[5^ 



42 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Ocw. SI, 1893. 



IN A QUICKSAND. 



Cincinnati, O., Oct. li.—MlUor Forest and Stream: 

 Plover are ripe and plenty in and about this section of the 

 State, and hunters are having splendid sport. It will be 

 some little time, however, before Mr. Dan M. Ryan, a 

 cousin of the ex-Secretary of State, will indulge in the 

 sport since his experience of yesterday while hunting 

 along the waters of the Sciata River, 



He killed a particularly plump bkd which fell in the 

 water about 10ft. from the bank. The water was shallow 

 and clear, and the sandy bottom easily discernible, and 

 Jklr. Ryan unhesitatingly walked in after the dead bird. 

 He had not taken many steps when he felt himself sink- 

 ing. The thought of danger did not occur until he made 

 an effort to extricate himself. Then he found that his 

 struggles to release himself only sank him deeper in 

 the treacherous sands. A branch overhead, which he 

 might have caught had he known his danger in time, 

 only bent down in mockery now a foot beyond his out- 

 stretched hand. He looked about, but no one appeared 

 to help him. He shouted, but there was no reply. 

 Slowly he sank nntil the shallow water was about his 

 waist. He took off his heavy hunting coat and put it 

 between his legs to make his downward progress as slow 

 as possibly. 



Just as hope was disappearing, the sinking man saw a 

 farmer on the brow of a hill across the fields. He called, 

 but the farmer did not hear nor heed. Again and again he 

 called with the desperation of death staring him in the 

 face, but the man paid no attention. At last, just as he 

 was giving up hope, the man turned and came toward the 

 river. He seemed ages coming, but he got within calling 

 distance just before Ryans head went under water. For 

 a time the farmer hesitated as to the best and safest 

 method of rescue, but a happy thought struck him just in 

 time to save the doomed man's life; and reaching the 

 overhanging limb, he bore it down until Ryan could clutch 

 the branches. Then going back to the house he secured 

 a rope, and by a good deal of exertion pulled the man out. 

 By way of reward, Brother Dan presented his rescuer with 

 his fine 12-gauge gun. Wick. 



The St. Paul, Minn., Pioneer Press of recent date 

 reports an incident of this nature and of fatal termination: 

 "Charles A. Lindberg, forty years old, foreman of James 

 J. Hill's farm near White Bear, met with a terrible deatli 

 yesterday afternoon. About 1 o'clock he left home, tell- 

 ing his wife he was going to Mud Lake, on the western 

 boundary of the farm to shoot ducks. Two hours later 

 one of the farm hands passing along the edge of the lake 

 heard the faint halloo of sbme one out on the water. 

 Peering across the lake he saw near the middle of the 

 sheet of water an overturned boat and could dimly dis- 

 cern the outlines of a human being struggling in the 

 water. There was no boat near in which the farm hand 

 could go to the assistance of the drowning man, and he 

 hurried off to Mr. Hill's residence and spread the alarm 

 among the other employees. When finally a boat was 

 secm-ed and rowed to the spot where the overturned 

 h\mting boat floated on the surface of the water, nothing 

 could be seen of its former occupant. 



"The boat was recognized as the one Lindberg was ac- 

 customed to use, and search was begun for the hunter's 

 body. It was found within 3ft. of where the boat had 

 been capsized, in about 4ft. of water. The bottom of the 

 lake is an oozy mass of mud and treacherous quicksand, 

 out of which shoot thousands of water lily stems. Evi- 

 dently Lindberg had shot a couple of ducks— the dead 

 birds were floating near by on the water — and in attempt- 

 ing to pick them up had capsized the frail boat. His feet 

 became tangled in the web of water lily vines, and he 

 could not extricate himself from the quicksand, into which 

 he sank inch by inch until he was drawn under the water 

 and drowned. The body was nearly buried in the mud 

 when the searchers recovered it." 



CAMP LUCKY. 



