Feb. 1, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
98 
hard to tell who was the lucky man. On the last day 
there were thirteen hunters out in the party. 
This brought the proceedings up to the time I struck 
camp. At that time the party was temporarily smaller, 
Messrs. Divine, Lockwood, Dailey and Edwards having 
gone home with one or two of the servants. We still had 
eight men and seven servants in the camp. Capt. Bobo 
had sent out to the railroad for more dogs, and on the 
whole it looked as though the bear industry could be 
kept up for a little while longer if the luck held. 
A Walled City. 
The camp as it was arranged was well adapted to the 
requirements of a large party. There were two good- 
sized houses of one room each, built of upright boards and 
connected by a roof and back wall. The front side of the 
space between was left open, except for a low fence and 
gate, the latter intended as a barrier to the swarm of bear 
dogs which always was fighting for place beside the fire. 
The fire itself, always the center and chief comfort of any 
camp, was built in this space between the two buildings — 
a glorious big fire of oak and ash and hickory slabs, so 
comforting that it is no wonder it needed a walled city to 
keep the dogs away from it. Indeed, they could not be 
kept away, but eluded all attempt thereto and made a con- 
tinuous ring of fur about the fire, lying in the hot ashes, 
crouching, standing or sitting as near as possible to the 
comfortable warmth, each dog's contiguity being deter- 
mined by his ability to lick a series of other dogs. 
The Life of the Bear Dog. 
The life of the bear dog is one of war and tumult. His 
training is of the rudest, consisting mostly of a half -kill- 
ing with a club when he is caught running anything but 
bear, and an entire killing when he is afraid to run that. 
In the bear chase it is his duty to fight the bear, and if he 
be not wary as well as bold he gets killed or crippled there. 
After the bear is dead he gets his reward — if he can lick 
all the other dogs which jump on to him as soon as he 
gets a mouthful of liver or other tidbit in his jaws. At the 
camp his wounds have small attention and he must fight 
in spite of wounds. He will not be fed too highly the re, 
be sure, for cornmeal bread is thought enough for him to 
run on. For this also he must fight and for place at the 
fire he must fight, being ware the whiles that he escape 
a swift and nimble foot if he gets in the road of the human 
beings who engineer his destinies for him. There are few 
such caresses for the bear dog as there are for the bird 
dog. He knows no kindnesses and no comforts. He 
grows up rough, unkempt, shaggy, surly, suspicious and 
highly belligerent. He will fight anything on earth with 
the greatest of pleasure, from a buzz saw up, and if he 
gets a gruelling you never will hear him complain. His 
life is short, but full of action, as that of the warrior 
should be, and while he lives he walks through his daily 
round of activity with a continual chip on his shoulder. 
The only thing he fears is man and for him he bears 
the odd foxhound reverence. Some of the best bear dogs 
in the pack would yell most dolefully if one but reached 
for a long cane and threatened with it. • Ofchers, however, 
for instance old Rock, had a cross of bull or other sterner 
breed in him and would resent condign punishment at 
once. Old Rock would not hasten when told to get away 
from the fire, and if one made advance to poke him in the 
ribs would stand with lowered head and bared teeth 
awaiting the onslaught very calmly. Rock usually slept 
pretty close to the fire. All around him and back of him 
raged the continuous conflict for precedence among the 
other dogs, but this disturbed bim not, for he had fought 
himself up to his bad eminence, and the rest of the pack 
knew he was entitled to the hottest ashes in the place. 
The^pack presented the usual mixed appearance. There 
were a few straight foxhounds, or nearly so, and the rest 
were a varied lot, with some big terrier cross — apparently 
the Irish terrier— or of staghound or pointer; almost 
anything in the way of a dog would do, it seemed, and 
jthe Lady Clara Vere de Vere idea was evidently buried in 
Jthe mist of antiquity which enveloped the history of the 
(bear pack's pedigree. As I saw the Bobo pack now, it 
jihad not over a half dozen of the dogs which composed it 
i one short year before. Raphael, our best strike dog then, 
lor one of the best, was gone, killed by a bear on the field 
fof honor. The little pointer-looking dog called New 
■York was still alive, and so was a shaggy-headed little 
uiondesoript called Texas. Old Henry, the aristocrat of 
Ibhe pack, was also still living, as haughty and notional as 
fever, and still refusing to eat unless served in a clean dish 
toy himself , nOr sleeping anywhere in touch of another 
•dog. Nearly all the pack of last year had gone the final 
•road over which bear dogs go sooner or later, and usually 
■sooner; but the building up of the pack had gone on, as 
lit had for the past twenty years, and the survivors stood 
fen the tracks of those who had fallen. A look at said sur- 
Ivivors showed them willing to take all the risks of the 
■field on which their ancestors had been slain. There was 
I" war" written over each rough face— a very goodly thing 
to see when one is afoot for war himself, and looking for 
Iible allies. 
