Oct. 6, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
293 
WITH THE DOG HANDLERS IN DAKOTA 
In the gray dawn of an August morning, at an hour 
when the people in the great cities take their sweetest 
slumbers, I stepped off a west-bound train of the Northern 
Pacific at Eldridge, N. D., where, through the kindness 
of Mr. W. W. Titus, supplemented by the brothers Frank 
and George Richards, all well-known handlers and train- 
ers, I was to enjoy several days' chicken shooting. They 
had extended an invitation to me some weeks before my 
arrival. Mr. Titus was waiting for me at the depot, not- 
withstanding the grim earliness of the hour, a. id my 
visions of renewing pleasant sport with the chickens 
began to forthwith take definite form. The opportunity 
to shoot with a good handler is not an every-day occur- 
rence. Handling and training are a profession. There- 
fore, when a handler gives a guest some days' shooting, it 
is much as if a business man would turn over his plant for 
the pleasure of his guests. 
Eldridge is an ideal town for a chicken shooter. There 
were in it six houses all told, of which three were empty. 
The hotel was quiet and homelike, far superior to the 
average hotel of the country town. 
As I say, I found Mr. Titus awaiting me. After a greet- 
ing whose cordiality and sincerity there was no mistak- 
ing, he said: "We'll go over and get breakfast. The team 
and dogs are all ready for us to start." 
This gave me a realizing sense that I had stepped out of 
a sleeping car into a chicken shoot quicker than ever 
before in my experience. I thought it was most exceed- 
ing early for a start, but learned that it was a later start 
than common, Mr. Titus often beginning his preparations 
as early as 4 o'clock. This was quite necessary, as I 
learned later, if much work was done. The days 
were distressingly hot, only the morning and evening 
hours being available for work. The sun rose like a huge 
ball of fire, angry red, as it mounted upward and burned 
out the fog and mists; the temperature steadily increased 
in warmth till it became oppressive. At 9 to 10 o'clock 
the morning's work was considered as ended. After that 
till the cool hours of the evening, it was useless to attempt 
to shoot. 
After breakfast the start was made. Mr. Titus had a 
buckboard on which was securely fastened a large crate 
for carrying the dogs. Under the seat was a two-gallon 
jug of water, and of water the dogs drank great quan- 
tities on those hot days. The sloughs and small streams 
were thoroughly dried out weeks before by the intense 
heat, therefore water must be carried. 
Some visiting sportsmen were in the party, six of us all 
told, of whom five had guns, Mr. Titus electing to handle 
the dogs— wisely, I thought, as two guns shooting together 
are ample for all purposes. Of course there were the 
usual incidents of two or three frequently shooting at the 
same bird and the backwardness caused by everybody 
insisting that everybody else should shoot, for there was 
not the semblance of a hog in the party. It was as pleas- 
ant as could be. As nearly as I can now remember, we 
bagged about sixteen or eighteen birds that afternoon. 
I shot a 12-bore Parker hamuierless, kindly loaned to 
me by Mr. Hough, whose fertile pen sheds so many good 
things each week for the readers of Forest and Stream. 
It has 28in. barrels, light in weight and rather straight in 
the. stock. I had had some very encouraging experiences 
with it at the traps. It was a wonderfully hard hitter. 
To my mind the question was settled— it was I and the 
gun on one side and dead chickens on the other, the 
quantity only measured by my forbearance. It was a 
settled matter, but I did not take any one into my con- 
fidence. The demonstration would be much nic^r and 
easier. The only tinge of unpleasantness was the certain 
fate of the birds, and whether my forbearance would be 
great enough to leave any chickens in that whole region. 
It's so easy to kill a chicken, you know! But Dr. Mead 
and I soon had an opportunity. The dog pointed nicely a 
bevy of three-quarters grown birds, lazy flyers, going 
away by ones and twos with a deliberation which seemed 
fatal to them when two men with pretty guns were stand- 
ing close by. I think the Doctor got two after some rapid 
firing. I think I got one iu four shots. 
This is rather a colorless manner of describing the death 
or escape of birds. Shorn of the embellishments of "the 
cataleptic point," "the roar of wings," "the ring out of 
the Damascus barrels," "the cloud of feathers," etc., a 
chicken story becomes commonplace. But to enumerate 
the points and misses, the kills and good finds of the dogs, 
the good shots and poor ones, etc., would require much 
space, so I will dwell more particularly on the most 
prominent features of the work. 