It was in the latter part of September, away back in 

 the seventies, when with Joe P. for partner I started for 

 the woods in northern Maine to build a camp where we 

 were to hunt the ensuing winter. Early in the summer 

 we had cruised for and found a desirable location. Our 

 aim was to find a good i)itch in the vicinity of a caribou 

 runway , so that meat could be gotten near camp, deliv- 

 ered as it were, on the hoof. It was desirable also, in 

 fact, of prime importance, to have a good chance for 

 water and firewood; and such a spot was found where a 

 spring brook emptied into a large stream. There was a 

 level of about one-fourth of an acre in the lower angle 

 formed by the sti-eams, on an elevation of 10 or 13ft., 

 which would be diy, besides having a pleasant outlook 

 toward the south. Our journey was by team forty miles, 

 then by batteau as much more and occupied seven days. 

 We lost no time, but worked early and late, sn that the 

 last week in October found the camp completed except 

 some inside work to be done as odd jobs in stormy 

 weather. A good supply of white birch saplings and dry 

 cedars were closely stacked up in the yard. 



Camps, hunters' camps particularly, have an individu- 

 ality, emphasized by names, usually selected because 

 of some novel or noted featm-e of the country or from 

 some incident connected with its construction. Several 

 names had been suggested, none of which suited, so this 

 was held in abeyance. 



The work ended on a Saturday, and the next day was 

 to be i3ut in in washing and mending and cooking grub 

 to be ready for a start Monday morning to establish trap- 

 ping lines and buUd deadfalls. We had been too busy to 

 look for game, but had shot a few partridge near-by just 

 for a change. 



When night shut down there were indications of storm 

 which boded snow, a desideratum wished for. It was 

 fairly light when I awoke, and a glance at the window 

 disclosed a mantle of snow already melting from the ris- 

 ing temperature, and a misty drizzle. Going to the win- 

 dow overlooking the path to the brook I saw a young bull 

 caribou standing across the path where it descended to 

 the water. Without speaking to Joe I stepped hghtly to 

 the door, opened it and stood with one foot outside, took 

 a quick but cai'eful aim and fired. Owing to the humidity 

 the smoke lumg like a blauket, but not doubting the shot 

 I turned to get my knife just as Joe reached the window, 

 saying as he looked, "What's the matter? You can't hit 

 a barn this morning unless you are inside of it." Then, 

 aa I looked, there stood the caxibou just as before, except 



that his head was lowered and he seemed snuffing at 

 something. I was mortified with such an exhibition of 

 poor shooting, but hastened to make amends, and so 

 stepped out as before and fixed. As I did so Joe sang out, 

 "You downed him that time." Going to the spot, I found 

 two caribou lying there side by side dead. It seems that 

 the second caribou was hidden by a thicket of small 

 cedars a rod or so behind, coming along the path immedi- 

 ately after the first one fell, and both were following a 

 weU trodden caribou path. We soon had one skinned 

 and cut out for immediate use, the other being grolloched 

 and hung head up in the camp yard on a tall tripod. By 

 this time we were as hungry as bears and soon as possible 

 got ready a breakfast of broiled cutlets, after which the 

 pipes were going and conversation turned on the event of 

 the morning, Joe remarking that "it was mighty lucky 

 getting the meat, as it would save the supplies," meaning 

 pork and beans, "besides giving us meat for bait." As he 

 spoke the word "lucky" I had an insph-ation and asked, 

 "What's the matter with 'Camp Lucky' for a name?" 

 Joe sprung up swinging his hat as he declared, "That's 

 just plumb center!" Pine Trke. 



ADIRONDACK DEER SHOOTING. 



Some years ago a younger brother of the writer started 

 one morning in the fall for the Adirondacks on a deer 

 shooting trij^, and the morning of the second day after it 

 began to snow and continued snowing until the railroads 

 in northern New York were blocked, and for a time the 

 trains were almost abandoned. We at home were think- 

 ing that he started at just the wrong time, but late the 

 evening of the first day of the storm — for the storm con- 

 tinued most of two days and nights — he turned up with 

 two deer, having been gone from home just three days. 

