May 5, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



377 



"Forest and Stream's" Yellowstone 

 Park Game Exploration. 



THE ACCOUNT OF HOWELL'S CAPTURE. 



The First News, 



Chicago, Ills.; April 27.— The Forest and Stream 

 Winter Exploration of the National Park, now just con- 

 cluded, was a venture singularly fortunate in every 

 respect. Not devoid of certain hardships, and not free 

 from possible dangers of more sorts than one, it was 

 nevertheless brought to a close without illness or accident 

 to any of the party other than of the most trifling sort, and 

 from Btart till close progressed with the smoothness and 

 merriness, if not the ease and indolence, of a summer pic- 

 nic. Fortune was kind and raised no obstacle too hard 

 to be overcome. Thus the Forest and Stream may 

 truthfully say that it is the first and only paper ever to j 

 send a staff man through the Park during the winter I 

 time. Schwatka once made 20 miles of this 200 miles 

 winter journey in the interests of the New York World. 

 Overcome by his failing, and perhaps discouraged or dis- 

 gusted by the amount of unavoidable hard work ahead 

 (for the only possible method of locomotion in those high, 

 rough and snowy regions, is by one's own snowshoes), he 

 allowed his undertaking to come to failure, and returned 

 to his starting point with no results to show. Since him 

 one or two other men have gone to the gates of the Park, 

 looked at the big snow land, and resolved that it was 

 easier to write about the winter scenery of the Park from 

 imagination than from fact. The only man ever success- I 

 ful enough to go through the Park in winter, and intelli- | 

 gent enough to make a newspaper account of it, was Mr. j 

 Elwood Hofer, whose stories of his two trips, simply and | 

 clearly written, appeared in Forest and Stream. Mr. F. 

 Jay Haynes, the able St. Paul photographer who has done 

 so much to make public the beauties of this wonderful 

 region, went through the Park after the collapse of the 

 Schwatka expedition, but never wrote of it, so far as I 

 know. His party was lost on Mount Washburn for three 

 days, and they all came near perishing. 



The effort to learn of the winter life of this tremen- 

 dous and fateful region had hitherto been, let us then say, 

 severely frowned upon by Fortune. When Forest and 

 Stream, always rather a favorite of the fickle dame, made 

 the attempt, Fortune relented, and all became possible 

 and plain. To this end, Forest and Stream was in the 

 first place highly fortunate in having Mr. Hofer as a mem- 

 ber of the party. His guidance, counsel and assistance 

 constituted the difference between success and failure. 

 Without him the trip could not have been what it was, 

 and it is to him, very much more than to its staff repre- 

 sentative, that this journal is indebted for the success of 

 the undertaking just completed. What were the obstacles 

 to be overcome before success could be reached, and what 

 were the trials, the pleasures and the incidents of the 

 Avinter journey through the mountains of the Great 

 Divide, it will be a pleasure to recount later, but the first 

 duty is to tell at first hand, and exclusively, the story of 

 the capture of the" man Howell, who was caught in the 

 act of butchering the Park buffalo. This story, taken 

 from Forest and Stream's first and exclusive report, has 

 appeared in various forms and in some inaccurate shapes, 

 in the press all over the country, and such is the import- 

 ance of the occurrence that it has driven Congress to an 

 action delayed years too long. This is undoubtedly the 

 most dramatic and sensational, as well as the most not- 

 able and important piece of sporting news which has come 

 up in recent years. It is news which will be historic. The 



ited means at his disposal, to protect the vast tract of land 

 which lies within the bounds of this peerless reserve of 

 wilderness. How difficult a task this would be with 

 many times the troops and many times the money no one 

 can understand perfectly who does not know the Park, 

 and who does not know what winter in the mountains 

 . means. A part of the system of the winter patrol consists 

 of little details, usually a sergeant and two privates, sta- 

 tioned at remote parts of the Park. Thus there is a sub- 

 station of this sort on the east part of the Park, on Soda 

 Butte Creek; one on the west side, known as Riverside 

 Station; one twenty miles from the Post, at Norris Basin; 

 one forty miles from the Post, and near the center of the 

 Park, at the Lower Geyser or Firehole Basin; and one at 

 the extreme south end of the Park, known as Shoshone 

 Station. Communication with these stations can only be 

 made by snowshoe parties. The winter's supplies arecar- 



THE BUTCHER'S WORK. 



