Sept. 15, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
225 
family of four does, including a two-year-old, coming 
down the runway, were met by Charlie going carefully 
up. The discovery was mutual at a distance of onlv 50 or 
60yds. Without hesitation , fire was opened on the leader, 
which was killed. Dropping on his knee to get below the 
smoke, he gave a retreating doe a shot back of the fore- 
shoulder that dropped her. but she rose and bounded up a 
side runway and was voluntarily beaded off by the dog, 
and at about 200yds. distance a second shot secured her. 
As the other animals had not gone far up the mountain 
Prince succeeded in getting round them, bringing them 
to a partial halt, so tba,t on coming up to within 150yds. 
or so a shot in the shoulders of one brought him tumbling 
dowh the mountain, and the other, shot near the heart, 
fell lower down. 
These were the relative positions in which we found 
them the next day. Their skins were deftly removed, 
and the writer packed down the finest set of horns, to 
be mounted, and when near camp shot a large fox martin. 
We got to camp at 5 P. M. and as our last batch of flour 
was used up and the weather was bad we arranged to 
make an early start in the morning to pack our traps and 
meat out to civilization. 
The packing out was a severe test of endurance, and 
we did not stop to unpack for dinner for fear of being 
late to the lake. On arrival we found the boat was gone, 
and as darkness shut down suddenly we were obliged to 
camp down on the ground without time to rig up a frame 
to spread our skins above us for protection. We suc- 
ceeded in getting a good fire, steeped some tea in a skillet, 
spread our skins on the ground, with blankets and rubber 
sheet above us, and took the pelting rain and big drops 
from the trees all night. 
Next morning Charlie found an old dugout and paddled 
it round to the tie camp, got a bite to eat and ascer- 
tained that the Indians bad taken the boat across two 
days before. Again they were ahead of us. 
We rowed over and got our traps to McKenzie's tie 
camp at 11 A. M.. where I first got food after a fast of 
thirty hours. After dinner we each took a pack along 
the railroad to Griffin Lake, and a second trip brought 
all our belonings to the cabin, 
In discussing the hunt that night ve concluded that a 
trip a fortnight earlier would have been more timely as it 
would have given us precedence of the Siwashes instead 
of hunting after them and taking their leavings. 
F. W. R. 
TEXAS AND THE SOUTHWEST. 
Again has Jupiter Pluvius visited southwest Texas, and 
this time with a vengeance. At Uvalde, ninety miles 
west of San Antonio, the Leona River overflowed the en- 
tire valley and a number of lives were lost, and the beau- 
tiful Nueces River has reached a higher mark than ever 
before. From every driest section of the State comes news 
of a liberal downpour. 
This insures game for this winter in large quantities. 
It may not be generally known, but Texas streams are the 
winter home of the cold-water mallard, not the bird that 
comes early in the fall with a rusty breast, but that noble 
drake in full plumage which likes to dip his reddish yel- 
low legs in ice water. You can find him in the Guada- 
loupe, San Antonio, Nueces, Medina and Comal rivers as 
soon as the waters congeal in the North, and while it is 
not conventional duck shooting, yet it is pleasant to skirt 
the narrow streams when the leaves are sere and yellow, 
and plunk the green head as he springs from the shallows 
of a Texas stream. 
That Great Duck Story. 
I see that one of our enterprising railroads has reprinted 
the startling account of two days' shooting by two San 
Antonio sportsmen, wherein they are reported having 
killed 812 in two days. While the statement does nobody 
harm, it might be well to state that the report is not true. 
812 ducks is more than any four sportsmen want to 
kill in a week. If all the guns that come in Texas kill 25 
birds to the man each day, I warrant that all visitors to 
Texas will return home well satisfied with the country 
and the chances for duck killing. 
While denying the truth of these exaggerated reports, 
I would like to make the statement that this is the great- 
est duck shooting region in the United States, and they 
are not common ducks either. Wc kill all kinds of web 
feet, from the plebeian spoonbill up to the high-toned $5 a 
pair canvasback, and his majesty with the Goodyear 
india rubber bill and photo brown neck is not scarce 
either. There are lots of them, and should any Northern 
sportsman doubt these duck shooting statements the 
writer will undertake to prove the truth of these remarks 
with his own purse. 
Plenty of Quail. 
