Oct. 13, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
317 
The Tremont House is kept by Mrs. Baronowsky, a rosy- 
cheeked German widow, one of the biggest-hearted people 
in the world, who keeps a house that is beyond criticism. 
The rooms are small, but the beds are strictly clean and 
comfortable. All the food is nicely cooked and served, 
and is abundant and of best quality. The only objection 
to the house is that the saloon is used for the office, and 
there is no place for the guests to sit except in the saloon 
or in their rather small rooms, but no doubt the landlady 
would allow gentlemen the use of her parlor. Her rates- 
are §1.50 a day for transients, with liberal reduction to 
parties stopping several days. There, is another hotel at 
the lower end of the village that is more in the nature of 
a private boarding house. It is right on the river bank 
and its front porch affords a grand view of the river 
(which is a mile wide) and the wooded bluffs and hills on 
the opposite side. I stopped there for supper and lodging 
three years ago, and was well cared for. I had a big room 
on the river front. Since then it has changed hands, so 
no information can be given as to how it is kept now. 
The best time to be there will be from the first of Novem- 
ber to the middle of December. With the exception of 
possible rains the weather will be good. Henry Rhodes, a 
young man living in the village; is acquainted with every- 
body and all the country round about. He is fond of 
shooting but does not shoot quail much; he is reliable, 
and if not otherwise employed will be very glad to serve 
shooters in any way for reasonable wages. 
O. H. Hampton. 
TEXAS AND THE SOUTHWEST. 
Ducks on the Coast. 
Anticipating- that many readers of Forest and Stream 
have made up their minds to visit the Texas coast this 
winter as a direct result of Mr. Hough's masterly word 
painting of the Southwest and its game and fish, and feel- 
ing sure chat Corpus Christi through San Antonio will be 
the visitors' goal, perhaps it may be well to introduce to 
the world of sportsmen the chief master of dots and 
dashes at the civilized southern end of the Aransas Pass 
Railway. Max Luther is his name. He is in no wise re- 
lated to the reformer of that name; but then he is consid- 
erable of a reformer himself, having come down from a 
10-gauge to a little 16, which is handled to perfection in 
his hands. Mr. Luther is the leading duck shooting spirit 
of Corpus Christi, and any Northern sportsman who desires 
a good hunt will find Mr. Luther willing, nay, desirous, to 
give him all the information in his possession. It saves a 
world of trouble to have somebody tell you where to go 
and how to get there, particularly when one knows he 
can depend on the information. Don't take any stock in 
big killings, however, as the weakness of the hunters of 
the coast lies in that direction. 
A Small-Bore. 
While on a hunt with Max last winter, we found excel- 
lent shooting at bluebills over a little pond situated on a 
small ranch, presided over by the usual lean, lanky, chills- 
and-fever-complexioned denizen of the salt coast. The 
modest ranchero charged 25 cents for the privilege of 
shooting therein. He stood at the gate with hand out- 
stretched for two bits a head, which he received. The 
house was close by and the little fresh-water pond not 
100yds. away. The party^feverishly" scattered over the 
field of bunch grass, tearing their gum boots on the 
thorny stuff that prevails all over that country. The 
writer took things easy, however. Beeing that the shooting 
would last but a short time, owing to the limited supply 
of shells, and as we were shooting 20-gauges (much to the 
amusement of the native, who generally turns up his nose 
at anything but a 10-gauge and" 5drs. of black powder), I 
knew there was no chance of renewing our supply of am- 
munition. 
The ranchero spoken of above picked up the little 20- 
gauge, wrapped me all round with a look of commiser- 
ation, sat the gun down, and "reckoned as how I'd find 
the feathers on them ducks purty tough. Don't think you 
kin put enough powder in them little shells nohow." 
I slipped down to where I thought I could get the best 
shooting, took off a sweater that I had slipped into, for 
the morning air was very stiff, and from behind a bunch 
of grass began to pick off the bluebills quite regularly. 
At any rate, I was very well pleased with my shooting, 
being satisfied that I made at least 75 per cent, singles and 
doubles. When I had fired 100 shells I returned to the 
house to secure the rest of my ammunition. He of the 
broad brim came forward, took hold of the gun and 
yelled: "Look hyar, Mary; cum an' see de little gun that 
there man's bin doin' that good shootin' with. Why, gol 
durn it; it would jest about make a good ramrod for my 
old Betsy." The old lady came out, so did half-a-dozen 
admiring "kids." The 20-gauge was pawed all over, and 
as I resumed my stand and the firsj double fell, cleanly 
killed, the whole business applauded. 