ried into the stations by pack trains early in the fall, before 

 the impassable snows have covered all the trails. Under 

 such conditions news would naturally travel slowly. Yet 

 we knew of Howell's capture, some seventy miles from 

 the Post, the very day he was caught in the act of his 

 crime, the news coming by telephone from the Lake 

 Hotel. The Park Association keeps attendants at three 

 hotels within the upper Park, not counting the one at the 

 Mammoth Hot Springs (Fort Yellowstone), on the entrance 

 side of the Park. There is one attendant, or winter 

 keeper, at the Canon Hotel, one at the Lower Basin Hotel, 

 and a man and his wife at the Lake Hotel. All these 

 hotels are connected by telephone with the Post, elsewise 

 the loneliness and danger of the life of the solitary men 

 thus cut off from the world through the long months of 

 an almost Arctic winter would deter even such hardy 

 spirits from undertaking a service worse than that on a 

 lighthouse tower at sea. When the telephone line fails to 

 work, as naturally in such a wintry country of mountain 

 and forest it often does, old Snowshoe Pete, the line- 

 man, is sent over the line to locate and repair 

 the damage. He is the only man allowed to go 

 alone through the Park in winter, and he has 

 had some rough and dangerous experiences. When 

 the soldiers of the out-stations wish to report to the Post 

 they go to the nearest hotel, perhaps fifteen, perhaps 

 forty miles, and telephone in, if the telephone happens to 



from the Post, and as I was the guest of Capt. Anderson 

 at the Post, of course I learned the news at once, and at 

 once put it on the wire for ' Forest and Stream, which 

 had the information within twelve hours of the capture, 

 which latter had occurred 2,000 miles away in the rough- 

 est part of the Rocky Mountains, and four days' journey 

 from the nearest telegraph station, by the only possible 

 means of travel. The next day Forest and Stream was 

 represented in Washington. Within thirty days the 

 Lacey bill had passed the House. To Forest and Stream, 

 born under a lucky, as well as an energetic, star, will be 

 due more than to any other one agency the thanks of the 

 public for the ultimate preservation of one of the public's 

 most valuable heritages. No other paper has made the 

 fight for the Park that this one has, and it deserves the 

 utmost success which now seems certain to attend it. 

 When the people finally come to look upon an undivided 

 National Park, and one tenanted once more with some 

 specimens at least of its grand though vanishing animals, 

 they may thank all the men who nobly and fearlessly 

 worked for that and so carried out the actual will of the 

 people — they may thank all these friends of intelligence 

 and justice and public honor and decency; but they will 

 have only one newspaper on earth to thank, and that one 

 will be Forest and Stream. 



Capt. Anderson's Story. 



When Capt. Anderson came in after hearing the news 

 of this capture, he was positively jubilant through every 

 inch of his 6ft. 2in. of muscular and military humanity. 

 He couldn't sit still, he was so glad. 



It was some time before I could get from him the story 

 of the plans leading up to the capture. 



"I knew that Howell had been in the Park," said he, 

 "and had an idea that he was over on Pelican Valley 

 somewhere. I sent Burgess in after sign once before this 

 winter, but Burgess broke his axe and had to come back. 

 I told Burgess this time that I wanted him to come back 

 this time with a whole axe and a whole prisoner, if 

 possible. I knew that Howell had come out of the Park 

 for supplies, not long ago. He came out from Cooke City, 

 where he hails from. He brought out his toboggan, and 

 took back a load of supplies with him I knew he must 

 leave a broad trail, and knew that if Burgess could strike 

 his trail and follow it into the Park, not out of it, he could 

 catch him sure. Burgess has been scouting on Pelican, as 

 directed. He says, by telephone, that he found the trail 

 early in the morning, and followed it till he found a cache 

 of six buffalo heads, hung up in the trees. Then he fol- 

 lowed the trail a good distance till he found Howell's 

 tepee. While he was there he heard shots. Approaching 

 carefully, he saw Howell skinning out the head of 

 one of five buffalo he had just killed. Making a careful 

 run over the 400yds. of open ground between Howell and 

 the timber he got the drop on Howell. Burgess had with 

 him no one whatever but one private, Troike, who was 

 not armed and who stayed back in the timber. Capt. 

