146 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



LSkvt. 10, 1891' 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, III— The wild rice on the Kankakee this 

 year is phenomenal. It fairly fills the river bed in 

 places. We saw a great many ducks, bred on the marsh, 

 mostly wooddticks, and in a 'short trip in the morning 

 started seven woodcock, of which we did not accumulate 

 any, as our dog was of a bashful and retiring disposition, 

 and moreover too polite to walk in front of us, &o we had 

 to find our own birds, which always happened in cover 

 too thick to see your hand before your face. The pros- 

 pects for a pleasant season of sport at Mak-saw-ba this 

 fall are very good indeed. 



Aug. 28. — ''I suppose you wanted to offer me the key 

 of your freezer, didn't you, Colonel?" I asked of the 

 senior partner of Bond & Whitcomb, commission merch- 

 ants, when I called in response to his invitation. 



"Our freezer is open to inspection," said the Colonel. 

 "Come with me." He led the way to the back part of 

 the store and opened a No. 1 store box filled with "excel- 

 sior." "You see, we have no ice in our freezer, and no 

 game, either," said he. 



I have a strong suspicion that this is not Bond & Whit- 

 comb's everyday freezer, but one kept only for holiday 

 purjjoses; but this was the only one 1 could get into. 



"You fellows aren't doing any good with your restau- 

 rant cases," said the worthy Cotonel. "All you are doing 

 is keeping people from eating chicken in Gbicago during 

 September. The game goes to Boston. I have sent a lot 

 of it there, which came consigned to me. I am advising 

 my country customers to freeze their game and hold it 

 till October, when we can receive it. We do not invite 

 shipments of illegal game, though I get plenty of letters 

 like the one 1 sent you, asking whether we can receive it." 



Col. Bond showed me his regular trade ciiculars, in 

 which is the usual clause, a sort of holiday clause for 

 everyday purposes, which all South Water street uses — 

 "There is no demand for illegal game." This circular 

 does not state what the illegal game is. It is merely a 

 formality in efl'ect, for though it would not do to go into 

 the U. S. mails with an open invitation to commit a 

 crime, it is still known to be a fact that illegal game is 

 received by firms using practically this same clause in 

 their circular quotations. I do not say that Bond & 

 Whitcomb receive any such game, though the letters 

 oflCering to send it show the lack of efficiency of that 

 forbidding clause which is so triumphantly shown to 

 newspaper men and other innocent gentry. 



Col. Bond and I had a long talk, in which much of our 

 old ground was covered again. He thought the sports- 

 men would never be able to get a case against a South 

 Water street iirm, and said that all this attempted pro- 

 tection was worthless, so long as it was not undertaken 

 under uniform game laws. He said that the sportsmen 

 could pass no laws in Illinois except as the game dealers 

 allowed them to do so, as the game dealers controlled all 

 legislation on that head. 



"That means that you have bought the Legislature, 

 which is a pretty assertion to make, isn't itV" I said to 

 him. 



"No, no, not in the least," said the Colonel; "but I had 

 friends in that Legislature who would do anything I 

 asked. We were going to repeal the present game warden 

 law, but sickness laid that over until too late. I let your 

 Ice bill go through because there is no money in ice-fishing 

 for us." 



I have heard it said several times now by the dealers 

 that they controlled the last Legislature. Now I wonder 

 how they did it, or thought they did, or thought they 

 could. I reason that they must have "owned" one or two 

 men only, and that these must have been high in power. 

 Adding this to a faint breath of a rumor which I have 

 heard elsewhere, and one has the suggestion for a few 

 quiet inquiries which I hope will result in enough develop- 

 ments to induce the game dealers not to talk so loud 

 about "controding" things. The "controlled" parties may 

 object, I believe they will object. 



The talk with the urbane Colonel covered a wide field, 

 and was interesting to me, for that gentleman is exceed- 

 ingly well posted on all matters pertaining to the game 

 supply. Of course the Kern case was touched upon. 



"Charlie Kern will never tell where he got his prairie 

 chickens," said Col. Bond. "You'll never find that out." 

 " 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him 

 drink,'" added Mr. Whitcomb, sententiously. I can 

 readily see the difficulty which would involve any 

 restaurant man who would infoi-m on the game dealer of 

 whom he bought. The dealer might retaliate! Suppose 

 Ms. Kern's steward has bought other birds of which Mr. 

 Kern knows nothing. Mr, Kern as a sportsman informs. 

