Mat 4, 1895.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
345 
ful away out in the middle of the great gray plains. In 
the trees a myriad of blackbirds and daws chattered 
sociably , and. some portly ducks waddled about the pond 
in front of the barnyard. The ranch house proper is of 
the customary and proper style — wide, low and roomy, 
with broad halls running across it and with a most de- 
lightful big, wide gallery in front opening out on the 
flower beds and lawn. It is not at all ranches that you 
find lawnB and roses and tender flowers and trees and 
climbing vines. More like the usual ranch quarters was 
the big plain building where the stores were kept and 
where the men were boarded. Mr. Fulton has a regular 
secretary and book-keeper, to say nothing of an army of 
cowboys, foremen, etc. I don't know, but I don't think 
he does any work himself, being always too busy enter- 
taining shooters. 
It seemed to our host that his duty was to get some 
more of his ducks killed, so before long the great ambu- 
lance was in front of the house door, and we were aboard 
and off for the afternoon shoot, first giving a rendition of 
our opera, "Sweet Marie," which we did but indifferently 
well, owing to the tenore robusto, Guessaz, having eaten 
too much duck. Duck isn't good for tenors. 
Could not Conquer the Ducks. 
This time we drove to the upper end of the water, 
where the great mason work dams have backed the 
stream up into a half-mile lake of nearly round shape. 
Here we were to see the greatest view of wildfowl we 
had at any time on the whole trip, and there are few 
places in this country which will ever display one to 
equal it. The lake was full of fowl, millions of them, 
apparently. As we stood up in the wagon one of our 
party involuntarily gave utterance to his wonder,, "My 
Godl just look at the ducks!" It was a fascinating sight 
even to sit and watch them feeding. There were all sorts 
of ducks, all the marsh ducks, with large bodies of red- 
heads and bluebills, and a very goodly lot of canvas, 
whose white baeks we could see in numbers as they 
worked at their feeding operations, diving, moving about, 
rising up and shaking themselves, etc. 
We came and saw the ducks, but we did not conquer 
them by a large majority. Do the best we could, we 
could not overcome the wary habit of these shrewd birds 
of going out and coming in directly over the middle of 
the pool, so that we got small chance at them. Not 
having any boat, we could not put them up from the 
middle of the water, and when we sent a horseman 
around to scare them up they simply swam over to the 
other side. If we fired at them to put them up they 
would only rise enough to nutter out of the way into the 
middle waters of safety. So we sat about the banks in 
mournfulness and watched about three thousand canvas- 
backs feed and play and have fun with us. 
Toward evening the flight improved, and some of our 
party hadsomefairshooting, notably Guessaz andPeabody, 
who found a little arm of water into which some birds 
came to feed. Dick Merrill, who is a very fine duck shot, 
got a stand on a narrow island mid-channel of the main 
water, and did some as pretty shooting as I ever saw on 
ducks, dropping them very regularly, much to the joy of 
the exuberant Count Foster, who was now much in evi- 
dence, trying to tend everybody's gun, and usually man- 
aging to be sitting up in plain sight beside one's blind 
every time a flock of ducks was coming in. Wilbur Du- 
bois and I put in over an hour trying to build a blind of 
cactus and mesquite, and so wasted the only time when 
the ducks flew; for toward dusk the flight ceased at our 
point, and we got little sport. 
"Sweet Marie" Attains Prominence. 
As it was, we added about another bushel of fine fat 
ducks to our possessions, and went into the ranch house 
very happy. To our surprise, we found ourselves still able 
to eat as heartily as ever. After dinner we made general 
assembly, and sang glee songs till bedtime, the opera of 
"Sweet Marie" making the chief number of the pro- 
gramme. We sang it forte and fortissimo, and sclier- 
zando and allegro and pianissimo, but mostly we sang it 
da capo, because the ladies seemed to like to have us sing 
it that way best, and we didn't care, because we had plenty 
of time. 
