Jan. 13, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



29 



Orleans near-by shooting I don't know much. Magnolia, 

 Miss., not far north of that city," used to offer good quail 

 shooting, and f nun there on up along the Illinois Cen- 

 tral there is good quail country, the supply, of course, 

 subject to local conditions, as is always to be remembered. 

 West of New Orleans, inte the cotton country, how near 

 depends on what "near" may mean. I have always 

 found Mr. A. Cardona, Jr., of H. T. Collam & Co., New 

 Orleans, about the best posted and best natured shooter 

 on earth, though I do not feel privileged to send letters 

 or inquirers directly to him. 



Is No Dog Man. 



The following letter from Mr. W. W. Peabody, Jr., of 

 Cincinnati, O., I offer not as bearing upon the res adjidi- 

 cata of Dame Bang's death, but as proving beyond a 

 perad venture tha,t Mr. Peabody is no good dog man: 



"The Forest and Stream, and especially the Western 

 department thereof, is usually correct, and I seldom differ 

 with the editorial staff in any statement they may see fit 

 to make, but I must really take exception to the obituary 

 notice of my pointer Dame Bang, for I really feel that 

 you do her an injustice. Dame is not dead, but on the 

 contrary is enjoying most robust health. I am at a loss 

 to know how the rumor started, and I am quite sure you 

 will be pleased to know it is without foundation. I was 

 disappointed at Dame's field trial performance this fall; 

 not that she was unplaced, but because her work in public 

 was so absolutely devoid of merit. Since then, however, 

 I have shot over her three days and she proved herself 

 all right again." 



I will file this as additional proof that Dame Bang has 

 perhaps not yet joined Molly O'Brien. Three of us say 

 Dame is dead, and only two' say she isn't. Legally she is 

 dead, and cannot be officially' recognized without addi- 

 tional proof. But what I want to call attention to is the 

 unheard of admission on Mr. Peabody's part that his dog's 

 public work was "absolutely devoid of merit." What is 

 the world coming to? No such statement as that was 

 ever before published in the sporting press. We will let 

 it go in, but it must not be accepted as a precedent. True 

 dog men can only look at it in grief and pity. Till now, 

 nil unplaced dogs have been victims of the grossest 

 ignorance and injustice. 



"The telegraphic brevities have the following, all too 

 brief: 



"Cook Colgate, abandoned by the Carlin party, has 

 been heard from and a party will be sent for him." 



It would be a strange thing indeed if Colgate should be 

 rescued, but the matter seems too improbable. 



Mr. T. Benton Leiter, once prominent in Mak-saw-ba 

 Club of this city, has for the past two years been in Mon- 

 tana in charge of the Leiter mine, near Sheridan. He 

 owns a quarter interest, the remainder belonging to his 

 uncle, L. Z, Leiter, one of the wealthiest men of Chicago. 

 The mine is running twenty stamps and cleaning up the 

 trifle of $1,000 of gold a day, so it looks as though Benton 

 could keep the wolf away from the door for a while. 

 This I learn from Mr. W. H. Haskell, who has just been 

 out visiting and shooting with Mr. Leiter for a time. Mr. 

 Haskell killed four mountain lions on the trip, two of 

 them kittens. He saw an old one and four kittens in one 

 bunch. On his last hunt up into the mountains of the 

 Upper Gallatin the party killed four elk and thirteen 

 deer. The canvasback shooting on Red Rock Lake, not 

 far from the mine, was very good this fall. 



Mr. Herbert G. Rich and Mr. Frank E. Rich, described 

 to me as two very pleasant young gentlemen, called when 

 I was absent. Their cards do not give their residence, so 

 I can't locate- them. I am sorry we couldn't locate each 

 other. E. Hough. 



909 Skcubitv Building, Chicago. 



NOTES OF A SHOOTING TRIP SOUTH. 



To ONE whose nerves have been worn to the quick by 

 the ceaseless hurry of city life the easy-going ways of the 

 South are balm and healing. A poor pilgrim from the 

 North, condemned to hustle and elbow and push lest he 

 get eternally left, cannot but envy the fearlessness of the 

 morrow that is everywhere shown, and the pleasing dis- 

 regard of Father Time, whom he has been accustomed to 

 respect and worship as coequal with the Almighty Dollar. 



I stood on the deck of the little steamer Norman L. 

 Wagner, plying from Edenton, N. O, to points on the 

 Chowan River one day a few weeks ago, and watched the 

 negro stevedores take life easy as they lay prone on cotton 

 bales on the dock or sat with their legs swinging idly over 

 the side of the boat. The warm Southern sun shone over- 

 head and a thick-lipped songster whistled melodious ap- 

 preciation of it. Their trucks were lying where they had 

 last been used, and their bale hooks served only as play- 

 things to hack chips from the wharf stringers. 