 The dealer rakes all these other birds up out of the 

 archives, and Mr. Kern's restaurant, and Mr. Kern, and 

 the dealer, and Mr. Kern's steward all get mixed up 

 together. I merely suppose this case, because Mr. Kern's 

 condition would then be that of any other restaurant 

 whose steward had served illegal game without orders to 

 do so from the owner, I have no right to suppose that 

 Mr. Kern's steward ever served any illegal game but these 

 prairie chickens, though I do know that he tried to buy 

 illegal woodcock at Bond & Whitcomb's, for Col. Bond, 

 in the presence of two witnesses, told me so, and said he 

 was the only buyer who had so approached him, 

 "Did he get the woodcock, Colonel?" I asked, 

 "I don't remember," said the Colonel, thoughtfully. 

 My old friend Col, Bond, albeit smooth and educated in 

 the ways of South Water street, is perfectly courteous 

 and kindly, and can tell a. good many of us a lot of things 

 we don't know about game. I wish I could say more of 

 the pleasant talk we had. The Colonel concluded by in- 

 viting me out to dinner at his house some evening. I 

 don't see how I could go, for then I couldn't tell what the 

 Colonel said. 



Go to South Water street if you want to know where 

 the game is most abundant. Those who are in search of 

 shooting grounds for chickens may very well keep the 

 following list of towns. I got the names from Bond & 

 Whitcomb's letter files. From every one of these towns 

 there is game to ship, and so I suppose the shooting there 

 must be fair at least. I saw letters of this kind from 

 Randolph, Neb., and was told the shooting was good 

 all the wav from Fairmount to Long Pine, Neb,, also at 

 Niobrara, 'Neb. ; Raveuna, Neb,; Mullin, Neb.; Taylor, 

 Neb,; Whitney, Neb.; Osakis, Minn., and Lake Mills, la. 

 Albion. Boone county. Neb., vvas mentioned as being 

 good up to this season, though it is not heard from this 

 season. All the other points have game ready to ship 

 right now, and presumably plenty of it. 



At Bond & Whitcomb's I met a man. who is a character, 



Bill Griggs, of Browning, 111., perhaps the most widely 

 traveled and successful market-hunter there is in the 

 country to-day. Though apparently a young man still, 

 Griggs told ine that the coming month of September 

 would complete his twentieth year of hunting for the 

 market. He contemplates going either to India or South 

 America this winter to shoot ijlumage birds for the 

 market. He was for years the outlooker for the million- 

 aire sportsman, Wirt Dexter, ti-aveling the country over 

 for new shooting territory. Griggs is an old shooting 

 partner of the redoubtable Abe Kleinman. I wish I had 

 time to tell more of what all he told me. 



" Three years ago I was shooting at Preston, South 

 Dikota." said he, "and I killed and shipped into 

 Bond & Whitcomb, here, from Sept. .1 to Nov, 11, 

 not shooting on Sundays, 8,200 ducks; mostly teal. For 

 27 days straight. I never got less than 100 ducks a day. 



"At Alma, Boone county, Neb,, I killed 2,600 

 prairie chickens in 34 days. That is a bad locality. 

 The local shooters begin to shoot when the birds are big 

 as quails, and they never do stop, 



"Five years ago Mr, Dexter, and Gen, Strong and I, 

 went to Cedar Rapids, Neb,, to phoot chicken. We 

 found that we could not shoot. The natives kicked. 

 They told us that the week before we got there, some 

 fellows from the East had gone in there and shot all 

 they could, just piling the birds up and leaving them 

 to rot. They piled up 900 chickens in one pile on the 

 prairie, 



" Twelve years ago I was in the New Madrid marsh 

 of Arkansas, shooting for the market. There was an 

 Englishman there, Lord George Gordon, with 12 men 

 and a lot of tents. That was in the muzzle loading days. 

 This Englishman had 4 men to load and pass his guns up 

 to him. He stood on a piece of corduroy road that ran 

 near his camp, and shot from morning till night, day 

 after day. He killed thousands and thousands of birds, 

 often over 800 in a day, and never picked them up, I 

 saw I could make money by picking up his birds, 

 and I asked for the privilege. ' No,' he growled, ' there 

 wouldn't be sport in that, ye know.' I never was much 

 hotter at any man in my life. To-day, in that country, 

 you can't get ducks enough to eat, unless you strike it 

 just right, but in those days they flew in endless 

 screams. It was as bad as you ever saw wild pigeons, 



"Twelve yeiirs ago men shot chickens all over Minne- 

 sota, and piled them up and left them. To-day they're 

 hustling to get places to do a little shooting where they 

 can bring their birds home and brag about it, 



"Where do I think is a good place for chickens this 

 fall? Well, I don't hardly know, I should think Preston , 

 South Dakota, would be good, I know when I shot there 

 two or three years ago, T could have killed forty to sixty 

 chickens a day there, but I was making more killina: 

 ducks. I killed ninety-seven robin snipe atone shot once 

 on a sandbar in Preston Lake. 