Of the shooting on the following morning I need not 
weary by making mention, though it was much the same 
as on the first morning. W e remained till after luncheon , 
and then reluctantly said good-by. As we departed, after 
all had taken places in the wagon, we pulled up in front 
of the gallery, where all the ladies bad assembled, and 
gave them one last version of our opera, going away sing- 
ing, saluted by the waving of handkerchiefs. We sang 
"Sweet Marie" for a quarter of a mile, and the handker- 
chiefs then being no longer visible, we stopped, and felt 
so sort of sad at leaving that we didn't sing any more for 
a while. Any of our party will be willing to testify that 
if our friend Mr. Tod, of the Loreles ranch, used us unrea- 
sonably and discourteously — which I am not ready by any 
means to say he did— his brother ranchman at the Rineon 
ranch more than made it all up to us, and more than re- 
deemed the reputation of the range. 
After Quail and Doves. 
Mr. Fulton, it seems, was not yet through with us, 
but decided to go with us on still another move of our 
car, still on his own ground, and this time after quail 
and doves, namely, at the station of Sinton, about 16 
miles from where we then were. Thither the obliging 
Aransas Pass Road shifted us early one splendid winter 
morning, and here we met also Mr. James C. Fulton, 
of Rockport, brother of our host. We learned that on 
that day, Dec. 6, George Gould and party, of New York, 
were with their private car over at Dennis O'Connor's 
ranch, said to be a fine place for deer, turkey, etc., about 
20 miles from Sinton. As we looked about us at our cosy 
quarters aboard our own car and reflected on the shooting 
we had had and intended having, we were unanimously 
of the opinion that George hadn't very much the best of 
us, while we didn't have to worry about money matters 
the way he did, and so had him quite at a disadvantage. 
A Javelina Hunt and a "Leopard Cat." 
I must not stop to try to describe all the details of our 
shooting at Sinton. Those who went out for quail had 
fine sport, and they reported that the dogs, Count Foster 
and Dame Bang especially, had done extremely well. 
Dick, Mr. Dubois's setter, a young puppy he had along 
from Cincinnati, was sick and did not do much asked of 
him. Guessaz and I wanted very much to get up a jave- 
lina hunt to write up for Forest and Stream, and so Mr. 
Fulton obligingly got Tode Quinn, his ranch foreman, to 
bring over his two hounds and take us out horseback for 
a try in the chaparral after these fierce little hogs, which 
are said to be the gamest game that runs that country, 
This hunt we were obliged to make early in the morning, 
while the grass remained still damp with the dew. The 
first morning we hunted over at the long bayou known as 
Moore's Lake, once a famous place for turkeys, wild hogs 
and some animals of perhaps even greater size. We 
found signs of hogs, but not of peccaries (javelinas). 
There are some wild hogs in there which are of great size 
and which make good game, being wild, fierce and very 
shy of habit, so much so that they only come in to water 
at night time, We struck a trail or two of these, but the 
dogs could not run it, it was so dry and hot. 
At length, just as we were about to leave for home, we 
were pleased to hear the baying of the dogs near by. and 
knew they had stood up something. We climbed down 
from our horses in a hurry and ran over to the baying, 
Quinn ahead calling out, "There it is, up a tree!" And, 
sure enough, as we came into a little open glade, we could 
see a dark object of some kind up a small tree and gazing 
down at the leaping dogs. Quinn had no rifle, and as he 
said he was one of the cattle men that "didn't pack a 
gun," he had no six-shooter either. Thinking I was close 
enough to count at 50 or 60 yards, I cut loose with the 
very good Winchester .38 I was carrying, and broke the 
creatures back, it falling down at full length, but still 
hanging on in the tree. An instant later Guessaz fired 
with his .44, and, as it transpired later, hit the animal in 
the front foot, though it still clung in the tree. Seeing 
its head show clear, I got a she t through its head the next 
time, and it fell out quite dead this time. Quinn picked 
it up and came carrying it out to us, Guessaz then reviling 
me for shooting instead of scaring the animal out for a 
fight. 
"You've killed a mighty pretty thing," said Quinn, as 
he laid it down — for till then we had not been able to 
see it clearly enough to know what it was. It was in- 
deed a pretty thing as it lay before us, with its beauti- 
fully mottled coat of orange, gray and black, a fine 
little cat about 3ft. long, 
"Leopard oat," said Quinn, in his sententious way. 
Ocelot, say the natural history books, as nearly as I 
can find out, but very much a prize, as we all agreed, 
for these beautiful little animals are becoming quite 
scarce. 
A Chance for Science. 
