544 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 23. 



THE CARLIN PARTY. 



We recall nothing in recent literature of sport which 

 parallels the experiences of the Carlin party of sportsmen 

 who were lost in the Bitter Root Mountains as those ex- 

 periences are related by Mr. Carlin himself in the Tacoma 

 Review, 



Following is Mr. Carlin's account given to the Revieiv: 

 "We pitched our camp on the Clearwater Sept. 26, 

 between two warm springs. The camp was comfortably 

 appointed, the fishing was good, and the hunting 

 magnificent. We stayed there until Oct. 10, and then 

 decided to return home. We packed everything and 

 started up the little trail toward the Lo Lo. Two-thirds 

 of the way up we found the snow 3ft. deep. Colgate, 

 who had been sick some time, was on a strong horse, but 

 faring badly. Our guide, Spencer, estimated that the 

 snow would be 4ft. deep on the main trail, and so we 

 returned to the old camp. We found timber two miles 

 and a half beloAV there, at the lower lake and began the 

 task of building rafts. In the mean time we had bought 

 out Ben Keeley, an old trapper who had a cabin there 

 stocked with provisions for the winter, and we hired him 

 to come down with us. The party then numbered six in 

 all. The rafts were 4ft. wide and 26ft. long, made of 

 strong timbers, with bulkhead forward. We made a 

 chair on one for Colgate to sit in, as he was by that time 

 almost helpless, and embarked, dividing our provisions 

 and utensils evenly. Himmelwright and myself were on 

 the raft with Colgate. Pierce, Spencer and Keeley were 

 on the other. 



"Then began the most diflScult and hazardous work 

 that I ever heard of. We let the rafts down gradually, 

 using ropes sometimes and then our poles, holding on with 

 our hands to tlie slippery rocks along the banks. We 

 were constantly obliged to have one man going forward 

 to reconnoitre the river, and in places all five of us would 

 work to let the rafts down one at a time. We made 

 twenty-five miles that way, and then spent four days 

 examining the river below us. It was impassable. It was 

 then necessary for us to cross the river, and we were two 

 days doing that. We had first to fell a tree 44in. in 

 diameter out into the current. With ropes we let one 

 raft out into the center of the stream. Then we paid out 

 the line and let the raft swing against the other bank. 

 We unloaded everything and cut the raft loose to see 

 where it would go. It was whirled swiftly down stream 

 200yds. and swung into a clump of rooks. That was the 

 last we saw of it. 



"The trip that far had been attended by innumerable 

 risks. All of us had many narrow escapes from drowning. 

 Once when we ran on the rocks Colgate's end of the raft 

 was submerged and he fell into the water. Himmel- 

 wright happened to be standing close enough to save his 

 life. I was nearly drowned another time, and I guess 

 nearly all of us owe more to good luck than anyone will 

 know of. We started out on foot, after crossing the 

 river, marching slowly in the hope that Colgate would 

 keep up. We were then down to 401bs. of flour, 41bs. of 

 bacon, 5lbs. of beans— a mere handful— and a little coffee. 

 The whole question was talked over seriously. 



We saw that to stand still meant sure death, while it 

 was doubtful if we could be saved by going ahead. We 

 finally decided to keep on, and determined that whoever 

 fell behind must bear his own misfortune. All that was 

 explained to Colgate early one morning. He seemed to 

 have only a general idea of what was going on. Once he 

 said to me, 'Well Carlin, I guess I'll be the first one to 

 fall.' All of us were in a deplorable fix. We divided 

 our provisions, discarded all our blankets and arms except 

 a dozen rounds of ammunition each and two guns. 

 Colgate could scarcely walk. Then we made the start. 

 He soon fell behind and that was the last we saw of him. 

 Two and a half miles further on we camped. We waited 

 the next day until 10 o'clock, thinking it barely possible 

 that the old man might come in, but he never overtook 

 us. He died that night, I am sure. In fact he was dying 

 when we left him and he couldn't possibly have put in 

 another night. He was demented and in a stupor, and 

 seemed hardly to realize what was going on when we left 

 him. He weighed fully 2001bs. and we were so weak that 

 it was out of the question to carry him, 



"We traveled on that way, still suffering, slipping 

 down at every step almost, three days and a half before 

 we reached the canon. Vertical walls of rock from 200 to 

 1,000ft. high, towered above us. I shall never forget the 

 scene. The Clearwater Eiver rushed into the cafion with 

 a tremendous roar, and those great walls seemed almost 

 to meet at the top. They cast a deep shadow on the 

 stream, and the liquid took colors that a Tavernier could 

 not produce. The worst part of our journey Avas before 

 us. The caflon Avas eight miles long, and it is impossible 

 to travel down it along the river bank on either side. 

