March 10, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



203 



about but the Richelieu, which incidentally is probably 

 the best hotel in the South anyhow. 



My appetite and I created another havoc at the Rich- 

 elieu breakfast table, and there Mr. Irwin and I had a 

 talk. 



A Great Game Country. 



"You are now right in the center of one of the best 

 game countries you ever saw," said Mr. Irwin, "and I 

 never lived in a section where I had better sport. You 

 can see that gray timber across the river, there? That is 

 the way we go after ducks. The mallard shotting in our 

 ■overflowed country is simply magnificent. This fall the 

 birds were so thick that it was really hardly sport to 

 shoot. Very fine bags were made right off the bridge over 

 the Arkansas River, in the middle of the city. Every- 

 body had ducks. By going out eight or ten miles we had 

 as fine shooting at mallards as any place in the United 

 States ever had. The big cypress swamps made great in- 

 ducements to the birds, and I will show you what hard 

 cover they use to go into. In the fall it is not the least 

 trick in the world to make a bag of fifty birds on some of 

 our best waters hereabout. We will not allow shipping 

 'out of the State here, and do not want any visitors here 

 "who will kill all the birds they can, but I do not hesitate 

 to state that you never saw better duck shooting in your 

 life than there is right around here. Even now (Jan. 1) 

 l/he mallards are hanging around the swamps, and once 

 in a while I hear of a good bag being made. 



"Of jacksnipe we do not have so many in the fall, but 

 in the spring the jacksnipe shooting over atDevali's Bluff, 

 east of here on the big prairie, is as good as you can get 

 anywhere. A good shot can kill his hundred a day there 

 if he wants to, and five or six dozen will not crowd him 

 very hard. The prairie over there used to be full of 

 prairie chickens Until wanton shooting killed them out. 

 A party of Memphis shooters came in there and killed 

 1,500 in a few days. They piled them up and left them to 

 rot. 



"There are no deer or turkeys right near town, or, at 

 least, not in hunting numbers, though I know of two 

 nocks of turkeys within three miles and have killed deer 

 within ten miles of town. We usually take the railroads 

 and run out into a little wilder country when we want to 

 make a hunt for that sort of game." 



*'Have you many quail about here?" I asked. 



Mr. Irwin spread out bis hands. "My boy," said he, 

 "you don't know what quail shooting " is." And later 

 developments taught me what he said was truth. 



"At this hotel,." said Mr. Irwin, "we no doubt serve 

 more game than all the other hotels of Arkansas. This 

 fftll mallard ducks went begging at 10 cents apiece, 

 'Quail bring from §1.25 down to 40 cents a dozen. 

 'Turkey and venison I can always get in season. I uSed 

 to manage some of the Fred Harvey eating houses along 

 the line of the Santa Fe road, and I have traveled some 

 and shot a good deal, but I believe I can safely say I 

 never was in a game country like this. We don't adver- 

 tise it much and we won't have anybody but sportsmen 

 come in here. We do not report how big the bags made 

 here sometimes are, because we do not care to be jumped 

 on by the snarlers of the sporting press." 



The Non-Resident Law. 



'•One of the sheriffs over in the New Madrid marsh 

 country has been enforcing the non-resident law and has 

 collected about $800 in tines. This law is thought by 

 our best authorities to be unconstitutional. We do not 

 apply it to sportsmen who come for sport and who do 

 not want to ship game. Men of the latter sort we don't 

 want here and we won't have them." 



"And now," continued Mr. Irwin, "come on down and 

 see my dogs." 



These I had already seen before I got into the hotel — 

 Nancy, a handsome liver and white pointer, high-headed, 

 gentle and dignified, and Jack, a stubby and singularly 

 muscular one of the same breed, a liver, pepper and salt, 

 a veritable romp and rogue of a fellow, never tired and 

 never still. Nancy came from Ohio, but Jack was native 

 born, albeit of good strain. In Arkansas the love of 

 blood in horse, dog or man has the strength prevalent 

 throughout the South. 



And now we visited Mr. Irwin's shooting room, where 

 were all kinds of loads, all sorts of shells, and every 

 manner of shooting appliance imaginable, a very para- 

 dise to lounge and talk in. 



This was Sunday. The next morning we went to the 

 gun store of course, and met a dozen of the shooters 

 around town, and some more dogs, and had a pleasant 

 hour or so there. 



Right in Line. 



The Dickinson Arms Co. is managed by Mr. Dickinson, 

 a young man of just the right quality for the place. Mr. 