"I don't like Nebraka shooting so well, for that is a 

 hard country to hunt. The chickens are mostly in the 

 sandhills, and you can't mark the coveys down so well, 



"I don't think it at all necessary to go west of Devil's 

 Lake, North Dakota, to get good duck and goo^e shooting, 

 though I wouldn't think anything butsharp tailed grotite 

 would be that far north. Col. Bond tells me there is 

 good shooting at sharp-tailed grouse in the Turtle Moun- 

 tains country." 



So much for a chance visit on South Water street. I 

 saw further at Bond & Whitcomb's a barrel level full of 

 black bass, from Minocqua, Wis., said to be the heaviest 

 in average of any lot ever received. There were numbers 

 that weighed over 41b3,, some over 5ibs,, and less than 

 Slbs. was the exception. They were all big-mouths. 

 Market-fishing in these magnificent lakes about Minocqua, 

 it seems. So it goes. 



During this brief visit also I saw a request from a Bos- 

 ton (Mass.) firm, to Bond & Whitcomb, to furnish them 

 by Jan. 1 100,000 grouse, 250,000 quail and 150,000 part- 

 ridge. The firm added that they had a market for this 

 game in Europe, and that it w.ts to be shipped across the 

 Atlantic. "We stand ready, in view of the importance 

 of thi" order," the firm stated, "to advance £1,000 (nearly 

 $5,000) at once." 



"I cannot give you the name of this firm," said Col. 

 Bond, "for much of the game they want would be illegal." 



"You don'c need to,'' said I, "for I've got it already." 



I had seen it over his shoulder as he read the letter, for 

 he had folded down the letter head so that I could not see 

 it, and left the signature exposed. The Colonel was 



"Oh, you ought not to publish that; I must ask you not 

 to do that. This is my private business correspondence." 



Under the circumstances it would not be journalistic 

 honor to give the name and address of the Boston firm 

 who want 500,000 head of our Western game. 



A year ago this summer, when the famous solid train 

 took several hundred general passenger agents and other 

 distinguished railway men on the excursion to Old Mex- 

 ico, it bore away from Chicago 250 dozen quail as one 

 item. Every one of those quail was illegal, and every- 

 one of them was purchased of one game dealer of Chi- 

 cago whose name is perfectly well known. I dare not 

 give it, for I cannot prove that he sold 350 dozen quail, 

 but one of the party who went on the train told me this 

 was so, and he knew. 



Such are some of the rather stupendous facts picked up 

 on South Water street in a few minutes. Now teU us, 

 where does the game go? Who kills it, the sportsman or 

 the market-hunter? Why is it killed? How long will it 

 last? When will our law come forbidding its sale? 

 Where will the end be? 



"If I had the last pair of game birds on earth, I'd ring 

 their necks," said Col. Bond. "I foresee too much trouble 

 and litigation about this game business that is so much 

 mixed up with our other business." 



He would wring their necks. 



1 believe South Water street, in spite of its professed 

 scorn of sportsmen and their efforts, is a little bit uneasy 

 on account of the recent outlook. We can make them 

 more trouble. A very good thing to remember in this 

 business, and one which may spur some lagging brother, 

 is the utterance, half in jest, but still significant, of the 

 man who is easily king of the Chicago game dealers. 

 The last pair of game birds, what would he do with them? 



He would wring their necks, E. Hough. 



A Book ABOtrr Indiaks.— The Forest and Stueam will mail 

 freeoB appHcai-ioa a descriptive circular of Mr. GrinaelTe book, 

 "Pawnee Hero Stories and folk-tales," giving a table Of contents 

 and Bpeoimen Ulustrations from the volume.— .4 du. 



MAINE BEARS IN THE FORTIES. 



THE Cranberry Bog Basin, two miles south from Molly- 

 chunkamunk Lake, in 1840 to 1850, was a great 

 rendezvous for bears. They wintered in the mountains 

 near by (Ariscohos and Observatory), and in early spring 

 made their way down the brooks, which led into the bog 

 pond, feeding upon frogs and fish as they came forth from 

 their winter quarters. Thus after their long f aft through 

 the cold Norttiern winter, they gradually adapted them- 

 selves to their normal summer condition and a full stom- 

 ach. There were very few hunters in that region in those 

 days, and the bears had the woods, and in fact the entire 

 country, to themselves. Matalluk — the lone Indian of the 

 Magallo way— had retired, or been laid up by blindness and 

 old age; Old Philip had frozen his feei, so they had to be 

 amputated, leaving his traps in the woods to be searched 

 for by the hunters that came after; Annanee, the edu- 

 cated Indian, had joined the tribes in Canada; and there 

 only remained George Soule ana Old Kimball, who were 

 professional hunters in the Rangeleys, and one or two 

 hunters who came across from Colebrook, N. H., occa- 

 sionally to kill moose and trap families of bears in the 

 autumn. None of these hunters disturbed the bears, 

 unless by accident they routed one from his den in win- 

 ter, or caught one swimming the lake in summer, on 

 which occasion there was generally a scrimmage and then 

 they had roast bear steaks for several days after. Thus 

 when I found this lonely, mountain-encircled basin in the 

 wilderness, it was full of bears. They tore the bark from 

 the trees in early summer, made hard-beaten paths along 

 the brooks and beside the ponds, tore rotten logs in pieces 

 to secure the ants and worms in them, and were prime 

 owners and free rangers through all this secluded valley 

 in the mountains. 