Mr. Titus had in his string a bitch of most extraordinary 
chicken qualities. Her work to the gun, too, was most 
pleasing. Often she sook casts from a quarter to a half 
mile wide, and showed great judgment in beating the 
ground. When she found birds there was no anxiety 
about her stanchness. Her point was a fixed quantity tiii 
her handler went up to her. She was quite expert in 
roading, too. One misty morning she roaded a running 
bevy across a large stubble, acro3s a down wind, nearly a 
quarter of a mile. That morning young Mr. Peck of St. 
Louis, a most genial and talentea young gentleman, did 
( some excellent shooting with his 16-gauge, the birds being 
in some grass and rising one or two at a time within easy 
range. 
But the last morning had the best shooting in it. For 
a windup, Mr. Titus tooK out some of his best dogs and 
the most promising ground was chosen for work. Soon 
the bitch aforementioned had a bevy of five birds, all of 
which we bagged. She found birds in rapid succession 
thereafter, and when we had bagged a dozen we con- 
cluded we had enough and thereupon stopped shooting. 
I arrived the second day after the season opened, the 
opening day being Aug. 20, and there was then a percep- 
tible diminution in the birds' numbers. Bevies were badly 
broken, and some were quite destroyed. All the larger 
towns had swarms of shooters who were abroad on the 
opening day and they made a most apparent effect on the 
birds, as shown in their lessened numoers. The practice 
of shooting for big bags is most baneful in the destruc- 
tion of game, and measures for protection are not at ail 
equal to the measures for destruction. The laws and their 
enforcement in game preservation are but little more 
potent for observance how than they were years ago, 
while the destroying agencies— the increase in numbers 
of shooters and dogs, and improved guns and powders 
has been very great. 
The chicken crop this year was remarkably good. 
While the long dry season was seriously damaging to 
the farmers' interests, it was a great one for prairie 
chickens. Still it was not uniformly so. In some dis- 
tricts the birds were scarce. The same reason was given 
for their scarcity as for their abundance, namely, the dry 
season. Some farmers say that there was no water lor 
the birds to drink, and hence they died of thirst. The 
young birds could not fly to the water courses, and some 
nights but little if any dew fell. The explanation ia a 
novel one to me. 
What impressed me most of all during my torn through 
Minnesota, the Dakotas and Manitoba were the vast 
changes which time, settlement and civilization have, 
wrought in the past few years. In the flourishing city 
of Winnipeg Mr. Thos. Johnson assures me that it is not 
many years since he shot ducks where the city hall now 
stands, in the heart of the city. 
The changes have been great in the game regions of 
Minnesota and the Dakotas. These States fifteen years 
ago, outside of a few small business centers — distributing 
points of a sparsely settled region — were mostly unbroken 
prairie, the slow and laborious task of "reclaiming it from 
the wilderness having hardly well begun. The pioneer 
farmers were mostly immigrants who came from the dif- 
ferent countries of Europe, striving in the face of hard- 
ship and poverty to gain ownership of a home and a farm. 
It was almost a foreign land so far as its inhabitants were 
concerned. Some sections were settled by Russians, others 
by Norwegians, Swedes, etc., and few of them could 
speak English. The native-born American set compara- 
tively little value on a farm in the wilderness when the 
ownership was contingent on so much hard labor and 
deprivation through a term of years, and truly the strug- 
gle for a home through hot summers and cold winters, 
made, as it was, against the further disadvantages of 
poverty, was a hard one. But those days were grand ones 
for chicken shooting in that region. The cultivated fields 
were far apart and uninclosed. Little groves of trees 
of two to five years' growth marked the domiciles of 
the settlers, or where some one had attempted to set- 
tle, for abandoned claims, landmarks of blasted hopes or 
ruined fortunes, weie not infrequent. 
Generally, when one left the vicinity of the small 
towns, not more than four or five groves could be seen 
from horizon to horizon. It was no uncommon thing to 
find long stretches of prairie where there were no settlers. 
Still the best shooting was near the attempts at cultiva- 
tion, for the farms were roughly tilled as one would 
readily imagine of a region where everything was in the 
rough stage of primitive beginnings. Dug-outs, hovels, 
shanties and makeshifts were far more common than 
were houses. 