 Dickinson is ex-secretary of the State Sportsmen's Associ- 

 ation, one of the best of its shooters, and thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with the needs of shooters, No visitor contem- 

 plating a trip to Little Rock need bother about taking 

 any ammunition with him, for he can get just as good 

 ammunition here as anywhere. All the nitros and their 

 relative excellence, E. C, Schultze, American wood, 

 S. S., Walsrode, etc., are an old story at Little Rock, i 

 was surprised to find so large and complete a stock of the 

 most modern sporting appliances of every sort— some- 

 thing to be remembered by all shooters who think 

 Arkansas is a country of black powder and muzzleloaders 

 still. Arkansas is nothing of the sorb. It is right in line 

 with the modern phases of sportsmanship in every re- 

 gard. Little Rock is a great place for the sporting papers, 

 and the good shots there are good as any — as some of the 

 Northern shooters who visited last year's Arkansas State 

 tournament learned at their own expense. 



By this time I was hungry again, so we went back to 

 the hotel and ate lunch, and then talked shoot and dog- 

 till evening, when I was hungry some more, in spite of 

 two meals of generous proportions. Chicago was gradu- 

 ally fading away in the distance. 



Weather at Little Rock, Jan. 1, clear, bright and warm, 

 the trees green. Here I laid off overcoat and overshoes. 

 No snow, no ice. Clearly, this was one of the lands 

 Providence meant to be inhabited by the children of 

 men. All the local sportsmen conldn't do enough for the 

 stranger, and we had already enough plans laid out for 

 the rest of tne winter. 



The Way of the Country. 

 "Of course, you'll be here a few weeks," said Mr. Dick- 

 inson, "and we'll get up a duck shoot or so for you." 

 "You'll be here for a while, of course," said Mr. Irwin's 



friend, Mr. Croxton, a famous quail shot and the owner 

 of some good dogs. "We'll just go up to Plummerville or 

 some other place on the Ft. Smith road, and if you can't 

 kill fifty quail a day it's because you can't shoot." 



"You'll be here for a time," said Mr. J. E. Rose, once a 

 well-known Cincinnati shooter, and now stationed at 

 Little Rock as superintendent of the St. L., I. M. & S. 

 R. R. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll take a private 

 car and just run up the road into the Nations. We can 

 get all the quail, ducks and deer you want." 



"You'll be here for some days," said Dr. J. H. Lenow, 

 "and we'll have a little trap event for you. I've got on a 

 little race with another man here, and you just ought to 

 see me do him." 



"Of course," said Mr. J. M. Lightfoot, a total stranger, 

 whom I met on the train out of St. Louis, and to whom 

 I introduced myself when I overheard him talking nitro 

 powders to a fellow-traveler, "of course you'll be down in 

 this country for several weeks, and I want you to come 

 right on down to my place — I live at Pittsburg, Texas, 

 on the Cotton Belt Road—and give our boys some of your 

 time. We've got a club of about 30 who shoot and fish. 

 You can get bird shooting anywhere about there, and 

 we'll get up a camp hunt after deer for you. We've got 

 plenty of bird dogs and hounds, and I want you to come 

 and stop with me." 



"You will be going on South after a bit," said Mr. 

 Woodcock, the other stranger with whom he was talk- 

 ing, "and you'll be at Fort Worth on your journey, and 

 you must stop there and see us." 



From the above judge what manner of man. the South- 

 ern sportsman is. We have not his like in the cold and 

 calculating North. Providence, never intending to have 

 this Northern country inhabited at all, certainly has per- 

 mitted only cold blooded beings to remain there, when it 

 comes to the matter of comparisonr with more hospitable 

 climes. 



Mallards in January. 



The next day, Tuesday, we heard a friend of Mr. Ir- 

 win's telling about some mallards that came into the 

 cypress swamp every evening, about nine miles out of 

 town, and concluded to try them, accordingly driving out 

 that evening with the gentleman to the spot in question. 

 The country crossed was gray and thick with winter cover, 

 broken by cotton fields and crossed by the wide cypress 

 slash which made back from the river. Miserable negro 

 cabins dotted the fields. On the road we passed a covered 

 wagon drawn by oxen, the driver, tall and bearded, walk- 

 ing by the side of his yoke, while a white-faced woman 

 and a gradation of white-headed children filled the wagon 

 from front to back. Behind the wagon rode a tall, slim, 

 white-faced boy. Another boy of similar description led 

 on leash four or five hounds. This was a drifting outfit 1 

 of squatters, going they knew not where, and probably 

 cared little, provided they struck timber with game in it. 

 I noticed that the thin face of the father of the family 

 was aquiline, haughty, handsome and actually aristocratic 

 looking. In the jumbled nationalities of the city it is the 

 rarest thing to find a face of which one can say so much. 

 The American typical face dwells south of Mason and 

 Dixon's line, and I presume that if there is a real Ameri- 

 can aristocracy anywhere, it is to be found in the country 

 so restricted. The aristocrat of the North is not to be dis- 

 tinguished from the man with a deranged stomach. The 

 symptoms are the same. In the South the ideas are sep- 

 arable. I prefer my Arkansaw moving squatter, who 

 would divide his last hoecake with me, or kill me cheer- 

 fully if I insulted him, to the Hebrew with the diamond 

 pin, who joggles one in the street car, and to insult whom 

 would be impossible. 