 We made the best of our way up and down the ridges, 

 hanging on to clefts and protuberances on the face of the 

 steep sidehills. In one place we were forced to go back 

 from the river three miles to get ai-ound a little chff that 

 jutted out over the stream. Another day we tried to go 

 to the top of the range and walk along the mountain tops. 

 But the sides of the hill were lined with moose brush 

 weighted down with snow. When you stepped on it your 

 feet were taken out from under you, and the brush, 

 relieved of its weight of snow tripped, you as it flew back 

 again. The snow was slippery and we soon found that 

 method of traveling harder than any other. We were 

 three days and a half doing that eight miles of caflon. 

 One day we only advanced a mile and a half. 



"We did not Avait when we struck the mouth of the 

 canon. The Avalking was bad enough then, but it was an 

 improvement on what Ave had endured. Our provisions 

 gave out and Ave stumbled along the best we could, eating 

 berries whenever we could find them. The hills were 

 lower and the country more open, but there was no sign 

 of game. It rained pitchforks all one night, and the next 

 day it was cold enough to chill us to the bone. Later we 

 happened across some pheasants and shot three of them. 

 Three dogs followed us all through our joux'ney. When 

 we shot a pheasant in the more open countiy all three 

 dogs were on it in an instant. One got the breast, 

 another the head, and the third was pulling on the legs. 

 We had to fight hard to save part of the bird from the 

 clutches of the starving animals, 



"Three more days of that kind of progress, in which 

 we gained perhaps two miles a day, and then we met the 

 rescue party in charge of Lieut, Elliott, It was the dogs 

 who gave the first sign of its propinquity, Himmel- 

 wright and I were half a mile beldud eating hawberries. 



The dogs were in advance of our main party, when one of 

 Lieut, Elliott's dogs saw them and barked. Spencer was 

 in the lead, with Pierce close behind him. Spencer heard 

 the strange barking and climbed a high rock, from which 

 he caught sight of Rory Bui'ke, a rancher from Smith 

 Creek, who had been employed by EUiott to help navigate 

 the boat. Soon afterward we met a soldier, and I recog- 

 nized him as an old chum of mine, Sergeant Guy Norton, 

 We soon joined Lieut. Elliott and his men, and I found 

 him the kindest hearted man I had ever met. He was 

 just in time, for we Avere almost starved and very weak," 

 From this point the return of the rescued and rescuers 

 to civilization was accomplished without an accident. 

 Lieut. Elliott and his command had a desperate time 

 fighting their way through the snow until they found the 

 hunters. When he heard about the plight of Colgate, he 

 determined to send the hunters back and keep on in 

 search of the cook. The members of the Carlin party ex- 

 plained that it would be an impossibility to find him. 

 They talked over the situation for hours with the Lieu- 

 tenant, and their weak condition and the difficulties 

 which they described pei-suaded him to give up tlie idea 

 of fui-ther search. 



Mr. Carlin sends us the following note: 

 Editor Falsest and Stream: 



I wish to state that the newspaper reports to the effect 

 that Martin Spencer, our guide, was responsible for our 

 being caught in the snow in the Bitter Root Mountains are 

 entirely incorrect. Not a shadow of blame rests with Mr. 

 Spencer, and all through our trip he proved himself a 

 man in every sense of the word. Wm. E. Caklin. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[EVotn our Staff Correspondent.} 

 A Bad Prospect. 

 The weather continues severe all through this section 

 of the country, with alternate thawing and freezing, and 

 a gradual increase in snowfall. It seems doubtful if the 

 few birds left over from last season Avill have a fighting 

 chance for their lives unless the elements take early a 

 kindlier dispositson. Should this Avinter be as hard on 

 quail as last, the stock will be sadly cut down all OA'er 

 what is naturally a great quail country, namely, northern 

 Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, with a large portion of Iowa, 



Would the Shooters Join? 



Chicago is full of unemployed men, many of whom 

 would have starved to death had it not been for the or- 

 ganized efforts of the citizens and the city to take care of 

 its honest poor. To be out of work, to be able and will- 

 ing to work, and yet to be unable to find work to do — 

 there can be no situation in life as terrible as this, and no 

 problem in society so hard of solution. For the thous- 

 ands of the poor fellows so situated there can be but one 

 feeling, that of the sincerest symiSit%. Thousands of such 

 men crowd the corridors of the City Hall every night, and 

 pack li ke sheep into anj^ vacant building where the au- 

 thorities will allow them to spend the night undisturbed. 