A Curious Fatality. 
While it is a popular belief in the North that southwest 
Texas is infested with snakes, the visitor to this section 
will be .astonished at the scarcity of the reptiles. They 
are plentiful only in rare localities and fatal bites are not 
frequently heard of. But the strangest case of snake bite 
I have ever heard of comes from Castroville, a village 
forty miles from San Antonio. Mr. Geyer, a well to do 
farmer who lived two miles from Castroville, was mow- 
ing hay three weeks ago, and while the machine was 
running the sliding blades in the mower refused to move, 
something having evidently found its way in the gearing 
and clogged it up. He stepped off the seat and on ex- 
amination was astonished to find that what had clogged 
up the machinery was a large rattlesnake. The reptile 
was cut in three pieces and the piece next to the head was 
"fastened in the gearing. Mr. Geyer took out the tail piece 
first, secured the rattles, then the middle piece, and as he 
pulled out the remaining piece the head struck him on 
the hand, and in two hours he was a corpse. Mr. Geyer 
was well liked and his untimely demise is regretted by 
the entire community. 
Canvasbacks on the Moody Rice Farm. 
I have received a letter from one of the market-hunters 
hired last winter by Col. Moody, a wealthy banker of 
Galveston. He states that he killed over 5,000 canvas- 
backs during the season and says the shooting is steady 
all winter. This year he is not employed because another 
bunch of expert duck killers has been hired. Calculating 
that he shot two shells to each duck bagged, which is a 
very conservative estimate, and l^oz. of shot for each 
shell, it will be seen that the ether in that neighborhood 
was perforated by 781 lbs. of shot by that one gun. Mul- 
tiply that by 10 — the actual number of market-hunters 
that are hired to kill ducks on that lake by the rice-rais- 
ing syndicate, and you have a total of 7,8101bs. of shot 
that was fired over the rice canvasback duck farm. Is 
it any wonder that some of the pellets find their way into 
the fowls' gizzards? Texas Field. 
ONE REVERIE. 
The nights are getting cool now and the open fireplace 
where the chestnut wood cracks and sputters is a good 
place to sit before and dream of the good times past. As 
the darkness settles around the room, hiding its familiar 
and civilized objects from view, and the fire flame sheds 
its warmth and flickering light back upon one's self, one 
can. sit and look dreamily into the blaze and see visions of 
other fires, other times and other surroundings come and 
go in beautiful dissolving views. And sometimes to look 
back on the past, where one sees only the best parts of an 
outing and where memory and the soft shading fire light 
"smooth out the roughness of the roughing it one can 
enjoy a repetition of many a pleasant day spent with 
nature in her own wild home. 
The little briar with its fragrant load has made me 
drowsy. There is no singing mouse to come forth and 
charm me with its weird music, but as the light from the 
burning logs grows brighter a pretty picture presents 
itself for admiration. 
A chain of three lakes, lying snugly among the Maine 
mountains: a little cabin with it attendant "hovel" 
almost at the foot of the tall pines of a grand old forest; 
an old batteau drawn up on the lake shore; a group of us 
around a huge camp-fire over which is sizzling and sput- 
tering the remains of a big porcupine which I brought 
into camp that afternoon, to the horror of the three 
Maine natives, and which to their greater consternation 
had been dressed and was served up piping hot for sup- 
per. On the rough table it was carved with a big bowie 
in a great state as the Christmas porker of old, and found 
sweet and much like the genuine article itself. But no 
Maine men could be induced to touch it. But the next 
day .after, when miles away from the nearest house, the 
axle of the camp buckboard broke and while the 
rest of the party went on afoot leaving two to keep a 
lookout on things, M. is said to have admitted that "he 
could go a small piece of thet ere porkipine now!" 
Tode. 
Preparing Skins for Rugs. 
In the Forest and Stream of Sept. 29 you gave direc- 
tions to a correspondent regarding the tanning of musk- 
rat skins. I have prepared a number of skins for rugs and 
such purposes. In fact I prefer to do my own work in 
preserving trophies of my hunting trips, such as tanning 
and mounting heads, and now have a number of speci- 
mens of my own killing and preserving such as moose, 
caribou and deer heads, also rugs of bear, caribou, deer 
and fox skins. 