An Inferno on Earth. 



The late Dante Alghieri, although a trifle bilious in tem- 

 peramentj had good points as a descriptive writer, and 

 with training would have made a good fire reporter. I 

 never read his Inferno without feeling bad, especially if 

 it is one of the editions illustrated by Dore. Sometimes I 

 think that Dante, or Dore, must at some time have hunted 

 mallards in a cypress swamp. At any rate, if you want 

 an idea of a cypress swamp or "sloshing" such as that we 

 were now approaching, you need only to look for one of 

 the Dore Dantes. Here you have an Inferno on earth, 

 desolation absolute* Silent, gray, cheerlesSj almost malig- 

 nant in its forbiddingnesSj it lay before us, mile after mile 

 of gray trunks* lopped arms and hideous deformities. 

 There were figures and faces in the tortured trees, a sub- 

 human, sullen life in their dead ghastliness, an expression 

 as of suffering endured until an endless hatred of man- 

 kind had taken its place, and until an evil intention had 

 stamped itself irrevocably upon liniments distorted by 

 ages of rebellion and ages of just punishment— Inferno 

 set on earth for men to profit by. Try a cypress swamp 

 and see if you can escape this feeling that it has an actual 

 and intelligent evil intention against you. 



There are three planes in a cypress swamp; that which 

 is in the air, that which is in the Water, and tha.t which 

 is in the mud. You encounter the features of all three, 

 and you know not which to most anathematize. Into 

 this three-fold Inferno, level as a floor, covered visibly 

 with dead gray trunks standing in slimy water, we were 

 to penetrate as far as we could before evening. For into 

 this fastness, which certainly should protect them if any- 

 thing on earth could, came the wily mallards every even- 

 ing, just before sundown, flying from no one knows what 

 distance, coming in high up over the middle of the 

 swamp, and then descending in thunderous flight of 

 hard-stretched wing to the quiet pools among the wiry 

 scrub which lay far out in the heart of the great roosting 

 ground. Into this roosting ground, in the not so very 

 sportsmanlike purpose of doing a little roost shooting at 

 evening, we, as specimens of the most bloodthirsty and 

 relentless of all animals, man, were to penetrate as best 

 we might, were to slip, stumble, swear, get wet, muddy, 

 tired and very likely lost, in our endeavor to keep the 

 birds from having a single place of safety on earth, or an 

 hour in the day to take a peaceful snooze. It is no 

 wonder mallards are suspicious. 



The ground, as I have said, was level as a floor, and the 

 water caught us just about three inches below the top of 

 our hip boots. The bottom was very level and had no 

 holes or depressions in it, but such walking no mortal 

 man ever did see before. Submerged logs, limbs and 

 brush heaps caught at one's legs incessantly, and con- 

 tinually the feet slipped on logs lying dormant in the 

 mud. Tufts of harsh grass and vines with briers, and 

 buck brush, and impenetrable thickets turned us from 

 our path at every hand. One slipped and put his hand 



against a tree and at once found it covered with needle- 

 like thorns six inches long. Tired and breathless, he 

 stumbled over a sunken log too big to step over easily, 

 and— there! the water was over the boot tops, and the 

 rest made no difference now. 



We went into^the swamp not over a quarter of a mile, 

 probably, and I should think it took us over three-quarters 

 of an hour to make that distance. The gray dead trees 

 were then all around us in every direction, and without 

 keeping one's bea.rings carefully, one could only guess 

 which was the way toward the edge, for the water left 

 no trail. Mr. Irwin's friend took us in and took us out 

 all right, for he had shot there before, but a stranger 

 would best keep pretty close to the shore. 



My friends posted me in the hollow butt of a great log, 

 which made a natural blind, and went on into the swamp 

 a hundred yards or so further, Mr. Irwin, having on wad- 

 ing trousers, getting further in than the rest of us. After 

 they had gone I looked about me, and it seemed to me 

 that I never was in a lonesomer place in my life. Not a 

 sound nor a motion was apparent anywhere. 



The Evening Flight. 

 About half an hour before sundown I saw some scat- 

 tered bunches of ducks drawing out over the swamp 

 beyond me and presently heard Mr. Irwin's gun. Then 

 there was a flitting through the trees closer in and our 

 friend's gun spoke twice. A mallard hen crossed me 

 high over and I dropped her, too wide to follow. Then 

 there arose a lusty squawking from a thicket to our right 

 and I knew that some mallards had dropped in there 

 somehow, and would decoy the others to them, so I began 

 to call too. Then as the shadows thickened the air grew 

 full of mallards, high up, swinging and circling rapidly 

 down, lighting and calling boisterously. 