Presently another steamer for which we had been waiting 

 bove in sight, and the negroes all went over to see her 

 make the landing. Apparently they had no further interest 

 than as spectators. A few parcels were run off the newly 

 arrived vessel, and then a passenger or two of those who 

 had landed came straggling our way. The captain 

 whistled, and some passengers who had gone uptown on 

 various errands, came down and sauntered aboard. 



The captain meanwhile was sitting in the pilot house 

 with both feet comfortably out of one of the windows, 

 and when questioned would not venture any opinion as to 

 when the boat would leave. At last, some time after the 

 last passenger had come aboard, and he had made up his 

 mind that sufficient time had elapsed and he could leave 

 with propriety, the captain withdrew his feet from the 

 window, and appearing at the door gave orders to cast off. 

 The boat had gotten under full way and was already some 

 100yds. distant, when a negro was seen running down the 

 wharf waving his arms and showing other signs of excite- 

 ment. His voice came borne faintly over the waters: 



"Hoi' on dar, bar'l cabbage done got left." 



"Oh, pshaw!" was the captain's only pemark, as he 

 philosophically proceeded to turn the boat back. 



******* 



I left New York Tuesday night and arrived at my des- 

 tination, Avoca, N. O, Thursday, having stopped one 

 Inight in Norfolk. Had I been in any special hurry I 

 ■could have gone through in nineteen hours. After leav- 

 ting the railroad at Edenton, N. O, one has to go about 

 ■three miles by steamboat. There is no special inconve- 

 Inience attached to this, however, . as the boats are in 

 •waiting for the trains and the transfer is simple. 



Avoca is the name of a large plantation belonging to 

 Dr. W. R. Capehart, late judge of the department of 

 fisheries at the World's Fair. It is also a post-office and 

 connected with the Norfolk & Southern R. R. by steamer 

 from Edenton. : Its name, which is aptly given, is derived 

 from Tom Moore's poem "The Meeting of the Waters." 

 It lies at the head of Albemarle Sound, which is here 

 fresh water, and into which, within a radius of a few 

 miles, six streams of considerable size pour their water. 

 Near the doctor'sjfine old mansion Salmon Creek, and the 

 Chowan River unite, and a mile or two eastward four 

 more rivers, including the Roanoke, enter the infant 

 sound The land comprising the plantation has long 

 been under cultivation and is as a rule high land. Here 

 and there it is intersected by belts of pine woods or tim- 

 bered lowlands, which afford cover for numerous wild 

 turkeys and a few deer. Elsewhere the land is devoted 

 to raising crops of corn and cotton, and peanuts and 

 peas. Peanuts and peas, chosen food of the quail. What 

 a theme for an epic! On them the little brown denizens 

 of the autumn fields grow sleek and fat, till they are fit 

 to burst their skins, but unfortunately, also, they grow 

 independent. An hour or two feeding in the morning 

 and the same time in the evening gives them all they 

 can hold, and for the rest of the day they follow their in- 

 clinations and it is hard to tell where to find them. 

 Sometimes they are flushed in the scrub pines, some- 

 times in the straw fields and at other times they refuse 

 to be flushed at all. In average hunting with a good dog 

 a man should get up half a dozen coveys per day without 

 exertion. An en erg -tic man who wanted to make a 

 record could do much better, but there are plenty of 

 quail for steady, every-day shooting, and the supply is 

 not likely to become exhausted. 



* * * * * * * 



Dr. Capehart built an attractive hotel at Avoca a few 

 years ago. It had a glass-inclosed veranda where the 

 ladies could sit while their husbands and brothers were off 

 shooting, and the furniture and service were both modern. 

 Good shooting and good accommodation are not to be 

 found in conjunction every day, as most sportsmen know, 

 and the hotei at once entered on a prosperous career. But 

 unfortunately it was burned to the ground last winter. 

 Dr. Capehart is^caring for some of the hotel guests at his 

 own place this winter; but to many sportsmen the burning 

 of the hotel was a great misfortune. Quail this year are 

 flushed in the inclosure where the hotei stood last. They 

 have short memories. 



The Doctor is talking of rebuilding for next year. He 

 plans a central hotel and dining hall, to be surrounded by 

 cottages. This plan, which has met with so much suc- 

 cess in the Adirondacks and other Northern resorts, 

 should prove popular. 



******* 



The quail are more abundant at Avoca and neighboring 

 points on the Norfolk & Southern Railroad than last year, 

 if anything. In the center of the State, from Weldon 

 north, there is no shooting worthy of the name. 