 The first morning he went to Saratoga and up the Adiron- 

 dack Railway to North Creek, then to be exact he stopped 

 at Indian River, and there turned off from the beaten 

 path and walked into Harvey Bonney's camp on the 

 Third of the Seven Chain Lakes. Harvey met him at In- 

 dian River and packed his duffle in to camj? on a horse. 

 The next day he shot the two deer and the following 

 morning he took the back track and reached home the 

 evening of that day. It was snowing when he started 

 from camp, but he passed over the nine miles to the stage 

 road before the snow got too deep for fair traveling, and 

 the stage and raUway brought him home with his ven- 

 ison before the blockade began. A friend of his from 

 Albany was on the train as he went to North Creek, also 

 bound on a deer shooting trip, but his destination was 

 miles beyond Indian River, or as my brother said, he had 

 gone so far and into a coimtry where everybody was look- 

 ing for deer, that if he was successful the law would ex- 

 pire before he could get home with his game. In these 

 days of activity and money grubbing I presume there are 

 men fond of shooting who do not find an opportunity to 

 enjoy it, chiefly because it takes too much tune from 

 their business to reach the shooting grounds, engage in 

 the sport and return, and the object of this article is to 

 show how deer shooting maybe indulged in without waste 

 of time in journeying to remote places. 



There is still good shootmg to be found at the Seven 

 Chain Lakes, perhaps as good as at the time to which I 

 have referred, and at Lewey Lake, twelve miles from 

 Indian Lake P. O., in an opxjosite direction. Governor 

 Flower and his party killed four deer recently. In this 

 section, too, Tom Powers, the State Forester, and his men 

 secured eight deer for the State breeding ' park in the 

 Catskills. They are aU does two years old and over, and 

 at this writmg are confined in a barn at Indian Lake. 

 They were driven to water with hounds and then roped. 

 But the place for deer shooting that I have in mind is 

 nearly fi fty miles south of Indian Lake, and only about 

 forty miles from Saratoga Springs. One can leave New 

 York city at midnight and it is possible to have a shot at 

 a deer the following afternoon. From Saratoga go up 

 the Adirondack Railway to Stony Creek Station, twenty- 

 nine miles, and drive to Harrisburg, in the town of 

 Stony Creek, and there, if a man can hold a rifle straight, 

 he will be pretty sure to get a deer. Forty-two deer have 

 been killed there this season, and not a sportsman has 

 been there and failed to get a deer, and most of them 

 have killed the limit — two. I saw one buck — the largest 

 killed this season — from there that weighed 3071bs. Last 

 year, what is believed to be the largest deer ever killed in 

 the Adirondacks was killed at Harrisburgh. It weighed 

 3881bs, , and from tip to tip was 9ft. Tin. long. Its antlers 

 were 32in. long, and one beam had ten prongs and the 

 other nine. Myron Buttles, forester of the Adirondack 

 Club, told me that the largest deer he ever saw weighed 

 317lbs., but that he had heard of one that weighed 3251bs. 

 I know of another deer for which a weight of 32r)lb3. was 

 claimed, but I also know that it actually weighed only 

 315lbs. Last year twelve deer were killed in one day at 

 Harrisburg. There is a small but comfortable hotel at 

 Harrisburg, kept by Oscar W. Ordway, father of Henry 

 Ordway, who kiUed the big buck, but the place is not 

 generally known as a deer shooting resort except among 

 local sportsmen. 



