 ment. If he have also a touch of the poet, the artist, the 

 musician and the scientist, he will be none the less charm- 

 ing as a companion — ^none the less fitted for a genuine 

 camper. 



But, alas! such spirits be rare! "Nessmuk," I imagine, 

 was as near such as any one, though I had not the pleas- 

 ure of knowing him. As to the opposite class, "the 

 woods are full of 'em" — his name is legion. He appears 

 under various aliases, and numerous disguises — but he is 

 always of the same species, Borem gigantissimiis. Every 

 body knows him— except himself. Not the least pestifer- 

 ous variety is 



THE EARLY RISER, 



I don't mean the m.an who rises in the fresh dewiness 

 of a woodland morning, and goes oft" quietly about his 

 own business of fishing, hunting, rowing or bathing, leav- 

 ing you to do as best pleases you, but the egotistical idiot 

 who seems to act upon the theory that he is the main- 

 spring of the universe, a sort of telluric God of Day, and 

 that, when he has once risen, all the rest of the world 

 must be up and doing. No matter if your system demands 

 eight hours of sleep, while his is content with six— no 

 matter if you are physically run down and have come to 

 the woods to build up and rest — no matter if you tramped 

 twenty miles the day before or were out half the night, 

 while he loafed around the camp all day and went to bed 

 at dark, like other geese — ^in short, no matter how strong 

 and cogent the reasons why your rest should not be dis- 

 turbed, they are ail ignored by him. No sooner does a 

 torpid liver or a guilty con — ^no, such a beast has no con- 

 Bcieiace— aroQBe him, than he entens upon his self-consti- 



tuted mission of diabolism; sometimes by banging things 

 around, sometimes by whistling or singing (and it is a 

 noteworthy fact that his whistling is like unto that of a 

 cracked fife, and his singing as raucous as the wheeze of 

 an asthmatic jackass); sometimes by jerking the blankets 

 off you and yelling, "Hi! get up!" or, more aggressively, 

 by beating a tin pail, or blowing a blast from the dinner 

 horn in your ear. Whether his conduct arises from sheer 

 "cussedness," or from that fatuous egotism of which I 

 spoke, for him there is but one cure; all others have been 

 tried and have failed; lead him beyond the confines of the 

 camp and mildly, but firmly, mash his head with a club,. 

 If this is done judiciously and thoroughly, then will "the 

 wicked (he) cease from troubling, and the weai-y (you) be 

 at rest." To insure his stay Lag cured, it might be as well 

 to cremate the remains on a log heap, but this is not abso- 

 lutely essential. 

 Another commonly occurring variety of this species is 



THE MAN-WHO-IS-NEVER-EIXED. 



Needless to say, he is generally a neophyte, who, gen- 

 erally late in life, has conceived a desire to "go camping." 

 In some way, and this is "one of them things no feller 

 can find out," he becomes attached to your party. In 

 talking over matters before you start, you, in the kind- 

 ness of your heart and because he is a neophyte, volunteer 

 some friendly hints as to camp outfit, hints based upon 

 the garnered lore of a score of years of practical experi- 

 ence. But he will none of them; he knows it all. He 

 has read Thoreau and the "Annals of Brook Farm," has 

 heroic ideas in regard to "roughing it," looks with scorn 

 upon such effeminate trifles as mosquito bars, fly "dope" 

 and the like, laughs scornfully at the idea of any cooking 

 utensils save a tin cup and plate, and talks loftily about 

 "living near to nature's heart," "leaving behind conven- 

 tional wants," and "reverting to savage simplicity." And 

 "revert" he does with a vengeance ! The first night he 

 ostentatiously spreads his one blanket upon the ground — 

 "the bosom of Mother Earth is bed enough for him !" 

 — wraps himself therein, and kicks and squirms and 

 wriggles and grunts and groans and mayhap swears all 

 night, keeping everybody awake, and showing up in the 

 morning pale, dishevelled and haggard for want of sleep. 