A few years since I was fortunate enough to shoot four 
bears with fine jet black pelts, and I proposed to cure them 
myself. I was told by a fur dealer that I could not do it 
successfully, as a bear skin on account of the grease and 
oil, both in the skin and hair, was very hard to properly 
dress. Now I have had my bear skins for three years on 
the floors of my house as rugs, they stay there the year 
around. During the warm Weather they are taken up 
about once a week and shaken out of doors and they are 
bright, soft and glossy, and no moths or insects have 
touched them; I also have a fine red fox skin which I 
killed last November, and which has hung all summer in 
the hall of my house and no signs of insects about it. A 
friend was looking at it and said, "I don't see how you 
keep it, I had a fox-skin mat made and paid well for it, 
and took great care of it, but moths and worms have got 
at it and it is "spoiled." 
I prepared the bear skins as follows: I gave the skins a 
good scraping on flesh side, removing all fat and particles 
of flesh, then gave a good washing in luke-warm water, 
using plenty of washing-powder, such as is ordinarily used 
for laundry purposes, and then washed them in clear 
warm water and put them in a pickle of 21bs. salt, lib. 
powdered alum, one teacupful of borax, all dissolved in a 
gallon of soft water. Let the skin remain in solution 
about a week (if a large skin), turning it over and moving 
it about a little each day. Take out and wash in clean 
water and hang up until it commences to dry (until hair 
is nearly dry). Give flesh side a scraping and work and 
pull skin until it shows slight signs of drying. Then put 
in a large tub containing about two bushels of dry, fine 
mahogany sawdust and work and knead the skin in the 
sawdust, taking it up and shaking out the sawdust now 
and then. The sawdust will work all through the fur 
down to the roots, and is very drying and absorbs any 
grease left in hair and skin. When the skin is worked 
dry it will be very soft, and by shaking in the air and 
hanging on a line and whipping with a switch all the 
sawdust can be removed. On the fox skin mentioned I 
tried an experiment— gave the skin a coating, on flesh 
side, when damp, of arsenical soap, such as taxidermists 
use, diluted with water, then let it dry in and gave a good 
washing, intending to leave a slight trace of the arsenic, 
then prepared same as the bear skin. 
Small skins are much easier to dress than large ones, 
and they can be worked dry in the sawdust quite easily! 
When mahogany sawdust can not be had, fine dry saw- 
dust of any hard wood would no doubt do as well. Of 
course there is some hard work in preparing the skins, 
but I find there is plenty of hard work in procuring the 
skins to work on, if you kill the animals yourself. 
C. M. Stark. 
Dumbarton, N. EL, Oct. 1. 
Lawbreaking on Staten Island. 
Prince's Bay, S. I., Oct. 3.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
This is the time of year when the local game constable 
ought to come into play here on this end of Staten Island. 
The game laws are being violated every day, Sundays not 
excepted. Of course the boys can shoot squirrels now, 
and there are just enough around here to make this an 
excuse for going out with a gun, and if a robin or a high- 
holder comes in the way, down it comes. Of the latter 
quite a number have been shot. In walking through the 
woods the other day I saw where two had been picked 
and their heads cut off. No owl or hawk would pick a 
bird so clean and then cut its head off; and besides that 
owls never leave any shells of 12-bore on the same spot. 
Shore birds have been shot all through the month of 
August in the vicinity of Great Kills. There are a few 
quail left on this end of the island and probably they will 
all be shot before the legal time. 
We can't blame the game constable as he is not sup- 
posed to know anything about what is going on. Most 
people here think that a man to be a good game protector 
must be a man that has a gun and shoots well, but I in- 
cline to the belief that some other people understand 
these affairs as well as those that like to shoot a little once 
in a while early in the morning. R. L. H. 
Good Words. 
I am in favor of your "Plank," but please tell me how' 
it will affect such cases as Mr. Hough reports on page 246 
about Mr. Rice's butchery, copied from the Fremont 
(Wyo.) Clipper, or that of the Boston merchant slaughter- 
ing five deer and sinking them, mentioned by "Special" 
on page 247, or that most despicable case of A. H. Sheer 
on page 248, bragging about the killing of fiver'oes, which 
is the meanest and most wanton way of exterminating 
our big game; and numerous other similar cases of game 
and fish butchery of self-styled gentlemen sportsmen that 
we read about in our paper. 