When I was writing of near-by deer shooting I did not 

 imagine that deer would make their appearance within 

 rifle shot distance of my desk, which happens to be situ- 

 ated about in the middle of a vdlage of over 13,000 in- 

 habitants, but such is the truth. This morning (Oct. 13) 

 about 5 o'clock a man residing on Sherman avenue in the 

 village of Glens Falls, N. Y. , opened the door of his house 

 and stepped out on to his piazza, and was surprised to see 

 two deer, a doe and fawn, in his yard. He called his 

 wife to see the deer, and some of his neighbors had in the 

 meantime discovered the strange visitors, and all watched 

 them as they played about in the gardens and jumped the 

 fences from one lot to another. No eft'ort was make to kill 

 them, and for a wonder no dog discovered them and finally 

 the deer disappeared in the direction of the race track 

 on the north edge of the town. There is no cover for 

 deer within five miles from the place where they were 

 seen. Luzerne Mountain is five miles away on the west, 

 and it was in the western part of the town, inside of the 

 corporation hmits, that they were first seen. French 

 Mountain is five miles away on the north. Upon making 

 inquiries I found that a deer was seen ten days ago in a 

 field a mUe from the base of Luzerne Mountain, and 

 another or the same one at Long Pond (Glen Lake, where 

 the record-breaking small-mouthed black bass have been 

 caught) four miles north of the village. The deer came, 

 in all probability, from the mountains on the east side of 



Lake George, wandered south to French Mountain ami 

 then followed the hills ai'ound to Luzerne Mountain and 

 so to town. Last week two deer were killed on Tongue 

 Mountain, which divides the Narrows of Lake George 

 from Northwest Bay, near Bolton. Another was killed 

 on the main Bolton" shore a few miles north of Bolton. 

 Still another hunter shot a horse which he mistook for a 

 deer. 



Members of a shooting club returned here yesterday 

 from the Kunjamuck region, which I have described in 

 FOEEST AND Stream as affording fine trout fishing and 

 deer shooting, and tell me that in nine days' shooting 11 

 members killed ,36 deer, and, tell it not in Gath! shot, 

 during the same time, at 46 other deer which they did not 

 kill. A large proportion of the deer killed were bucks. 

 Members of another deer shooting party also returned 

 yesterday from the Boreas Ponds, at the head of Boreas 

 River. There were 11 men in the party and they killed 31 

 deer in 10 days. There are deer left in the woods yet, for 

 a friend of mine, a veteran newspaper editor, shot 13 

 times at one deer, and another friend shot 37 times at 6 

 deer, and the 7 deer are alive to-day unless some other 

 man has killed them. As if to emphasize the fact that 

 game is abundant this fall, a partridge flew into a tree in 

 front of my house yesterday and remained some time, al- 

 though a gang of 50 or more Italians were at work in the 

 street, huilding a sewer. A. N. Cueney. 



CALIBERS AND RANGE. 



Providence, R. I. , Oct. 9. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 In last week's issue there is a good accoimt of the wonder- j 

 ful shooting qualities of the .32 short cartridge, and your 

 correspondent gives this little cartridge a wonderful] 

 amount of credit. Whew ! Killing at 303yds. I Now, , 

 om- friend is evidently a Westerner, and no doubt in the 

 West that distance is not so great as it is East here. But 

 we doubt very much if such a little cartridge would do 

 such execution at 303ycis. I will confess I am a little 

 surprised at the shooting of the .22cal. cai'tridges. Ii 

 recently purchased a little Stevens arm, in which could 

 be ust-d either the short or the "long rifle" cartridge, in- 

 tending to use the arm this winter for indoor practice 

 shooting. Well, we took it down cellar the other night 

 for the first time, and the way that little ball bored 

 through soft pine was a caution. We finally set up an 

 u'on plate, and the balls flattened themselves out almost 

 as thin as tinfoil. But we were only using it at about 

 20yds, We didn't suppose it was good for more than 

 that, and the Stevens Arms Co, in a recent letter in reply 

 to one addressed to them regarding the range of the ball, 

 etc, say that the .32 is not reliable beyond 100ft. Now, 

 who is right and who is wrong? We don't pretend to 

 know much about it and don't vrant to criticise any one,: 

 but think of it a moment. Suppose we want to shoot 

 squirrels with the smallest possible caliber. If the range 

 ot that ball (.22cal.) is good to kill at over 300yds., it won't 

 be safe around this part of the country. And we don't 

 dare use any more the ,38cal. Winchester on Connecticut 

 woodchucks. I wonder if those huge .45 balls that we^ 

 used some time ago in the wilds of Maine shooting at a 

 bottle (empty) are still travelmg. 