We found that our leopard cat had been eating another 
animal, and that when the dogs ran on him had merely 
jumped up the nearest tree. We found the nose, two 
paws and the tail of this unfortunate beast lying where 
the banquet had been in progress. The tail was long 
and slender, bushy, and ringed with black and white, 
with a tawny cast, like that of skunk fur. The animal 
seemed to have been about the size of a rabbit in bigness 
of body, or perhaps less than that even. 
"Siffy cat" (civet cat), said Quinn, as he poked over the 
remains. But what the natural history books would say 
to this latest contribution of the State of Texas to the 
ignorant Northern hunter I cannot say at this writing, 
for I am not familiar with all these foreign creatures, and 
do not find anything in the books which looks just the 
way I think this "siffy cat" would have looked if our 
other cat had not eaten him. Texas is a mysterious land.* 
We skinned our leopard cat very carefully and lov- 
ingly, and to-day the pretty spotted .hide is one of the at- 
tractions in the Forest and Stream Western office, along 
with the tail of the "siffy cat," out of which any scientific 
caller is welcome to reconstruct the "siffy cat" as it was 
before taking by the other cat. 
A Wonderful Game Country. 
At Sinton we were on what was once a great turkey 
range, but we saw no turkeys but a few tame ones 
run wild, which at first we almost thought were wild 
ones, though they were close to the town. All the tur- 
keys, deer, peccaries and other game which not long ago 
abounded in this dense chaparral country have within 
the last few years been much killed off at all points near 
the railway. The march of civilization progresses, and in 
time even the covers of the great empire of Texas will be 
depopulated. May it be many, many years from now, as 
indeed I think it must be, for it is all naturally a great 
game land and still very thinly settled even close to the 
railroad. 
Of small life, such as that of birds of all kinds, it 
seems that the supply is fairly exhaustless. I never 
before had an idea that so many doves could be on any 
piece of country. They were in thousands, nothing less, 
and we h'ad rare sport at these hard-flying birds, so much 
that we all quit shooting at them, as we did not wish to 
kill more than we could dispose of. I walked out alone 
from the car one hot afternoon, without any dog, and 
bagged thirty-one doves and quail in a short time, and 
one evening Burton, Guessaz and myself went out only 
a mile or so and put up over a dozen bevies of quail in 
less than an hour, fairly calling the dogs off and leaving 
the birds lying at last, for we had killed more already 
than we had intended. 
A Mixed Bag. 
That evening we got a mixed bag, about two or three 
dozen quail and doves, and two horses. The latter we 
pulled out of bog holes where they had mired down, the 
low water having made all the watering-places veritable, 
death traps for the live stock. It was pitiful to watch 
the struggles of an animal in so sad a plight, and Guessaz 
went over a mile to a house to get a rope in order to haul 
out one filly we had just seen get mired down in a bad 
place. By the time he got back the filly had worked out, 
so tired and weak she could hardly stand; but we found 
another in still worse plight, which we roped and dragged 
out, only to perish, I suppose, for the poor creature could 
not stand and could barely move its head a little. It is 
one of the necessary inhumanities of the ranch business 
that nothing can be done to remedy this distressful 
situation of the stock on the range. Over so wide an 
extent of country the ranchman cannot have any con- 
trol or care of his cattle and horses, and they perish 
unnoted. 
"I am sorry for the particular animal you saw," said 
Mr. Fulton, "but it is something against which we make 
no attempt to guard. I suppose on our ranch at this 
* iiissaris astuta. 
minute there are dozens of horses dying in the mire in 
the same way these would. The water gets low and the 
mud is deep, and an animal is weak, and that is the end 
of it. I will give you all the horses you can haul out 
of the mud on this ranch. You couldn't get rich at it. 
Good cow horses only bring $25 to $40 a head and mares 
unbroken are not worth over $10 a head. They die in 
numbers and we take no note of it. There are some 
things in any business not pleasant to think about." 
The "Man from Corpus Christi." 