 In the daytime these men get what they can to eat, many 

 of them depending altogether on the places where food 

 is dispensed free. The relief association of the city con- 

 stantly solicits donations of food for use in these open 

 kitchens for the destitute, and many thousands of loaves 

 of bread and tons of food of aU sorts are given weekly to 

 this purpose by those more able or more fortunate in life. 



One of the city papers the other day called upon the 

 merchants of South Water street (the great produce and 

 game market) to contribute supplies to this charity. The 

 gravity of the situation is such that all the papera and aU 

 the people here talk of nothing so much as of this ques- 

 tion of how to feed starving and half desperate men Avho 

 throng the city this winter to so extraordinary and alarm- 

 ing extent. Food, of almost any sort, is the great need, 

 the quality being not so much the question as the quantity. 

 As most of the food of the city comes in through South 

 Water street, the papers call on the South Water street 

 merchants to supply food. This they are no more able to 

 do than any one else of equal income. And yet there 

 seems to be a little suggestion in this call on South Water 

 street, which I offer with much difiidence but with equal 

 sincerity. 



There is no sort of game in the country so abundant and 

 so cheap in the market as the cottontail rabbit. Often 

 they go begging at five cents apiece, the market being 

 loaded down with them. Five cents is a small sum, but 

 if one had a family and did not have five cents left with 

 which to feed them, the food possibilities of five cents 

 would look large. For the man so situated even a 

 cottontail rabbit would have a A'^alue, for it would mean a 

 meal. These men of Avhom I am speaking are hungry, 

 so that food of any wholesome sort seems a blessing to 

 them. 



Now, I am not posing as a solver of economic problems 

 and I fear ridicule for the idea I propose. Yet every one 

 can best work along the line of activity in which he is 

 engaged and all one can do is to do his best. The 

 premises are that any wholesome food which can be laid 

 down for nothing at the door of the Chicago relief asso- 

 ciation in carload loads is worth the having; that 

 thousands of big-hearted men read Forest and Stream, 

 and that these thousands of men could kill and ship, per- 

 haps prepaid, thousands of the cottontail rabbits which 

 in many parts of the country swarm in such numbers 

 that sportsmen do not shoot them. For instance, in 

 lower Indiana, say about Bicknell, of which point I have 

 spoken before, a party of half a dozen guns could load a 

 wagon with rabbits in a day's shoot almost certainly. 

 This would be a wagon load of wholesome food. The 

 game supply of the country would not be injured, neither 

 could the game be put to better purpose than to give it to 

 the poor who can not afford to shoot and who are 

 anchored by their poverty in the mid-channel of adver- 

 sity. 



I do not say to the shooters of the country. Go out and 

 kill this game and ship it to Chicago, nor do I advise a shot 

 being fired to that purpose. But I do say that should the 

 relief association of Chicago express itself as desu'ous of 

 having this sort of food sent them, then I know these 

 Forest and Stream men so Avell that I am satisfied that 

 they would send in to this city tons of this wholesome 

 food and be glad to do it. The shipments could be made 

 nominally to some well known sportsmen, say to Carter 

 H. Haa-rison, Jr., editor of the Chicago Times, he not to 



be troubled by it, but to act simply as nominal consignee 

 for the association. This idea at first may seem whimsi- 

 cal, but study the streets of Chicago these cold days and 

 it will not seem so whimsical, but may appear to have 

 foundation. For the man Avho will not work when he 

 can, contempt and starvation; but for the man who 

 wants to work and cannot, all the sympathy and all the 

 help in the world. None will help more willingly than 

 sportsmen, for none are kinder-hearted. Sporting papers 

 do not deal with flour and beef, but can only give as they 

 possess. The mission of the sporting papers is not to kill 

 off game in quantities, but to protect it. Yet I submit 

 that the sporting papers possess here some game which 

 they can spare, and that while the readers of these sport- 

 ing papers retain strength and skill and leism-e enough to 

 kill a few rabbits each this winter, the game which they 

 kiU does not belong to them, if the poor of Chicago want 

 and ask for it. 



It would be a pleasure to hear from the relief associa- 

 tion, and also from the sportsmen of the country on this 

 point, and as this is written on the first thought and sub- 

 mitted with, deference, please let us have only charitable 

 comment. The magnitude of the existing necessity for 

 food cannot be exaggerated. There are over 100,000 men 

 in Chicago Avho are going hungry every day. It is our 

 duty as men to turn aside from mere pleasure long 

 enough to do some of the thinking about these men. 



The Ke— sk— ee F— h St— y. 



There still lives a gentlemen who seems to have a notion 

 that the Kekoskee fish story is a fiction. This is Mr. 

