466 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
|DEC. l f 1894. 
At last the trail got so that the hounds could keep mov- 
ing, following every twist and turn. When they did get 
up to the cat it was in a long ' 'bay," almost impenetrable, 
and she had them at a disadvantage. We soon gave up 
the idea of ever doing anything with her and it began to 
look bad for a fox hunt; the sun was well up and the 
heavy dew was fast drying off. 
Blowing the hounds off the wildcat, we set off to hunt 
for anothpr trail. In half an hour we had one, cold, it is 
true, but still a trail. It was really beautiful to see the 
hounds work out the puzzle they had before them; Spring, 
the solitary lady of the pack, did great work, hampered 
as she was by a lame shoulder. After probably three- 
quarters of an hour's slow work, thing? suddenly brisk- 
ened up considerably. In place of a spasmodic canter or 
two which was all we'd had to do to kppp up with the 
hounds on this trail, we had to hustle along pretty lively 
to get up to them, and once with them, to keep there. 
Each hound was giving tongue, Solomon's deep voice 
playing a splendid bass accompaniment to Harlequin's 
soprano,' Spring's contralto and old Smiler's melodious 
tenor. The pace improved rapidly; it began to look as if 
we were in for a good thing, after all. We were disap- 
pointed in this, and we thought afterward how lucky it 
was we'd had such good work done by the hounds while 
trailing. The end came too soon. 
We had just reached the edge of a small swamp when 
hounds ceased giving tongue. Instead, each hound was 
springing in the air, just as a dog does when he's got a 
rabbit in long grass. "He's bedded right here," said Fred; 
"why didn't the fool get up and dust when he heard us 
coming?" Scarcely had the words left his lips when, out 
of the long grass that grew up around the top of a fallen 
tree, I saw a long gray object uncoil itself right among 
the hounds, not six feet from Solomon's nose. A sudden 
yell from each hound and a sight race began, each hound 
striving to get up to the fox. Slowly but surely Solomon 
began to cut down the lead; 100yds. and he was almost up 
to the tip of the brush. The fox had no chance to double, 
the pace was too hot; Harlequin, Spring and Smiler were 
bunched close behind Solomon. It was a great race. 
Another 100yds. and Solomon was almost alongside; he 
was reaching over as if about to pick up the fox every 
moment, when all at once, with a sudden spring to the 
left, the fox sprang at a pine and climbed like a cat for 
about 15ft. It was a tree 2ft. in diameter, too thick for 
him to clasp. There he stopped, hung on for a moment, 
and then, before we could get down to the hounds to hold 
them, so as to give him another chance for his life, his 
hold gave way and he toppled back right into the open 
jaws of old Smiler, who used to be pretty good at catch- 
ing falling foxes. Although we didn't have a gallop after 
him, we had seen a chase neither of us may ever see the 
like of again. I have the hide of that fox by me now to 
remind me of the extraordinary termination of our morn- 
ing hunt. Had the fox been able to get to a small pine, 
he might have been living yet; as it was, the pace was too 
hot to pick and choose; it was any tree or no tree at all. 
Can foxes climb trees?^I guess they can. 
Edward Banks. 
A LASSOED MOOSE. 
Watekvtlle, Me.— The greatest achievement in the 
hunting line heard of is that of Frank Pooler, of Moose 
Eiver. It seems that he has had more or less experience 
in the use of the lasso, also understands the habits of the 
game with which his county abounds, and not long since, 
seeing a moose cow with two young ones at her side, 
while he was out in the woods, he made up his mind that 
he would secure the whole lot. Instead of shooting, he 
left the opening where the game had appeared and went 
to his home and secured some oats. With these he went 
back and made three piles on the ground, and then went 
some ways back and climbed a tree where he could over- 
look the place and waited. He thinks it must have been 
some two hours which he had to remain in this not too 
comfortable position, when he saw the cow and her young 
come out again and commence to graze. At first it looked 
as if they were not going to see the bait, but they worked 
out a little at a time and finally seemed to smell the oats, 
for one of the young ones came toward it and stopped, 
seemed to be sniffing the air, then deliberately advanced 
to the first pile and beean to eat. 
Insteai of paying any more attention to the animals 
Mr. Pooler proceeded home, ate his supper, and some time 
in the evening went back with the second lot of oats and 
then returned home once again. He now got out his 
la sso, and taking some stout cord started back. It was 
not a very pleasant place to spend the night, but this is 
what Mi*. Pooler did, his patience being rewarded at an 
hour before day had fairly dawned by seeing Mrs. Moose 
and her two children appear and walk deliberately up to 
the oats. 