At Mount Airy, N. C, the birds are again found in 

 quantities. Last winter was one of the coldest ever ex- 

 perienced in the South. Broad rivers were frozen over, 

 and people crossed on foot where in former years there 

 had been uninterrupted nav'gation. The effect on the 

 quail crop in certain localities was disastrous. Along the 

 coast, however, they did not suffer to any great extent. 

 The natural cover protected them from the snow and fur- 

 nished them means of ingress and egress. Moreover, they 

 have not been hunted in a great many localities on account 

 of the general impression that the crop was small. Mr. 

 Wood, the station agent at Edenton, hunted two days re- 

 cently with a friend and bagged fifty quail. He wasn't 

 at all satisfied with the result, and said it was due to poor 

 shooting, and that they could have easily bagged that 

 many in a day. 



******* 



"It doesn't seem quite fair," my wife wrote in a letter, 

 "toshootturkeysatnighton their roosts." I had something 

 this same idea myself when I first tried it the night of the 

 day after I arrived in Avoca. Between me and the full 

 moon a great turkey was crouching close to the limb of a 

 tree and I was just out of gunshot. I had stolen along 

 cautiously with my darky guide through the woods 

 toward the roost, and if ever an honest man felt like a 1 

 chicken thief I did. But just at that moment the turkey 

 straightened out his long neck, and by the "moonshine" 

 I saw that he was perfectly aware of our presence. He 

 showed his exact knowledge of shotgun range by taking 

 wing the next moment; and as I saw him ma jestically 

 sail away through the treetops my feelings underwent a 

 sudden revolution. At that moment I realized that it 

 was a case of misplaced sentiment. I determined the 

 next time a wild turkey came my way to throw sentiment 

 to the winds and take with thankfulness any unfair ad- 

 vantage fate might offer. 



I had often heard of the wild turkey's cunning, but one 

 never learns except by experience. During my short 

 stay at Avoca I saw turkeys no less that six times, but I 

 failed to bag one. The first day after my arrival while 

 walking within less than a mile of the house, I unexpec- 

 tedly ca-ne on a dozen or more feeding in a little neck of 

 a field that ran down into the woods. I had a rifle with 

 me for just such game, and fired twice at the turkeys as 

 they started for the cover of the woods. Two who had 

 not seen me took to trees near by and a third flew to a 

 tree some distance back in the woods; what became of 

 the others I could only surmise. To all intents and pur- 

 poses they might have been swallowed up, for I did not 

 see them again. 



For ten minutes I squatted in a most uncomfortable 

 position, hoping to get a shot at the turkeys in the trees, 

 which were hidden from me by the dense web of inter- 

 lacing branches, though they could not have been more 

 than fifty yards distant. First one leg went to sleep and 

 then the other. I could imagine that the turkeys, sitting 

 still as statues, enjoyed my sufferings. Finally one of 

 them began to yelp, and then walked out to the end of 

 the limb on which it had perched. I could just make it 

 out by its movements, but could not see any part of its 

 body clear of the branches. The turkey was'going to fly 

 and I had to shoot. Bang! The turkey never moved. 

 Bang! Still it kept its position in the limb. At the third 

 shot however, it flew and was joined by its companion. 

 The bullets had glanced aside in the intervening branches 

 and it had not been touched. Both turkeys had flown by 

 me in plain sight, not a hundred yards off. 



The third one I bad not heard fly and I waited two 



blessed hours hoping it would attempt to rejoin its com 

 panions who were on the opposite side of the field from 

 it. At the end of that time I heard him drop down from 

 his perch in a most inaccessible piece of swamp, and I 

 gave up turkey hunting for that day as a bad piece of 

 business. 



The next time I saw my guide he told me he had shot 

 a nice hen turkey the day before. "I was shootin' rob- 

 ins," he said, "when she flew down off the roost right 

 in front of me, and I killed her one barrel. She was only 

 twenty steps off." This man shot upward of thirty turkeys 

 last year, and is an expert caller. Dr. Capehart has a fine 

 turkey tail tacked up in his home. It came from one of 

 a pair killed by Mr. Todd, an amateur, who called the 

 turkeys to him and then killed one with each barrel. 

 Their aggregate weight was 43 pounds. 



* * * * * * * 

 Avoca is a great place for gray squirrels. While wait- 

 ing for the turkeys to roost one night with Turner, my 

 guide, at the edge of a swamp, I saw ten or a dozen 

 within range at one time. They were running over the 

 ground making a great racket, or up and down their den 

 trees, making equally as much noise. They seemed to know 

 we were after turkeys. As we paddled home across the 

 creek later in the night Turner said: "Do you remember 

 that little island where we stopped? It ain't more than 

 two acres, but I killed fifty-fo' squirrels on it once." Later 

 he added: "That year squirrels were the thickest I ever 

 knew them. I killed them faster than my family could 

 eat then?, and I had to salt them down. One time I had 

 a po'k bar'l full." 