But there are some who insist that the .23 is big enough 

 for them. Several years ago one of us was on a sheep' 

 ranch way out in the "woolly West," where there wevpe 

 grizzlies. Old Jack W., the guide thereabouts, always- 

 carried a heavy .45 Winchester, Jim B. (who tells this 

 part of the tale) a .44, and the rest — well, they are not in 

 the tale, excepting the principal character, a man from, 

 the East, a good shot and a crank on rifles and the theory 

 of shooting. He could drive you crazy with his calcula- 

 tions as to the range, penetration, etc., of the rifles used, 

 and brought out with him a little .32 that he said was 

 plenty big enough for him. Of course the boys all 

 laughed at him. But he insisted that if a grizzly, no 

 matter how old and tough he was, got a dose of lead from 

 that little rifle in his head he would be sick enough to lie 

 down and give up. And no one could teU him anything 

 different. He was going to kiU bear to prove it, too.i 

 Well, he went out early one morning, and that night he 

 didn't come back to the ranch. The boys waited half the 

 night, but he didn't materialize. Next morning Jack and 

 Jim B. started out to find him. They knew about where 

 he would go and had no trouble in following bis traU. 

 And it wasn't long before they heard faint calls for 

 "help! hel-p-p!" and down by the side of the canon was a 

 sight. They didn't have kodaks then. Up in a good- 

 sized scrub was our friend. Waltzing around the tree to 

 his own time was a huge grizzly, scornfully gazing up at 

 the half dead fellow at the top of the tree. 



Well, to make it short, Jack used the big ,45 to good 

 effect, that is, he started the old fellow up, and he gal- 

 loped off into the brush (I don't know why he didn't 

 make it interesting for the boys, but they say he didn't). 

 They took the .33cal. man down from the tree. His boot 

 was torn off, and his trousers leg and the leg itself badly 

 torn. But he don't tackle a grizzly any more with a 

 .22, and his faith in that httlo gun is badly shaken. 



Now, of course, all this yarn is going t<j the vei y ex- 

 treme, and I can hear you all say, "Oh, well, we don't 

 suppose any fool would think he could kill a bear with 

 a .33." But the point I wish to make is, that I believe 

 the. 23 is very much overestimated. 



The Winchester people only say that their .38 and .44 

 are reliable to 300yds., and I am a little inchned to doubt 

 that the .23 is good for that distance. The Stevens 

 people say that the "long rifle" cartridge will do fine work 

 at 200yds , but we are talking about the .22cal. short. 



Our old friend "Iron Ramrod" may be able to give us 

 some tips. I was thinking of using the Stevens .22 on 

 ducks down the Bay this fall and winter, where a heavier 

 caliber would cany across and make it dangerous for 

 people on shore; but if the .32 is such a formidable 

 weapon we'll have to gi without our ducks. We have 

 hard work to get on to them with a shotgun and the little 

 rifle seemed to be a good thing to use; but from the ex- 

 perience of our Western brother it looks as if we couldn't 

 use rifles at all. 



Up in York State a couple of yeai-s ago I was present at 

 an old-fashioned turkey shooting match. All kinds of 

 rifles were used, range about 450yds., and even the .32 

 calibers didn't get there, ijrobably on account of the wind. 

 They would reach, but one could see the dust kicked up 

 on all sides, and the men were good shots, too. The 

 heavier balls got the turkeys. 



But pardon the space I have taken. TODE. ' 