The distance of the lasso throw was some 12ft., Mr. 
Pooler thinks, and was made at the cow moose. The 
moose was successfully struck about the neck and then 
came some fun of the rough and tumble order. Pooler 
and the cow moose were very much mixed up, for though 
the lasso was firmly seated, the strike had not been suffi- 
ciently hard to choke the animal down. Instead, she put 
in some tall sprinting, but could not stand the second 
shock received when the full weight of Pooler's body was 
thrown upon her neck as he tripped his toe and fell to the 
ground. Though still hanging on to the lasso, by which 
he was dragged some little distance, her wind being cut 
off, the moose also dropped to the earth in a choked con- 
dition, so that it took but a short time for Pooler to right 
himself and go to her and tie her legs so that she was 
part'ectly secure. 
The two young ones, which turned out to be two little 
bulls, did not run to any great distance, for when the 
mother bellowed, as she did when the lasso was loosened, 
the young ones came out of the woods, a short distance 
away, but could not be caught at the time. 
Having the moose secure, the next thing to do was to 
get her some half mile back to his place. This he could 
not do himself he found, and so returned home for his 
wife, who returned with him, and then the great feat of 
dragging the cow moose to the cowpen commenced. It 
took about a day to do it, as only short stages could be 
made at a time, the moose bellowing all the time, and the 
young ones following at no great distance, but dodging 
back quick enough if any advance was made toward 
them. They seemed to know that something was wrong. 
Then the cow pen was reached, which consisted of a 
pole fence some 6ft, high, the [inclosure not being over 
30ft. square. This all had to be fixed and the moose hob- 
bled. For the time being Mrs. Moose was left untied, the 
door to the pen left open and Mr. and Mrs. Pooler went 
into the house and rested for a time, also keeping a look- 
out for the young moose. In less than an hour both of 
the young ones had entered the pen with their mother 
and were made secure, the pen was put in proper condi- 
tion and the old moose let loose. For a long time all she 
would do was to stand and tremble, then tried to use her 
head to butt the fence down; but finding this would not 
work she wandered round and round the pen. For a day 
she would not eat anything, but then consented to do 
away with a few oats and some cut clover. In a few days 
the moose would eat all right, and Saturday last Mr. 
Pooler was in this city and sold the two young bull moose 
to George Meguire of Waterville for $70.— Boston Journal. 
The Lord of the Glen. 
We reproduce this week from Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Wal- 
lihan's illustrated "Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the 
Pocky Mountains," the plate entitled "The Lord of the 
Glen." In his description of the making of the photo- 
graphs Mr. Wallihanwritesof this picture: "I had waited 
long and patiently one morning, when I saw the gleam of 
the sun on a pair of horns through the cedars. With 
nerves all of a tremor I watched to see if he would keep 
on the trail he was on, which passed about 60ft. from me 
—but no— he turns directly toward me and comes panting 
down the trail until within 60ft., when I bleated like a 
fawn, at which he instantly stopped, with his mouth wide 
open, as he had evidently been running, and was very fat. 
The click of my shutter told me that I had his shadow 
hard and fast, so when he had looked and I had admired 
him as much as I liked, I moved my hand and he was 
gone— almost like magic. Satisfied for the day, I packed 
my camera and was soon riding over the hills for home." 
Strange Effect of Fright. 
A few days since, as a neighbor, Mr. E. B, Townsend, 
of Valley, Wash., was standing near his chicken house he 
was startled by the swift fall of a dark object almost 
directly overhead, and which with almost bullet-like 
velocity darted under the chicken house, which was 
elevated a foot or so above the earth. 
His flock of chickens scattered around the yard, broke 
iuto panic flight, and among them was a fine young 
rooster weighing lOlbs. which ran swiftly toward the barn 
for 15 or 20yds. and fell perfectly dead from sheer fright. 
Looking under the chicken house a fine blue grouse was 
found lying senseless from the shock of its fall to earth, 
and with its breast torn open by the concussion. Ed. 
chopped its head off and had it cooked for his dinner (the 
grouse, not the head), but thinks it scarcely paid for the 
loss of the big rooster. O. Belknap. 
mt[t ^<tg m\i 0tm. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The West of the Present and the Past. 
[From a Staff Correspondent] 
Geography and a Valley. 