A Close Double. 

 A pair of ducks came in like lighting, right at me, with 

 their hindfeet pushed out ahead of them, and would have 

 lit actually within ten feet of me, in full, plain sight. I 

 could almost touch the first one as I fired at it and it 

 went down fluttering. The other started up and was 

 not over 30ft. from me when I fired. It too fell fluttering 

 and swam a little after it fell. This, I think, was the 

 most remarkable double I ever made. When I picked up 

 my birds I found that the first one had a piece about as 

 big as a silver three-cent piece shot out of the lower 

 mandible. The second had a piece of just about the 

 same size cut clean off the top of its head. Had either 

 been struck in the body there would have been no duck 

 to pick up. As nearly as I could tell I held just barely 

 in advance of each bird. 



An odd feature of my double was that I made it with a 

 gun I had never shot before. It happens that in my bat- 

 tery I have only one gun bored close enough for a good 

 duck gun, and my respected father, who knows a good 

 gun when he sees it, having expressed an entire willing- 

 ness to keep that gun out at his house and use it in his 

 own shooting trips, I couldn't bear to separate two such 

 good friends, and so was in need of another gun for this 

 trip. Mr. R. B. Organ, of this city, who at first thought 

 of going South with me, insisted on my taking his 12- 

 gauge Parker along with me. 



"You take her and shoot her," said he, and if you don't 

 find she shoots big shot, 6s and 4s, better than any gun 

 you ever saw, I'll eat the gun when you bring it back." 



"This," thought I, "is another case of the best gun on 

 earth." But that evening, especially after I had folded upa 

 mallard which came dawdling along over the trees about 

 45yds. away— just ahead of my friend further in, whose 

 load caught her as she was falling— I began to look at the 

 gun curiously, and to think maybe it did shoot pretty 

 well. Later on, down in Texas, I found that it shot bet- 

 ter than pretty well, and was indeed the hardest-hitting 

 <nin with No. 4 shot I ever saw, while with No. 6 it per- 

 formed so well that I could have traded the Texas duck 

 shooters out of their boats and houses for it. We targeted 

 it thoroughly there, and tried it on all sorts of long shots, 

 and I must say the result was something of a revelation. 

 Later on still I have learned that the gun was made with 

 especial care for Mr. Organ by Parker Bros., they know- 

 ing that a good shot needs a good gun, I suppose. They 

 bored a second set of barrels for it, and hit it just right, 

 and I doubt if they ever did or will turn out a better pair 

 than these. The gun has a local reputation, it seems, on 

 the Mak-saw-ba Club marsh. I am sorry nowUhat I ever 

 let Roll Organ have it back again, for he says he wouldn t 

 sell it for $500. If this were my gun I wouldn't say a 

 word about it unless I felt like it, but it being Mr. Organ s 

 one may be forgiven a compliment, which should go to 

 a good gun as to a good dog or good horse. 



Nature's Protection. 

 But we were in the swamp and it was now dusk. Total 

 result, six birds for the whole three of us, and an experi- 

 ence so unique that I shall not soon forget it in my calen- 

 dar of all sorts of days and all sorts of places, lhe night 

 was moonlit and the ducks came in late. As it was we 

 heard them in hundreds in parts of the swamp not far 

 from us Knowing, as we all did, that roost- shooting is 

 the worst thing in the world to do, and that mght-shoot- 

 ino- is usually branded as unsportsmanlike, we stopped at 

 dusk and pulled out, caring more for the picturesqueness 

 of the swamp adventure than the actual shooting, ot 

 which we only had five or ten minutes m all. 



I am prepared to say that it will be a long time bef ore 

 the mallards are all killed off , if they must be hunted m 

 the swamps and sloshings of Arkansas The shooters all 

 told me that the ducks seem to hold their own well in 

 that country, and that this fall there were more ducks 

 than at any time for years. 



The Fall Shooting. 

 In the fall, up to December, the shooting here is great. 

 Earlier the shooting at local wood ducks is very heavy 

 these birds breeding in large numbers all o through tius 

 section. Flight-shooting on a flyway -between ^two slosh- 

 ings is a favorite style of sport. Mr. J™ P°£^ a S> 

 ml a stump in the middle of a cottonfield by the roadside. 



"That is one of my favorite stands" said he, . and L 

 have killed between thirty and forty toere of aa 

 evening, every bird falling right out m the diy cotton 

 field. That is the cleanest and easiest <*™V °? ^The 

 ever saw. This country is a natural one for ducks, lhe 

 Arkansas River bottoms and those of ^ s^er taibute; 

 ries rim out into swamps, lakes, bayous and de^enmgfl. 

 I think our mallard shooting on the acorn overflows 

 hardly t» be beaten aqywhere," 