Why not add to your "Plank" that nobody should shoot 
more game nor catch more fish than can be used. A 
market-shooter is a heavenly saint side of such a 
H O G-entleman sportsman. 
A Reader for Twenty Years. 
A Query. 
Is A man a pot-hunter because he uses no dog, but still 
hunts his partridge or squirrel? 
Given: a country where there are no deer, no large 
game. A man who loves to use the rifle, but has no 
opportunity to hunt game commonly supposed to be 
adapted especially for that arm. Plenty of grouse and 
squirrels. 
If this man, with a miniature rifle (.22) stalks his bird 
with the same care (and he will probably find it fully as 
hard) as he would a deer, finally locates it, draws bead 
and lets fly the tiny ball, and has the satisfaction of 
securing his bird, is that man a "pot-hunter," or as much 
of a sportsman as the fellow who lets his dogs do all the 
hunting while he calmly shoots the bird as it rises? 
That's the question. 
Let us hear a few answers. Tode. 
Big Bucks. 
Number Four, Lewis County, N. Y., Sept. 30.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: Two large and old bucks were kill" <l 
on Sept. 27 and 28 by Mr. E. Ormonde Power and hia 
brother, J. Antonio Power, both of New York city, on 
Beaver Lake, and weighed respectively 225 and 2001ds. 
X. 
Madison County Game. 
Georgetown, N. Y., Oct. 6.— Gray squirrels are plenty . 
this fall, a bag of seven being made yesterday by two of 
our local sportsmen. Partridges more plenty than they 
have been in a number of years, but have scattered with 
the falling leaves. J. F. Stoddard. 
Address Wanted. 
Will "Jay Pee" kindly send his address to this offica. 
EASTERN ANGLERS, 
Mr. Henry C. Litchfield's trout story must not be 
lost. He is very well known to thousands in the sporting 
line, or with the fishing line. He is always to be found 
with Messrs. Dame, Stoddard & Kendall. A gentleman 
brings the story, and so Mr. Litchfield must not be ex- 
pected to vouch for the truth of it. But the gentleman 
did present the affidavit of the gentleman who gave it to 
him, regularly made out and sworn to. The gentleman 
went out on a fishing trip to a lake quite a long distance 
from any tackle store, but still he did not take pains to 
very thoroughly fill his kit. He cast for trout with a 
couple of flies on his leader. He had very little success 
for some time but finally got a vigorous strike and hooked 
his fish. Almost immediately there was another strike 
and another trout was hooked. Then the rare sport of 
handling a pair of lively trout began, but suddenly the 
leader broke off just above the flies with the two trout 
attached. The angler was greatly disgusted but took out 
his book for other flies and a leader. What was his sur- 
prise and disappointment to find that he had no more 
flies and was minus another leader. Silently bewailing 
his ill luck and hia misfortune, he ordered his guide to 
pull him ashore, which was not far from the scene of his 
loss. He went ashore and sat down on a log, lit his pipe, 
and prepared to rather gloomily think matters over. 
Soon his attention was attracted to a little commotion in 
the water, not far from where he had lost his trout. The 
commotion drew nearer and nearer the shore. He saw 
that it was his team of trout, still yoked together, and as 
sure as fate they were coming rapidly for the shore, 
like a pair of steers, with the yoke between them. He 
seized his rod and wading out a little ways he carefully 
thrust it under the water as the two trout came on. At 
the right moment he raised it, caught the leader over it, 
and drew the trout in, saving both of them, with the 
leader and both flies. The balance of his day's fishing 
was done with the saved leader carefully mended, and 
the used flies. This story can be believed or not, as the 
reader chooses. There is the affidavit, and above is the 
story. 
Mr, D. W. Smith, head of the weekday Boston Herald 
night desk, is back from his vacation in New Hampshire, 
he is coming to be a fisherman. He spent considerable 
time in black bass fishing, and much enjoyed the sport. 
Mr. W. C. Grout, of the Herald day desk, is backfroni hiB 
vacation at Lake Maranocook, in Maine. He is much 
pleased with the black bass and pickerel fishing he got 
there. Special, 