Chicago, 111., Oct. 1.— I have always felt that there 
should be a new application of the science of geography, 
by which one should not need to carry it all vaguely in 
his head, like a last year's Fourth of July oration, but be 
able to use it on the spot, where it would be of some good 
to him. Now, to get any good of your geography, you 
are obliged to have along a map all the time, and even if 
maps were always correct, which they are not, it isn't 
always convenient to carry a map. For instance, I am 
traveling in Montana or Colorado, or some other grand 
part of this grand country, and I look out of the car win- 
dow and see a lovely plain or a high white peak; I can't 
tell what or where they are. I must first look on my 
railroad folder and find what town I am near— or ask the 
porter, who always tells, but rarely knows — then I must 
follow the mapped-out line of my railroad — which is built 
on the wide angle, foreshortened, omit-the-rest-of-the- 
earth basis common to maps showing the course of any 
given railroad. Following this map, I may be fifty miles 
out on any given river, or may be a hundred miles from 
the peak which is or is not the one I think I want to 
know about. I read in my book that at such a point Kit 
Carson had a fight with the Indians, or that near such an- 
other place old Bill Williams was chewed by a bear, and 
I want some kind of a geography that will tell me I am 
seeing those places when I happen to look out of the car 
window and glance at them. What the map says is of 
no particular use. The geography of the present is no 
good, and I can't blame children for rejecting it. What 
we want is a science that will tell us where we are by 
looking at the landscape and not by looking at the map. 
Kit Carson and old Bill Williams had this sort. 
I don't know, therefore, just where I was on my way 
between Butte and Bozeman when I saw the beautiful 
valley I want to tell about, but it was somewhere east of 
the bold, rough mountains over which the N. P, road 
crawls somehow, east of Butte, and it was somewhere 
west of the valley of the Gallatin, where the soil is as 
black as any that Iowa can show, and as deep, and as 
beastly muddy. My valley may have been that of the 
Jefferson, or that of the Beaverhead— all these head- 
waters of the Missouri being named, renamed and sub- 
named and divided in a way that doesn't make much 
difference, anyhow, and which will be abolished when 
the new geography appears, which shall wipe all names 
off the maps and set all men to studying the earth and 
nature instead of books and paper. Anyway, my valley 
wound along so beautifully among the mountains, so 
finely fringed with willows and cottonwoods, so admir- 
ably flecked with sunlit meadows, and so ornamented 
with the jewels of the sparkling river which traversed it, 
that I am glad I cannot tell where it was on the map, and 
can only say that it was beautiful. I wanted to get off 
the cars, and build a house and stay there and live. It 
was so very quiet and so charming. I knew there were 
whitetails in the willows, and suspected sheep on the 
mountains beyond, and maybe a bear up the black canon. 
And it was all so sunny and bright and so free and un- 
troubled, with no suggestion of rent, groceries or grief. 
It made one think of the grimy city and its suffering, 
desperate, sordid crowds with a feeling of disgust and 
pity, and made one feel as though here be could hold up 
his head and look himself in the face. Certainly, thought 
I, I will stop this train, get off right here, and locate this 
valley for my future home. 
Wire Fence Around It. 
Alas, for my valley. I saw a wire fence cross one of 
its natural meadows. There had been some one cutting 
hay — always hay, hay in the West, as if the whole family 
lived on it. There were some willows dropped for a fence 
at the edge of one of my white-tail thickets, and in the 
distance I saw the posts of a corral. And at length, out 
in the middle of my delectable valley, the place I had 
picked out to grow old and die in, there stood, all by itself 
it is true, but none the less garish, gaudy, new and 
unspeakably civilized, a spick and span Queen Anne cot- 
tage, with red painted roof! "Sarpington," said the R.E. 
map, and maybe it knew, though there was nothing there 
but the Queen Anne cottage and the little station building. 
I hope the place never grows larger. I hope it is only just 
some new rancher, a young fellow, with a pretty wife and 
a lot of nice dogs, who has dropped in there and is going 
to forget the world and be by it forgot. I wish him all 
kinds of luck, for he has sure got my place. I thought it 
was in the middle of the uninhabited world, but I reckon 
there "aint no such a place" as that any more. It all 
comes of the modern overgrown system of geography, 
with its greed of discovering places and putting names on 
them. No wonder Kit Carson and Bill Williams died. It 
is enough to disgust any one. So I sighed, and kept right 
on with the train, 
BOZEMAN, MONTANA. 