A private letter from Beeville, Texas (about thirty-five 
tniles from the coast), contains the welcome informa- 
tion that there are more quail this season than for several 
years past. The writer also states that the knot of sports- 
men located at that point are keeping their eyes on the 
pot-hunter, and that the latter will not be able to ply his 
nefarious occupation as easily as of yore. He also savs 
"Stop the sale of game." ' 
This is a Joke. 
I went into a game dealer's place accompanied by a 
friend whose delicate palate demanded something recher- 
che. Said he: "Have you any quail?" 
"Yes," promptly said the game dealer, "and they are 
very fat this season." 
You should have seen the button on my coat lapel 
indicative of a membership in the National Game Pro- 
tective Association. The color of it was golden before 
the question, but when it heard the dull, hard plunkets as 
they dropped from that game dealer's lips, it turned a sil- 
ver gray. Our quail season opens Oct. 1. 
,.ll Let s see ' em >" said m y friend, who 'don't know the 
difference between a Bob White and a Mexican spittoon. 
I craned my neck away into the box of chipped ice, 
over which was bent the appetizing form of the dealer. 
He reached away down into the bottom and brought out 
a fat plover. 
"Ain't they nice." 
"Yes," said the friend, "give me a half dozen." 
The dealer looked at me— I looked at the dealer, and I 
thought I noticed a derisive leer on his greasy counte- 
nance. 
I didn't tell my friend anything about the deception. I 
was sorry I didn't have a go at the game man. 
O. C. G. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
[From our Staff Correspondent.] 
The Pine Woods Fires. 
Chicago, 111., Sept. 8.— In England, on the Continent, 
all over the world, the people will read of the terrible fires 
which within the past week have swept across great areas 
in the States of Minnesota and Wisconsin. They will 
read that in the city of Boston, on the eastern seacoast 
of the United States, the smoke from these forest fires 
was so great at one time this week as to cause great incon- 
venience to those who were upon the streets. Reading 
this, tbey will think that the fires must have been near 
Boston. Will they realize or believe the extent of this 
unparalleled conflagration, when they are told that the 
fires were burning more than a thousand miles west 
of Boston? The people of Boston, of New York, of 
all the Eastern States, have read of the fearful loss 
of life at Hinckley, at Pine City, along the Kettle 
River, all through eastern Minnesota and upper Wiscon- 
sin, from Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls to Sidnaw, the 
latter point being in the upper peninsula of Michigan. 
But will they know that these points lie separated 
over a square whose sides are over 150 miles 
each? They have read, perhaps, that over 1,000 
square miles have been burned over, but if they will 
consult a map and compare it with the press reports from 
all over this square of pine country, they will be forced to 
the belief that the actual area of fire was many times a 
thousand square miles, even allowing for the fact that not 
one fire, but fifty different fires, seem to have broken out 
almost simultaneously in the most widely diverse portions 
of this great tract of country. We read of many count- 
ings of the identified and unidentified dead in and around 
the little hamlets which were hid in the great pine forests. 
Over 500, says one report. Another says 466, another 420, 
others over 500, one says "pi-obably over 1,000." It is 
certain that between 400 and 500 dead human bodies have 
been recovered and buried. Long trenches received the 
dead at some of the stricken villages. It was like war. 
But what battle ever scattered its victims over a space of 
more than 100 square miles? You may find the dead of 
any battle some day. The dead of the forest fires of 1894 
will never be discovered. 
One who has never traversed the pine country of the 
great wilderness lying south and southwest of Lake 
Superior can form no just conception of its character. I 
think there is no more forbidding country in the world. 
You climb one little roll of the ground and you look about 
you. Only the same rolling in of the hlack and uninvit- 
ing forest, with [no rifts, no clearings, no features to 
free it of its horrible monotony. Log this country off, 
leave it full of toppings, of fallen trees and logs, of half 
consumed trees; let the roads through the dense tamarack 
swamps become overgrown, and all the trails be blotted 
out by the crowd of the recent growth, and you leave it 
still more desolate and inhospitable, still more dangerous 
for the inexperienced traveler. As the years pass the 
boughs and needles and the resinous trunks blend into 
glorious food for the fire demon. Nowhere else can so 
furious a flame be produced, and after it has raged a 
time the heavens become a veritable blow-pipe to intensify 
its fury. The touch of the forward flame is like the grip 
of a cyclone, aside from the destruction wrought by the 
heat. Now set human beings down in this country, 
which was unwet by any rain for over two months, and 
let some careless or fiendishly deliberate hand apply the 
needed spark, and you have roster of death, your un- 
written volume of anguish and despair. What the known 
and unknown roster of dead and missing really is must 
long be one of the secrets of the woods. We shall never 
know how many cruisers and prospectors, how many 
fishermen and hunters, how many parties of pleasure or 
gatherings of labor were surprised by the fire. In that 
fateful square of 150 miles there are woods where no 
white man's foot has trod a second time, and waters 
where no line was ever cast. These may have their 
secrets. 