 Horace Wilson, of Columbus, O., who says he is "an old 

 man in the seventies now, and has to hunt by proxy," 

 but is stiir able to fish, read Forest and Stream, and be- 

 lieve the believable fish stories. He incloses a weird story 

 about a man who killed an Indian, an elk, a grizzly bear, 

 a mountain lion and a rattlesnake all at one shot, and 

 suggests that that is a pretty stiff story itself. Mr. Wil- 

 son really mustn't believe eA^erythingheseesinthe papers, 

 except what he sees in Forest and Stream, That is al- 

 ways so. Meantime let us hope that the Avi-iter of his 

 kindly letter will hunt and fish and read a great many 

 years yet. 



Rejected the Governor. 



It is stated currently that at their private business 

 meeting this week the members of Swan Lake Shooting 

 Club of this city declined to admit into membership in the 

 club Governor John P. Altgeld of Illinois, the high- 

 handed beliefs and practices of the latter in game law 

 matters disqualifying him from association with sports- 

 men. 



Dame Bang Dead. 

 A letter from the friend with whom I lately shot in 

 Indiana tells me that Dame Bang is dead, the property of 

 Mr. Peabody, of Cincinnati, O., died last week at Bick- 

 nell, Ind, , of what appeared to be rabies. The informa- 

 tion came through Mr, John Barker, who could give few 

 particulars. The owner of Dame Bang was disappointed 

 that the judge could find no place for her, and now death 

 makes the final disappointment. At the time when Mr, 

 LaRue, Mr, Organ and myself shot over Dame Bang she 

 was as perfect a sljooting dog as one ever saw. Then 

 came her weak run at the U, S, Trials, possibly due to 

 the disease that later resulted fatally, and noAV at last, 

 and all too soon. Dame Bang has gone to join Molly 

 O'Brien, Roll Organ's favorite, late deceased. 



Good Deer Trip. 



Mr. Roth, with the John Wilkinson Co, of this city, had 

 a successful trip after deer with a number of friends this 

 fall. They hunted on the Flambeau, and had nine deer 

 hung up at one time. 



Fashions in Guns. 



Friends in the gun trade tell me there is a tendency 

 this fall toward the light half pistol-grip or the straight- 

 hand stock of older times. The inquiry probably can be 

 traced to the elaborate gun exhibits at the World's Fair, 

 which showed such forms in light and graceful guns. 

 The pistol or half pistol has its good features, but prob- 

 ably for a AA'hUe we will have a run to the English fashion 

 of straight-hands. American shooters also shoot straigh- 

 ter-stocked guns every year. This is much of a matter of 

 habit, as if one shoots a gun with small drop he must 

 form the habit of bending his neck and getting close down 

 on his stock. If he shoots with a high head, he must 

 have high barrels, and that is all there is to the question. 

 The English habit is to drop the head. I confess I cannot 

 see much to the modern notion that you Avant a gun 

 straighter than you caja sight, that is, one in which the 

 barrels slant up full view in front of you when you throAv 

 up the gun. Yet a gun* can' be so built that it will "carry 

 high" at 40yds. and still allow dkect alignment by the 

 rib, so that you can still see your bird and have a per 

 cent, of allowance furnished you by the gun maker for 

 the rise of the bird and the drop of the shot. But if we 

 should admit even so much as that, there Avould still be 

 fashions in gun stocks as much as fashions in hats. Just 

 now the fashion for high and narrow bids fair to boom, 

 with a smattering of Monte Carlo cutaway and an occa- 

 sional humpbacked "rational stock," the latter a much 

 better thing than it looks. Chan. Powers, of Decatur, 

 III., shoots a "rational stock." The shooters and the 

 makers will continue to keep each other guessing, we 

 may depend. E. Hough. 



909 Secdrity BiaLDiNo, Chicago. 



Winter and the Game in Michigan. 



Central Lake, Mich., Dec. 12.— Our lake froze over on 

 the 2d inst. The winter has set in with unusual severity; 

 that is, the snow is deeper than for some years, being 

 nearly 3ft, in the woods, Tne temperature, however, 

 has not, I think, been as low as zero, which is more than 

 can be said of Central Illinois, We had last week a thaw, 

 with rain, and when it froze the snow was left in a very 

 solid condition , which I think unfavorable to the game. 

 We have, however, no quail here, and the other creatures 

 may manage to worry through the winter, especially as 

 the sentiment against deer killing out of season is becom- 

 ing yearly more patent as a factor in the preservation of 

 these animals, ElEi:PtE. 



The Forest and Stream isp^t to press each week oti Tues- 

 day. Correspondence intended for publication should reach 

 us at the latest by Monday ^ and as im(,ch earlier aspraotioabl e 