Bozeman is situated in the heart of the black, muddy 
valley of Gallatin. The geographies answer for the Gal- 
latin, and you can see the black mud for yourself, or at 
least you could when 1 was there. It was about 4ft. deep 
and no wheeled vehicle excepting the street car could go 
over it. Being thus cut off from the outside world, and 
indeed cut off practically from herself, Bozeman was a 
very quiet town last spring, quieter than ever the prevail- 
ing hard times would have made it. All Montana has for 
some time been suffering under the silver depression, and 
Bozeman, though not a silver-mining town, has had to 
take its share of the general trouble. It is, however, well 
located as a town bound to be fairly prosperous, for this 
same black mud of the Gallatin means agriculture, and 
agriculture lasts sometimes when mines shut down. 
There is no great shotgun interest at Bozeman, but it is 
exceptionally strong as a rifle town, and boasts a strong 
club of gentlemen interested in long-range rifle practice. 
The head of this club, I take it, is Mr. W. B. Benham, 
who conducts one of those odd and interesting stores 
which can be found nowhere but on the frontier. You 
can buy any kind of a gun or any weapon you want at 
Mr. Benham's place, and also you can buy any kind of 
hide, head, horn or other sort of trophy. And you can 
for no charge have permission to look at the oddest, 
wildest and most impossible of collections of weird freaks 
in old time rifles. I never knew before how many foolish 
things had been done in the way of gun-making until I 
saw Mr. Benham's unique collection. 
Mr. Benham is an old time hunter of big game, and has 
passed all his life in the West. In his younger days he 
killed many and many a deer in Minnesota, and in his 
long residence in Montana he has killed large numbers of 
all the big game. He has killed moose in that part of the 
Rockies. Some years ago he and some friends went on a 
big game hunt, just below the Yellowstone Park, getting 
besides Mr. Benham's moose a large number of elk and 
bear. Nowadays Mr. Benham does not go out hunting 
very much, although he could get bear, and very likely a 
sheep within a dozen miles of Bozeman. He pointed out 
to me a cation on the near-by mountain slope where a few 
months ago a friend of his had killed three, bears in one 
bunch. Even such sport rarely tempts Mr. Benham now, 
although he is a man in the prime of life, and he seems to 
prefer to stay at home and figure out trajectories, ratios 
of powder and lead, express charges, etc., etc. In these 
matters he is fairly to be called an authority, and I should 
be entirely willing to take his word unquestioned in the 
matter of either a hunting or target rifle. Both the 
theory, and the practice of target shooting he has down 
to a fine point, and at the 200-yard range is one of the 
best performers I ever happened to run across, as witness 
my own eyes. When I go into a competition with 
another fellow, even of the most friendly sort. I always 
feel bad when I discover that I have not been entertain- 
ing him in the least as a pace-maker, but I found the 
mortifying fact impressed upon me that in shooting with 
Mr. Benham it would be entirely too much courtesy to 
call me either pace-maker or competitor. I was only one 
who also shot. 
Old-Time Rifle Sights. 
Mr. Benham has the store which I understand was once 
occupied by Freund, who some years ago manufactured a 
rifle sight which was thought to be an essential of a per- 
fectly equipped Rocky Mountain rifle. Mr. Benham has 
a whole boxful of these sights even yet, but he does not 
sell very many these days, and instead mounts moat of his 
customers' rifles with the Lyman sights, which he says are 
better. "We used to charge people from $3 to $5 for a set 
of sights, according to the way we happened to feel about 
it," said Mr. Benham; "but I fear those days are past." 
Yet those old sights had some very good principles, and I 
value not merely as a keepsake the set which Mr. Benham 
gave me as a souvenir of the old days. 
Live Mountain Sheep. 
Besides his trophies of hides and horns, Mr. Benham 
nearly always has some live wild animals about him, and 
with great glee he took me out to show me the menagerie 
which he now has on hand. Chief of these animals is a 
great specimen of the Rocky Mountain sheep or bighorn. 
Dick, as this fellow is called, is now in the prime of life, 
between four and five years of age, and seemed in fine 
condition, showing no ill effects from captivity excepting 
that his hoofs have grown out exceedingly long, making 
him almost deformed in that respect. He misses the hard 
rocks for which nature intended him, and the soft straw of 
his pen is a luxury which he would gladly forsake. 
Dick at one time had a mate, Bstsy, and I understand 
that Dick was caught a year ago last May and Betsy in 
the June following. Betsy was gold some time ago. For 