The crops were favorable for the chickens. Wheat was, 
as now, the most important one and best liked by the 
birds. It was the most common crop. Oats and flax 
came next in value, and a small acreage of corn was 
grown. For oats the chickens have little liking. Wheat 
is their favorite grain food. The best shooting was always 
in the vicimty of the wheat fields after the prairie food 
became scarce with the advent of fall ; then they would 
congregate where the food supply was most abundant. In 
some sections they were so numerous that in taking a turn 
about one field a shooter could get all the sport he could 
reasonably desire in a morning or evening. A field, it 
should be remembered, was commonly a quarter or an 
eighth of a section, sometimes a half section. There was 
seldom a fence to obstruct the shooter's course. The un- 
claimed prairie and the cultivated farm had no visible 
line of separation save that between the golden color of 
the grain and the green of the prairie. Wagons could be 
driven across country almost anywhere, although as a 
matter of course it was not just nor lawful to drive 
through the farmer's standing grain, but to this matter 
many shooters gave little heed or thought. Yet the 
farmers were extremely liberal in those days. They per- 
mitted shooters to enjoy every reasonable privilege in 
shooting on their farms, but their kindness was often 
abused. Shootors would drive through standing grain 
and generally treat the farmer more as an intruder tnan 
as the legitimate owner of the soil. Though there was a 
trespass law it was little considered. Farmers were busy 
men living an earnest life, and often they had an imper- 
fect knowledge of the English language, if they had any 
at all. When their rights were infringed by trespassers, 
they showed their resentment chiefly by vituperation and 
choier. It was a loss cf time to attempt to arrest the 
trespasser, for he might be twenty or thirty miles away. 
On the hard, level roads of the prairie, it was no uncom- 
mon occurrence for a party to drive fifteen to thirty miles 
when chicken shooting. The farmer's most immediate 
knowledge of town characteristics were chattel mortgages, 
the highest prices for provisions and the lowest for wheat! 
If the trespasser was a city sportsman, for the farmer it 
was an easy deduction that all city sportsmen were alike. 
I well remember in 1880 while shooting chickens near 
a wheatfield in Minnesota, the sudden dawning of an 
irate farmer in my immediate vicinity, and the issuance 
by him of a most peremptory order to vacate. On ex- 
pressing a willingness to comply, but a desire to know 
why so much harshness was used, he explained that about 
a half hour before a shooter had killed one of his young 
turkeys, and as he approached, the shooter had run away, 
got into his wagon and escaped. As the turkeys were 
close by, it gave some color to his suspicions that I had 
designs on tnem. I pleaded not guilty, but he said, "You 
look very much like the feller that killed and stole my 
turkey. Mebbe you didn't, but I'd rather you'd leave 
anyhow. I'd feel better if you wasn't around." I left. 
The farmers, however, when civilly approached and 
their rights given the value and respect due them, are the 
most obliging of men. I never knew one to refuse shoot- 
ing privileges if permission was asked courteously, unless 
he had suffered lrom some depredations from shooters. 
A noticeable feature of chicaen life fifteen years or less 
ago was the large numbers of old birds, cocks, often found 
by ones, twos, and sometimes in small packs. They were 
quite abundant and often lived in territory apart from 
the hen and her brood. Compared to the present time, 
there was but little cunning in their habits or effort at 
self-preservation, whether the birds were old or young. 
In one season's shooting, in 1880, 1 saw chickens go to a 
grove but once, and then it seemed by chance, not inten- 
tion. Now, thoy readily seek protection in cover and 
show much the same cunning in avoiding danger that 
the ruffed grouse does. 
I remember one flock of old birds which Mr. Titus 
found a few times when I was with him. They were 
extremely alert and wary, rising well out of shot when 
we approached them. They had a systematic plan of es- 
cape. Their first flight would be for the center of a large 
"breaking,"' as a field whereon the sod is turned for the 
first time is called. Thence they would run t« a large 
dense grove close by in which they were quite safe. If 
pursued then, all the difficulties of ruffed grouse shouting 
were encountered. We pursued the birds once in the 
thicket. The dog roaded them well and prettily across 
the thicket, but the birds flushed wild ahead out of sight. 
We did not get a shot. Another day when wh found 
them they flushed wild from their feeding grounds as we 
approached, as was their habit. They took a flight to the 
middle of the breaking and then stood studying us care- 
fully. We thought that by getting between them and 
the thicket we would intercept them and change their 
flight to the open prairie, where in the grass they would 
have no prearranged plan of defense and would be our 
birds. We performed our part of the plan fairly well, 
but the birds flew out of sight. 
I believe that heredity and experience are greatly chang- 
ing the habits of chickens for their own preservation. 
The multiplication of dangers has made them wiser. Not 
only are there many more shooters, but there is compara- 
tively little cover in the open prairie. The grass is shorter 
and lighter. What were vast prairies ten to fifteen years 
ago, at the present time are one unbroken succession of 
farms, side by side, cultivated to the boundary lines. 