No Sportsmen's Parties Reported Missing. 
At this writing no actual reports have come in of the 
loss of sportsmen in the fires, though narrow escapes have 
been frequent by those who were deep in the woods of this 
great pleasuring ground. Mr. and Mrs. Harry D. Stevens, 
of Chicago, were at Upper Twin Lake, just below State 
Line, Wis., and intended to stay some time yet, Mr. 
Stevens having only lately taken a 44-pound mascallonge 
(the largest reported for the season), but this week they 
come hurrying out of the woods, afraid to stay any longer. 
They said the fires were visible plainly and the heavens 
were all alight. Mr. Stevens says that numerous camping 
parties were coming into the railroad from all over that 
country, frightened by thejfires. He had not heard of any 
loss of life. It seems probable that the anglers and camp- 
ers, who would naturally be near the larger bodies of 
water, could take care of themselves even if overtaken by 
the fires. The little villages and logging camps situated 
away from streams or lakes, in the heart of the black 
forests, were the centers of the greatest suffering. 
The fires crossed the very best part of the trout and 
deer country north of here. Hinckley and Pine City, in 
Minnesota, where so much loss of life occurred, may be 
better understood if we know that they lie east of the 
Mille Lacs country, say sixty to seventy-five miles south- 
west of Duluth. and perhaps rather more than that dis- 
tance north of St. Paul. From there the fires swept east, 
clearing the great range that lies south of Ashland, Wis , 
north of Eau Claire and west of Iron Mountain, the latter 
point being, say, 150 miles east of Hinckley. The fire 
was not solid, but in patches, which ran into each other 
irregularly. It does not seem to have come much south 
of the "Soo line" railway, which would bring it along above 
Pembine and Ellis Junction on the old Milwaukee North- 
ern road. It crossed the upper Brule and the Menominee 
Brule country, seems not to have taken in the Tomahawk 
Lake country, but must have included or have crossed 
near to the Manitowish country. All the trout and deer 
country southwest of Ashland appears to have been gen- 
erally visited. 
There is no doubt whatever that there were many 
parties of sportsmen from St. Paul, Chicago, Milwaukee, 
Ashland and Duluth in this great section of the pine 
woods at the time the fires broke out. Let us hope that 
the record of the other cities will be as free from disaster 
as that of Chicago now seems to be. One party of Mil- 
waukee men had a narrow escape, I am told, but I get no 
particulars. It is almost too much to hope that all the 
outdoor'people got*out"safe*from the'fireTtrap'of'the^for- 
ests, but at this time we may at least suppose it possible. 
Against the loss of human life or>e hardly feels like men- 
tioning that of animal life. Yet the loss of the latter 
must have been very great indeed. Along the "Soo line" 
in Minnesota dead deer and wolves are reported to have 
been seen in dozens. Far to the east of that, in Wiscon- 
sin, one track walker reports seven dead dper along one 
short stretch of bis track. The progress of the flames was 
so sudden, rapid and powerful that not even the fleetest 
animals could escape, even though in many instances 
they had not been surrounded on little islands of un- 
touched forest or swamp which were consumed after the 
main fire had gone further on. 
As the main course of the fires were to the east and 
northeast, the great body of the deer was probably driven 
well toward the northeast corner of the State of Wiscon- 
sin. The southern migration of the deer of the upper 
peninsula had not yet begun, but the fires unquestionably 
drove large numbers of deer south out of that country. 
The fires were stopped partially or entirely two days ago by 
the providential rains, and thev had not then burned to the 
Great Lakes. At Conover Station, at State Line, at Three 
Rivers, and all through the mascallonge country there- 
about, deer were day before vesterday reported to be seen 
in most unusual numbers. No doubt the general drift of 
the game which escaped has been toward the upper right- 
hand comer of Wisconsin. If one wishes to kill his deer 
this October, he should bv taking the Wisconsin Central, 
the Milwaukee & St. Paul, or the old Lake Shore & West- 
ern or Milwaukee & Northern roads, be able to meet his 
game 50 to 100 miles further south this season than would 
usually be the case. 