Poor Place for Still-Hunting. 
I In spite of Capt. Bobo's best efforts to get away from the 
fcestilence of still-hunters, we learned that there were no 
less than five big parties in camp on a space not more than 
lour miles square, comprising in all about thirty-five or 
forty men. Not one of these men had killed a bear. A 
narty of ten from Illinois had been there four weeks, and 
Killed only four deer in that time. A worse place for deer 
Jaunting or any other kind of hunting than just the sort 
Ivhich the Bobo bear pack made possible it would be diffi- 
Kult to find. The still-hunters were pretty blue, and were 
mulling out and going home every day, none the better 
lor the trip except for a trifle of experience and perhaps 
i. little chills and fever — which latter are almost a cer- 
tainty for a stranger in that country even as late as the 
Bnd of November, as both Money and myself can testify. 
I Now I have told some of the pleasant as well as some of 
the awkward things about the hunting of the Delta 
§egion; from this time on I shall have only the pleasant 
things to speak about — all the more vivid and pleasant to 
be, as falling under my own observation after I joined 
Ihe party. E. Hough. 
I 909 Security Building, Chicago. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Torrespondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
itest by Monday, and as much earlier as practicable. 
NORTHERN IOWA. 
Vinton, la., Jan. 14. — Editor Forest and Stream: I re- 
member a few years ago reading in Forest and Stream 
a series of articles written by Mr. Orin Belknap aa to the 
early trapping days in northern Iowa and southern Minne- 
sota. I was greatly interested and pleased, and I always 
think of Mr. Belknap when I am in that section of the 
State, and wonder if in his far away mountain home he 
forms a true picture of the country as it is now. 
In 1891 I was in Emmpt county. A few miles east of 
the West Branch of the Des Moines River it was all open 
country, with very few settlers. Large herds of cattle, 
some with several thousand head, were being summered 
there. The tall grass that once shaded the ground and 
held the moisture around the numerous sloughs has been 
tramped out, and what were once lakes in some cases are 
now sloughs, and many of the sloughs are now dried up 
for good. Swan Lake, once a fine body of water eight nr 
ten miles long, as I was told, was then not much better 
than a frog pond. A mile or so north of this lake I put 
to flight a pair of sandhill cranes that were nesting 
there. But from every slough or water hole, with hardly 
an exception, there arose wild ducks, either mallards or 
teal. This was in July, and it did me lots of good to see 
the little black broods Bkulking away in the rushes. I 
rode along the south shore of Tuttle's Lake, which is the 
head of the East Branch of the Des Moines. It is a 
fine body of water, extending across the State line for 
several miles into Minnesota. I started up quite a num- 
ber of ducks that were nesting in the grass. Small flocks 
were flying along the shore line. It was a bright, warm 
day; perhaps I didn't enjoy that ride. What would be 
old age without pleasant things to look back to? 
I went up to Lake Okabena, thirty miles northwest of 
Spirit Lake, where, I believe, Mr. Belknap had a little 
experience with the Indians, but now on the north Bhore 
of West Okabena there nestles the busy town of Worth- 
ington. All along between Spirit Lake and Worthington 
there was hardly a slough close in by the track from 
which the train did not scare ducks. 
In the fall of 1893 I was again at Worthington, and 
went down to Lake Ocheda and "shot at" some ducks. 
Over on the north bank was a tent occupied by some city 
sportsmen who had been there a few weeks, and twice a 
week sold their game in Worthington. 
In 1894 I was again in eastern Emmet county. I went 
by the way of Forest City and a branch railroad running 
west into eastern Emmet county. Along this road I saw 
prairie chickens, northern hares, and seemingly from 
every slough wild ducks, as the train sped along. In a 
slough a mile or more north of Swan Lake a flock of 
eight wild geese were sumraering. 