Fences are not so common as one might imagine. Many 
well-tilled farms have no apparent boundary line save that 
made by the plow. Still, there are many sections wherein 
are large tracts of country sparsely settled, particularly in 
North Dakota. However, in my experience there in 
August, we found nearly all the birds in the vicinity of 
the grain fields. For the best shooting the grain fields 
must be surrounded by open prairie, on which, about one 
hundred yards more or less from the edge of the stubble, 
the best course lies for hunting, and the dog beats out the 
ground well on either side of the shooter as he drives 
along. 
By the way, the only proper manner in which to hunt 
chickens is with a horse and wagon if one makes any dis- 
tinction between labor and sport. It is a most toilsome 
task to hunt chickens afoot. Wise reader, did you ever 
kill twelve or more chickens on a hot day, put them in 
your game sack and then carry them two or more miles 
home? If so, you know the regrets that one feels at 
having killed them. How heavy the birds grow; then 
they get heavier. They give a pendulous sway back and 
forth in rhythm with each step, and as the shooter becomes 
more fatigued the birds sway harder Perspiration runs 
galore. Aside from their own weight they are awkward 
and difficult to carry. 
The handlers kill very few birds. There seems to be a 
belief prevalent among many of the farmers at Eldridge 
that with a wagon load of dogs a trainer must necessarily 
kill every bird in the country. For business reasons, the 
handlers killed few birds. Every diminution in their 
numbers made it so much more difficult to get points for 
their young dogs, and points they were after. 
But the spirit of exclusiveness is in that section as in 
many others. Farms are being posted. Prohibited ground 
is constantly enlarging. It will not be many years before 
the game preserve will have superseded the wild hunting 
grounds. B. Waters. 
GOOD WORK WITH THE .22. 
Okanagan, Wash., Sept. 9.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
As last Monday was a red-letter day, I took my Stevens 
favorite .22 rifle and went over north of the mill to an 
Indian ranch to get some oats. 
A short distance before I got to their camp, Frank came 
to a point. 1 rode up near to where he was, and sat on 
my pony and watched. Soon a sharptail grouse stuck its 
head up out of the bunch grass and began to walk away 
from the dog. I got down, took a shot at its head, which 
I hit, and it began to flutter at a terrific rate. Soon as 
many as fifty flew up all around me and crossed over the 
swale to the edge of the timber. I followed them over 
and soon Frank came to a point. I saw the bird, which I 
shot through the neck, when the others flew further up 
into the timber. When I went to gather my bird, I saw 
another lying about four feet from the one I shot at. It 
was shot through the body. 1 started on down the 
meadow, and flushed one that lit in a tree, and I killed it. 
There were three shots and four birds. 
I gave them to the Indian, and started back across a 
mountain, and had not gone far when Frank put up six 
blue grouse, and I got three in "three shots. After draw- 
ing my birds, I went on and soon he put up another flock. 
I got three of those at three more shots. I now had six, 
all shot through the head; ten birds at nine shots. That 
was the best score I ever made with a rifle, and I was feel- 
ing fine over it. 
I had not gone very far when Frank came to a point, 
and as it was different from a bird point, I got off from 
my pony and walked up to the dog. He would not move. 
I stood and looked very carefully and soon saw a fine 
buck, just as he got up. I raised my rifle, and I aimed to 
break his neck near his chin. When I fired, away went 
the deer. I went back, got my pony and rode out on to a 
ridge, where I had a lair view of the mountain side. I 
could see nothing of the deer. I then took a circle anu 
soon Frank struck his track, which he was anxious to 
chase. I had to speak very sharply to him, but when I 
did so he steadied down and tracked slowly. I soon came 
to a point of rocks which I had to go around. Frank 
went over them, and when I came on to the ridge again I 
could not see the dog and thought that, as it had been so 
long since he had had a run, he had made up his mind to 
take the run, then the whipping. After waiting and 
listening for a little while, I whistled. Soon Frank came 
from my right. He was licking his chops and wiggling 
his tail, and started right bacfc. I followed him, and 
there lay a big four-point buck, dead. I cannot remember 
any time in my life that 1 have been more pleased. I 
cleaned my deer and then went back and stepped the 
ground, and found it to be as near 130yds. as I could step 
it. The bullet had passed through the side of the nectt 
and in between the point of the shoulder, passed through 
the large veins just above the heart, cut one rib in two 
and passed out behind the shoulder. 
I use the .22 long rifle cartridge, which is cheap, and 
the best shooting cartridge I have ever tried. 
Lew Wilmot. 
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