With customary timidity a contemporary is unable to 
answer by itself the question whether forest fires can be 
caused by the discharge of firearms, and asks advice upon 
it in its closing sentences. .Almost any reader of any 
paper can give the advice. Almost any hunter knows 
the necessity of caution while in the dry pine woods, and 
knows that especial care should be taken of the dropped 
cigars and matches, and of camp-fires also. We need not 
blame careless hunters for these fires in every instance 
this fall, however. The daily press this morning prints 
facts which make it seem possible that the fires were set 
Cut by conspiracy of timber pirates, who have been steal- 
ing the lumber from the public school lands, who have 
sought to destroy by fire the record of their theft. One 
paper heads this story, "The Crime of the Century." The 
appalling destruction which has now gone into the record 
of the day, leads one to think the beading well chosen if 
the facts are sure. The calamity has been more tremen- 
dous than will ever be realized by one not familiar with 
the country which has been afflicted. 
The Floods in Texas. 
Meantime, from the opposite side of the country, more 
than another thousand miles to the south, come the re- 
ports of the Texas floods, which raged much at the same 
time as the Northern fires. Around San Antonio for 100 
miles everything seems to have been under water. It is 
indeed a mighty land, that of these United States. But 
our Texas friends are not so badly off as they of the 
North, and they take heart at the thought of the water- 
ways now filled which last year were dry. and of game 
to be abundant where last year it was hardly known. 
Discontented. 
I am discontented that the abundant rain of this week 
did not occur last week, to fill up the Horicon Marsh so 
the boys could get shooting on opening day. It was hard 
pushing Sept. 1, and the bags were not large. John 
Yorgeymade top bag on the Diana grounds, 44 birds; 
Dick Merrill got 32, P. Y. White 31 . L. R. Brown 30, C. S. 
Wilcox 16. Other bags ranged 10 to 25 birds. Billy 
Mussey, who was high bag last year, 75 birds, only got 4 
birds this year. He started after his old stand, but some 
six shooters seem to have arrived somewhat ahead of him. 
This week the marsh has much more water on it, and 
from now on the shooting should be fine. 
I am discontended With a full-page picture of seven 
deer, only two with horns on, which appears in the Sport- 
ing Review, this month. The picture shows three hounds 
in the foreground. It is against the law to use dogs in 
hunting deer in Wisconsin, or even to use dogs for rabbit 
hunting in the deer season. The author of the picture 
and of the accompanying article knows this. 
I am discontented because a sportsman of New York 
city, whom I have tried to help to good shooting grounds 
in Minnesota and Dakota, says he wants to go to Dakota, 
but he "doesn't care how far from the railroad, if we can 
have a chance to ship our birds to some cold storage 
warehouse in St. Paul or elsewhere." I question distinctly 
whether a cold storage warehouse is a respectable part 
of a genuine sportsman's outfit. Moreover, it is against 
the law to ship game out of Dakota to St. Paul or any 
other point. Such things discourage me. Buy the Game 
Laws in Brief, and live up to it, all shooters who want to 
travel. Then buy a copy of Forest and Stream, and 
live up to that. Do these two things and you will always 
have game to shoot in reasonable abundance. Don't do * 
it and you won't. E. Hough. 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
The Maine Seer Supply. 
Augusta, Me., Sept. 1. — On a recent fishing trip much 
was heard and seen respecting the abundance of game in 
this State. We fished where there were fish, away from 
the haunts of men, in waters whose capabilities we knew, 
where the trout holds undivided sway. No other fish in- 
habits the cold clear waters of this mountain lake hidden 
among the mountains. We saw deer daily, though not 
specially on the lookout for them. One evening we saw 
nine within half an hour and half a mile. I asked an old 
guide who has spent his life in that region if deer were 
not more abundant than thirty years ago. "Yes; fifty to 
one," said he. One of the game wardens said he saw and 
counted over two hundred in ten days while traveling 
through woods. I can't recall the exact number he 
named, but I know he said he saw fifty-two in one day. 
Kenn E. Bec. 
The Fokbst and Stream is put to press each week on Tues- 
day. Correspondence intended for publication should reach 
us at the latest by Monday, and as much earlier as practicable, 
f 