* * * * * * * 

 Salmon Creek is said to be a fine (large-mouth) black 



bass water in season. Two catches are reported that 

 together weighed 841bs. They were taken on live bait. 

 There are also wall-eyed pike and abundant perch in the 

 creek, and one has fresh fish to eat at any season of the 

 year. Another product of the creek is beavers. Mrs. 

 Capehart has a magnificent cape made from the skins of 

 three, and a skull or two with curving yellow teeth like 

 those of immense rats are lying round the house in evi- 

 dence. 



The Doctor once exhibited these at one of the State or 

 county fairs, and an intelligent reporter who wrote it up 

 got beavers confused with seals. His article long made 

 Avoca the Mecca of ladies whose husbands were sports- 

 men, and no doubt some are still petitioning their baser 

 halves to go shooting and get them a "sealskin." 



******* 



Back again in the rush of the city, there still tingles in 

 my ear the note of a little Adirondack sparrow that I 

 heard in a Southern swamp. The mockingbird sings 

 there also in January, and the hermit thrush; but sweetest 

 of all was that bell clear whistle of an old-time friend of 

 the North Woods. J. B. Burnham. 



AN AVAILABLE ROUTE TO COOKE. 



Billings, Montana, Dec. 27. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 A railroad to Cooke City has for several years past been 

 anxiously looked for by the miners of that camp, as the 

 millions of wealth now in sight will have to lie idle on 

 the dumps and exposed to view in the mines, until a rail- 

 road is built to furnish cheaper transportation than there 

 now exists, before the mines can be successfully worked. 



One of the k greatest obstacles now in the way seems to be 

 to determine a feasible route. It has been asserted at 

 different times by parties who claim to know that there is 

 only one route by which a railroad can reach Cooke 

 City, namely that via Cinnabar, thence up the Yellow- 

 stone River and through the National Park; but our law 

 makers at Washington have wisely seen fit to keep the 

 bars up against any project tending to injure or deface 

 any part of our National Pleasure Ground, for which the 

 people of Montana — with the exception of a few who 

 perhaps may be personally interested in having a railroad 

 go through the Park — f eel very thankful. 



It is not necessary to infringe in any way on the 

 National Park to reach Cooke City with a railroad. A 

 far better route is found by following the Clark's Fork of 

 the Yellowstone from its mouth to its source, as it heads 

 in the heart of the Cooke City mining camp. A few 

 years ago I ran a transit line from the mouth of Clark's 

 Fork River to Cooke City, being one of an engineering 

 party sent out to make a preliminary survey for a rail- 

 road to that point. We found a good practicable route, 

 and one that would not be at all expensive to build, ex- 

 cepting for nine miles in what is known as the box 

 canon of the Clark's Fork, which would be somewhat ex- 

 pensive, but in my opinion not any more so, if as much, 

 as it would be to build the same uistance up the canon of 

 the Yellowstone River, in the National Park. 



The Clark's Fork route offers a great advantage over 

 any other contemplated, right to Cooke City. In the 

 matter of a snow-fall, the Clark's Fork River from its 

 source to where it leaves the mountains, runs in a 

 southerly direction, consequently is on the south slope of 

 the mountains. It is a fact well known to all who are 

 acquainted with the location of Cooke City and the 

 winters of Montana, that the snow-fall is far greater on 

 the north and west slopes of the mountains than on the 

 southern slopes; so much so, that a railroad could not be 

 successfully operated more than four months in a year on 

 the north and west slopes of the mountains, while on the 

 southern slopes, until you get within ten miles of Cooke 

 City, the snow-fall is but little greater if any than in the 

 valleys. • 



The Clark's Fork route presents other advantages that 

 would be considered by a railroad company. Such are 

 the extensive marble quarries that have been discovered 

 near the line of this route, only awaiting the advent of a 

 railroad to become valuable, and last but not least, the 

 celebrated Bear Creek coal mines are within about six 

 miles of this route. These mines have been visited by 

 numerons coal experts from all parts of the United 

 States, and they have been unanimous in pronouncing 

 them the largest deposit as well as the best quality of coal 

 known to exist in the Northwest; equal in quality to the 

 Rock Springs coal of Wyoming, 



To conclude, I hope that our law-makers at Wash- 

 ington will continue to keep the bars up in the future as 

 they have in the past, and not permit our National 

 Pleasure Ground to be used by a railroad or any other 

 syndicate, that would in any way deface one of nature's 

 greatest marvels in the known, world, and the only place 

 left that affords protection for game. 



George T, Lamport, U. S. Deputy Surveyor, 