 Scott, Lieut. Forsyth and party were at the Lake Hotel 

 not engaged in this scout at all. I must say that Bur- 

 gess's action has been in every way highly courageous 

 and commendable, and I shall be glad to commend him 

 publicly. He made his arrest alone and brought his man 

 into the Lake Hotel to report for orders. I have ordered 

 him to bring his prisoner on in to the Post as quickly as 

 he can. To-morrow I start out a party on snowshoes 

 from here to bring in all the heads and hides of the 

 buffalo killed. I have ordered Howell's tepee and sup- 

 plies burned. His arms and outfit will be confiscated, 

 and I will sock him just as far and as deep into the 

 guard-house as I know how when I get him, and he 

 won't get fat there, either. That is all I can do under 

 the regulations. I shall report to the Secretary of the 

 Interior and in due course the Secretary of the Interior 

 will order me to set the prisoner free. There is no law 

 governing this Park except the military regulations. 

 There is no punishment that can be inflicted on this low- 



THE BUTCHER'S WORK. 



Howell buffalo slaughter marks an epoch, the turning 

 point, let us hope, in the long course of a cruelly wasteful 

 indifference on the part of the United States Government 

 in the matter of one of the most valuable possessions of 

 the American people — a possession growing yearly less and 

 less through this indifference, and which as it has grown 

 less has increased in value, since when once destroyed, it 

 can never by any human power be replaced. Had not 

 Forest and Stream been born under a lucky as well as 

 an energetic star, it could not have enjoyed the journal- 

 istic good fortune of having a man right on the spot — and 

 a most remote and improbable spot, too — to obtain exclu- 

 sively for its service this most important piece of news. 

 Now that we are out of the mountains, the first opportu- 

 nity offers to give the story in accurate detail. 



The Telephone Carries It. 

 Capt. Anderson, the best superintendent the Park ever 

 had , and one good enough to be retained there for an in- 

 definite term, is a thoroughly fearless and energetic man, 

 and disposed to do all t,hg£ lies is his power, with the Mm- 



be running. Burgess, the only scout whom the munificent 

 U. S. Government provides for the protection of this 

 peerless domain — a domain which any other power on 

 earth would guard jealously as a treasure vault — makes 

 scouts from time to time in all directions through the 

 Park, traveling of course on snowshoes. He may sleep 

 and get supplies at some one of the out-stations, or of one 

 of the three winter keepers of the hotels, or it may be 

 that he will hole up for the night in one of the several 

 shacks built at certain secluded portions of the mountains 

 for this purpose; still again, he may have to lie out in the 

 snow, perhaps without a blanket, perhaps with nothing to 

 eat. This all depends on circumstances. A poacher's 

 trail has to be followed hard and sharp, with no let-up 

 and no returning. It was fortunate for Burgess that he 

 caught his man within a day's march of the Lake Hotel. 

 He brought him in to the Lake Hotel that day and at once 

 telephoned to Capt. Anderson, commanding officer at the 

 Post, Mammoth Hot Springs. The message was received 

 at the Post about 9:30 in the evening, Monday, March 12. 

 This was just before Hofer and I started into the Park 



THE BUTCHER'S WORK. 



down fellow. I only wish I had the making of the law 

 and the devising of the penalty. I'll bet you this man 

 wouldn't soon go at large if I did have." 



Scout Burgess's Story.r 



This was Capt. Anderson's story of the plan that led to 

 the capture, a plan evidently wise and well laid. But 

 how wide a difference there remained between this plan 

 and the actual arrest I never knew until I had seen the 

 Park itself in all its immensity, its impenetrableness, its 

 forbidding and awful regions of forest, precipice and crag, 

 until I had traversed with weary feet some of those end- 

 less miles of bottomless snow; until I learned how utterly 

 small, lonely and insignificant a man looks and feels in 

 the midst of solitude so vast, so boundless, so tremendous 

 and so appalling. Then I knew that the man Howell was 

 in his brutal and misguided way a hero in self-reliance, 

 and that Scout Burgess was also in courage and self-re- 

 liance a hero, nothing less. Howell, or any like him, I 

 hate instinctively, but I salute him. To Burgess the 

 salute will come more eagjly from any man who knows 