In the last three years Emmet county and the county 
east have been fast settling up, and those that love to be 
alone with wild life will soon have to go into the northern 
wilds of Minnesota. But what a country northern Iowa 
must have been in Mr. Belknap's day, with deer, elk and 
moose added to the wildfowl. Mount Tom. 
OLD PHOTOGRAPHS. 
Number One. 
Through the twilight haze, gathering over a section 
of the old buffalo range, which is fast deepening into 
shadow to the eastward of the low sandhills in the back- 
ground, long irregular lines of deeper tint than the som- 
ber brown face of the silent prairie crawl off snake-like 
into the gloom beyond; and we know them for the trails 
of the wandering buffalo, now fast passing forever. 
A few belated prairie dogs, returning to their holes at 
the coming of night, pause for a moment at the doors of 
their subterranean retreats to glance curiously at the in- 
truding hunter, who leans idly on the muzzle of his rifle 
watching their little movements; while from far out over 
the darkened plain a little burrowing owl comes, low 
flitting, ghost-like, through the gathering shadows, and 
is suddenly lost to the eye in the deeper gloom of the en- 
trance to his underground home. 
Not a breath of air disturbs the peace of the summer 
evening, and the drooping eyelids of the parting day 
close gently down over the lonely scene, indelibly paint- 
ed upon memory's tablet by the last ray of the fading 
light. 
Number Two. 
A lonely mountain side far west of the Rockies. Time, 
December. A tenderfoot enthusiast pauses in his eager 
search for the cunning whitetails, and under the shelter 
of a drooping fir takes his stand where, charmed for the 
time into forgetfulness of the very existence of the cervi- 
doz by the spectacle of the first snowstorm he has ever 
seen in the Western mountains, watches for hours the 
wondrous beauty of this strange pantomime of Mother 
Nature as she gently sifts through the frozen fingers of 
the great tamaracks her wealth of crystals, which shall 
turn the mountain side in front and the great canon 
yawning to the left into a very land of fairies; and as 
they eddy slowly downward through the silent air the 
deer sleep undisturbed in the thickets beyond, and only 
the gathering shadows of advancing night rouse him at 
last from his reverie. Small wonder if, for the time, his 
heart wavers in its allegiance to the goddess of the chase, 
and he loves dear Mother Nature with a devotion which 
brooks no rival ! 
Number Three. 
An October sunset on the prairies of western Minnesota 
ere the coming of the white settler. 
Away to the northward for miles in width stretches 
the level plain, bounded by low, gently rising hills, just 
tippsd with the gilt of the sun's last rays. 
Across the foreground a small rivulet furrows its way 
through the plain. 
Looking across the little stream toward the sun-kissed 
hills, the hunter sees, standing grouped, a band of a 
hundred wapiti, just alarmed by his advance, and gazing 
intently backward across the 500yds, of intervening space 
at the motionless figure holding in the hollow of the arm 
his only weapon, the almost useless shotgun, and watch- 
ing the beautiful creatures he is powerless to harm. 
But see ! Directly to the eastward of the startled 
game, and a quarter of a mile distant from them, come 
two shadowy figures, recognized instantly as Sioux In- 
dians, trying the hazardous experiment of an open stalk 
upon the wary creatures, while intent in their watch 
upon the pale-faced intruder. 
Stooping low down, and one directly in the wake of 
the other, they are flitting silently across the intervening 
space, and as the distance rapidly lessens the hunter 
watches expectantly for the tiny puffing smoke wreaths 
which shall announce the success of the bold maneuver. 
Look, look! A sudden commotion in the herd, an in- 
stant's uncertain huddling closer together, and with a 
swinging stride, which banishes instantly all hope of 
pursuit, the frightened creatures, still bunched together, 
speed northward across the wide plain and over the dis- 
tant hills like a drifting cloud; while, borne on the wings 
of the dying zephyr, a long thin line of dust rising stead- 
ily from their spurning hoofs floats slowly away to the 
eastward and is lost in the advancing shadows. 
Plain pictures these, and only in neutral tints, yet they 
are among my treasures of value. 
I have pondered over their quiet beauty a thousand 
times, and to me they are beautiful still. 
They are without value in Wall street, yet cannot be 
purchased with its money. 
I am willing, however, to grant to each true brother 
and sister of our own great family a passing glimpse. 
No others can see them, try as they may. 
My little son at my elbow (happily more like his own 
practical mother than the old visionary who holds the 
pen), curious to know what papa is writing to Forest 
and Stream this time, insists that its readers cannot see 
these things while living in the big cities, so far away. 