 As he is either, in some way, semi-attached to you, or is 

 your senior in years, generally the latter, for "the older the 

 donkey the longer the ears" — you are forced to take him 

 thereafter as a bedfellow, and as of course you have 

 taken only bedding enough for yourself, you are both un- 

 comfortable the rest of the trip. And so it is in every- 

 tliing else. II.e brings but one rod, smashes that to flia- 

 ders the first day, and you have to loan him yoiu- spare 

 one. He has brought no change of clothing, and so the 

 first time you are both caught in a shower you have tO' 

 divide with him when you return to camp, and you shiver, 

 half clad, while your old enemy, the rheumatism, gets in 

 his work on you again. He melts the bottom out of his 

 one tin cup by trying to make coffee over an amateur's 

 camp-fire, and thenceforward he uses yours. 



Sometimes his lunacy takes the opposite turn, and he 

 comes provided with everything he doesn't need, and 

 nothing which he does. If going a-fishing where there 

 is no game larger than a chipmunk, he lugs along a .44 

 Winchester and a thousand rounds of cartridges. If to a 

 country where you are liable to "jump" a grizzly any 

 minute, he takes a Flobert rifle or a light 13-gauge loaded 

 with bird shot. If to the woods, he carries 201bs. of iron 

 tent pins, but nothing in the shape of an axe; if to the 

 marshes, blankets galore, but no wading boots, or "fly- 

 ile;" if his traveling is to be by canoe, he wears hob-nailed 

 boots, but has no slippers nor moccasins; and so on, ad 

 infijiitum. I'm not sm-e that he isn't worse than the 

 other fellow just described, because, besides having tO' 

 borrow everything he needs, the party is burdened with 

 a lot of useless dulfle which, as Sam Weller says, "Hain't 

 no wisible use to nobody." Neither of these, however, is 

 as hopeless a case as the "early riser." The first seldom 

 goes a second time; he finds "conventional wants" more 

 satisfying than "savage simplicity," and the second grad* 

 ually learns by experience, unless he dies too young — say 

 at a hundred or thereabouts. 



But why continue the list? Do we not all — especially 

 we of the grizzled locks and the gray beards, who have 

 encamped from Dan unto Beersheba, and from the waters 

 of Gilgal to the fountains of Shinar— do not we, I say, 

 know the whole tribe of them? The "Practical Joker"— 

 on whose head be Anathema Maranatha — who finds no 

 pleasure in life so exquisite as that of rendering other 

 people miserable, and whose sole standard of humor in a 

 "joke" is the pain or mortification inflicted upon the 

 recipient. The "Shirk," who fudges off all the irksome 

 camp drudgery upon the shoulders of others, sometimes 

 upon the plea that he is "tired," or "don't know how,'' 

 sometimes with the moi'e insolent averment that "he 

 goes camping for pleasure, and not to work." The 

 "Sponge," who bon-ows any and everything you are weak 

 enough to loan him, from a minnow hook to a $20 bill, 

 breaking, spoiling, losing everything, but never paying 

 back. The "Kicker," whom nothing satisfies: who growls 

 when it rains, and when it is dry; because the fish bite too 

 freely, and because they don't bite at all; because they 

 are so big, or because they are so little; because you answer 

 him, and because you don't answer; in short," who kicks 

 at everything, and would kick if he was being hanged 

 (though nobody else would). The "Demijohn," whose 

 idea of a "good time" is an unlimited consumption of 

 whisky, and whose sole gleaning from the field of 

 history is what "the guv'nor of NawthCalliny said to the 

 guv'nor of South Calliny." The "Mule," who is always 

 pulling contrariwise to the rest of the party; who wants 

 to go down stream when they want to go up; to fish, when 

 they propose to hunt; who wants to go home before the 

 outing is half through, and wants to stay when the break- 

 ing-iqD day has come. Are not the names of all these 

 written in the chronicles of the Sons of Izaak? 



But when we do strike upon the right kind of man 

 (and, of course, none of us are included in the above 

 category), how our heart goes out to him; how we cherish 

 the memories of past outings together; how we long for 

 the time to come when we may share the same blanket, 

 lounge before the same camp-fire, cast from the same 

 boat, or face the same storm together again. Two such 

 have I known in my twenty and more years of outdoor 

 life. One has "crossed over the river, to rest in the shade 

 of the trees;" the other—well, Mandan and Calcasieu are 

 far apart, and no man owns the future; but the memory 

 of the past is mine, and though Camp Comfort is no 

 more, yet have 1 faith, that some day we shall again clasp 

 handa and try the bass once more. H. P. 17. 