For three years I trapped ten bears every year within a ■ 

 a radius of one mile, besides shooting one on the tramxj to 

 and from the traps occasionally. I had several narrow 

 escapes from injury or perhaps death, while hunting 

 these thirty black monsters in those three years. 



On one of my hunting trips to this bear eldorado I came 

 near being hunted myself, and only for a small rope 

 which I carried in my coat pocket to tie together and 

 on to my shoulders any game I might chance to secure, I 

 should not be here writing up the adventure. On this 

 occasion, as I approached the valley of the bog I noticed 

 unusually fresh signs of bears. Large tracks in the mud, 

 new diggings among the old logs, and tearings on the bark 

 of trees all tended to excite my nerves and cause me to 

 proceed with the utmost caution. I could not keep back 

 the thought that I was probably fifty miles from human 

 beings and alone, and in Ihe center of a valley full of 

 savage wild beaists, and in case of an attack, strategy and 

 pluck would both be needed. As my mind was digesting 

 these realities, there suddenly rose up before me one of 

 the largest bears I had ever seen. With an ominous growl 

 and champing of teeth together with a squealing noise,' 

 she jumpted toward me on her hind feet. As luck would 

 have it I had shot away my last bullet in securing two 

 bears in my traps on the shore of the lake. My first 

 thought was to fire a charge of shot which was in my gun 

 into the creature's face, but I knew it would only enrage 

 her. Just then looking ahead I saw a leaning hackma- 

 tack tree for which I ran, climbing into it with my gun 

 in my hands, followed closely by the bear. LTp T climbed 

 from limb to limb high up into the foliage, when just 

 above my head, almost within my reach, were three 

 large cubs. I stopped, and glancing downward beheld 

 the bear nearly up to me. Involuntarily I swung my gun 

 around and fired full into her face, then dropped my gun. 

 She dropped to the ground— gun and bear reaching there 

 together; but the bear recovering, at once commenced 

 ascending the tree with loud screeches and raging mad. 

 The cubs at the same time began to descend into my face. 

 Quick as lightning the thought struck me to hitch my 

 rope around a limb in front of me and lower myself down 

 past the bear who was fast approaching me. It was but 

 the work of an instant and I was swinging in the air out 

 of reach of the old mother bear, who still kept climbing 

 to see if her babies were all right, and by the time she 

 reached them in the very top of the tree, I had reached 

 the ground, grabbed my gun and got well started toward 

 the lake. That small rope and the leaning of the tree 

 saved me. The next week I got that bear in my trap and 

 shot all three of the cubs, J. G, R, 



Bethel, Maine^ 



Gloucester, Mass., Sept. 1. — The first flight of coots 

 came along Aug. 39 and 30. They probably will not 

 stop more than 3 or 4 days. It is time for plover, but 

 only a few scattering ones have arrived. The next east- 

 erly stoma will doubtless bring them along. I have seen 

 a few gulls during the past few days, chiefly the gray 

 ones, although I noticed one minister and one mackerel 

 gull. A large blue heron was reported shot on a marsh 

 in Squam River.— E. F. L. 



"Forest and Stream" Nursery Rhymes, 



VT, 



Onderneath the harvest moon 



Man a-hnntin' for a coon: 



Dog a-barkin' up a tree, 



Man a-sqnintin' for to see; 



Keeps a-lookin'; putty soon 



Sartain sees a monst'ous coon. 



Arter wastin' all bis shot, 



Ooon still sittin' where be sot. 

 "I never see a tougher one, 



'Less tbe's sutbin' ails the gun; 



Sbo : 'Taint notbin' but a fly 



Roostin' jist above my eye !" 



Man an' dog with nary coon 



Pinten bum Vieneatb the moon. 

 ' Coons ain't ripe in harvest time, 



November frosts 'U make 'em prime." 



Attahsoose. 



VII. 



In Canada over the line 

 Tbey say sporting is very fine. 

 Bat they tax rod and gun. 

 Maybe in fun, 

 "Bagosb! Aht'riso." Antoink. 



Names and Fobtraits of Birds, by Gurdou Trumbull. A 

 book particularly Interesting to gunners, for by its use they can 

 identify without question all the Amoncan game bii-da wbioh 

 ihey may kill. Cloth, 320 pages, price $3,50. Tor sale by FOBBSX 

 Atro SXHKAM. 