I can only explain to the juvenile Thomas that I shall 
depend upon the intelligence and sympathy of the reader 
to enable him to see the wonderful things ia the pictures 
as I point them out. The small skeptic shakeB his head 
and looks incredulous. Orin Belknap. 
A Bright Light in a Dark Place. 
New York, Jan. 13. — Editor Forest and Stream: Came 
to me when I was in a strait and reviewing the past, 
with the future, so far as existence was concerned, in 
doubt, the gem number of Forest and Stream for 1895 — 
its issue of Dac. 28. 
I was on a couch, uncertain whether my foe would be 
victor, if my visitation might compel, as a forlorn hope, 
the use of the surgeon's knife and resignation to be crip- 
pled for the rest of my span, or if a strong constitution 
and rest could win me the day, as I had phlebitis in dan- 
gerous form. 
My mental faculties and critical perceptions were 
acute — keyed up by the crisis. I, so those who were the 
experts in my case said, had to be sentinel over myself 
to watch for symptoms which, once declared, would im- 
mediately necessitate heroic treatment. The intellectual 
strain was tense and I tried to relieve it by sending for all 
the daily newspapers and current periodical literature, 
whose pages I would cut and scan; and I had lapsed into 
dogged resolve to accept any fate in store for me when I 
received the Christmas number of your paper. 
I need not deal circumstantially with its many excel- 
lencies, from the best written and best illustrated trout- 
ing article extant, "The Realization of a Dream," by 
Mr. H. N. Curtis, and the fascinating serial on "How Fur 
is Caught'' by Mr. E. Hough — may he write forever on 
the subject — to the very "ads." 
I have read that number of Forest and Stream thrice 
from title page to end, and had planned to have that 
pleasure again, but an appreciative friend put the 
thumbed and dog-eared copy in his pocket when he ended 
his visit. But I have just procured another copy and am 
going to record in memory what I believe toned, soothed, 
encouraged and vitalized me when I stood in dire need of 
such ministration. 
In gratitude therefore and in remembrance of a bright 
light in a gloomy and despondent visitation I tardily join 
the many who have recorded their appreciation of 1895's 
Christmas number of Forest and Stream. Amateur. 
a Deer and Lilypads. 
After seeing half a dozen deer all the season through 
every day eating among the lilypads and not a lily 
touched, ought to qualify one to speak of the subject with 
something like authority. But these lilypads were of the 
yellow variety. Near Higgins Lake, in Michigan, there are 
numerous small, shallow lakes, and the surface of the 
water is almost covered with lilypads. Deer are plenty 
and they frequent these lakes constantly, yet they never 
eat the white lilypads which are so abundant there. At 
Otsego Lake, in northern Michigan, there grows in abun- 
dance a lily of the pink variety, and old resident settlers in 
that country tell me that the deer never touch the lily- 
pads of that variety. So it seems to me that I have well 
established the fact that deer do not eat some lilypads. 
Mr. Rossman, of Greenville, called at my office this 
afternoon. He is one of the best known deer hunters of 
Michigan, and has hunted deer every year since boyhood. 
He states that he does not know whether deer eat lilypads 
or not. He has seen deer feeding among the lilypads and 
shot hundreds of them while in the water feeding among 
the lilypads, but he never saw a lilypad in a deer's mouth 
or found one in the throat or in the stomach. He never 
saw one hip a lilypad, but has watched them feeding for 
hours, when the nose is plunged into the water up to the 
eyes and the deer evidently feeding, but on eareful ex- 
amination he never in a single case found a lilypad that 
had been picked by the deer. Julian. 
Golden Eagles. 
Connersville, Ind., Jan. 22.— On Jan. ,S H. Shipley, 
of Fayette county, killed two large eagles, which our 
taxidermist pronounces as the golden eagle. They meas- 
ured 7ft. 6in. and 7ft. 3in. respectively from tip to tip of 
wings. The birds were killed with a .22 short Stevens 
rifle at the distance of 75yds, One was killed dead, the 
other flew some quarter of a mile before it fell. Is not 
this remarkable shooting for that size gun aDd that size 
bird? Are they not rare birds for this locality? Bass. 
[The Ehooting was extremely good. The birds are not 
common in Indiana cr anywhere else in the EaBt. They 
are most often found in a mountain countiy.] 