The country around Sinton in a season not so dry as 
the past one is a great one for ducks and geese. This 
used to be the hunting ground of the man Priour, 
whom Dr. Pierce describes in his "Man from Corpus 
Christi." Quinn told us of Priour and his hunting 
horse, and Mr. Fulton told us of his stalking a white- 
fronted goose, which was in the middle of a big flock 
of geese, Priour going after that particular bird, which 
was wanted as a specimen. He did this by means of 
his old hunting horse, which edged and sidled along 
close up to the flock, Priour walking by its side till he 
got to where he liked, the birds not taking fright at the 
horse. This seems to be a favorite method of the 
Texas market shooters. "Priour used to kill 30 or 40 
ducks at a shot," said Quinn. And we are advised that 
that is about the average of our friend the market hunter, 
who had burned Gum Hollow all to death this fall. 
The Series will End before Long. 
Very pleasant were our days at Sinton, and the only 
trouble was that we could not shoot very much, because 
the game was so abundant we soon got all we could 
care for, and we did not wish to classify ourselves with 
those who kill all they can, and trust to Providence to 
take care of it afterwards. Doves we soon stopped shoot- 
ing altogether, for the residents of the town did not wish 
them, and we could not use very many. Quails we could 
give away more easily, and we could keep a few in our 
ice-box .for use on the road. But we were none of us 
grieved at being limited in bag, for someway we dad 
not have so keen a fever to kill as we had at the start 
of our trip. We were ready to stop at the car and argue 
over the proper bird to have cooked for dinner, and to 
sit in the shade and think, for the sun was very warm 
indeed, the thermometer about 80° above. 
We resolved to go to Rockport once more, and have a 
try for some canvasback shooting, then to turn our 
faces toward the unwelcome North. Perhaps readers 
will bear with one more chapter of a story quite too 
long already, if we promise to make that the last one. I 
haven't told about one of our best shooting days yet, and 
it would be a pity to leave that out. And, moreover, 
there is Sadie. We will tell all about Sadie the next 
time. E. Hough. 
S09 Security Building, Chicago. 
UP THE TOMBIGBEE. — II. 
(For first paper see page 283, April 13.) 
Mobile, Alabama.— The Tombigbee is, and must ever 
remain, a great thoroughfare, for no railroad running 
north and south can come within fifteen or twenty miles 
of this stream, on account of its immense curves, bends 
and high bluffs. Not one acre in sixty is under cultiva- 
tion. Cattle thrive on the canebrakes on the banks of 
the river, and come out in the spring in good condition. 
Hogs are turned out into the dense timber, where they 
become fat from eating acorns and beechnuts. 
With a fine soil that will produce everything that can 
be.grown in Iowa, with plenty of timber — both hard and 
soft — and good, soft spring water, with a climate so mild 
that stock can run out and get their living all winter, and 
with a great river to convey the produce to market, it- 
might be concluded that the valley of the Tombigbee 
River would be a paradise for Northern farmers seeking a 
milder climate to "let themselves down easy" in the after- 
noon and evening of life; but there is one serious discrep- 
ancy to all the natural advantages, namely, "wild and 
woolly" society. 
We will give you a few samples. Near Coffeeville, 
where a noted outlaw, Rube Burrows, was killed, stands 
a log house where a desperado named Bob Sims lived and 
flourished. He was one of those desperate guerillas that 
got a taste of human blood during the war and could not 
afterward be kept within the pale of the law. By turns 
he was a counterfeiter, timber thief and moonshiner. He 
was the boss of a desperate gang of men who always did 
his bidding. He was the head of a new religion and 
printed a paper called the Bent Veil. One of the doc- 
trines of the religion was that no man could own land 
that he did not till and live upon, and that any man could 
squat on any unoccupied land, regardless of all laws or 
deeds of record. He tore up the deeds to his farm in the 
presence of the district judge, claiming that he held his 
farm simply by occupying it. He admitted that he was a 
moonshiner, and said he had a God-given right to make 
whisky from his own corn, and that he should take and 
use any timber that he wanted from any unoccupied land. 
He had made a large stockade house of logs, with port- 
holes from which his people could shoot any one who 
approached, come as they might. 
A warrant was sworn out, charging him with stealing 
timber. The sheriff went to his house and served the 
warrant. Sims grabbed the instrument, tore it in small 
pieces and spat tobacco juice in the face of the sheriff, 
who beat a hasty retreat. That was the last of the timber 
stealing case, for no man dared arrest the editor of the 
Rent Veil. The U. S. detectives arrested Sims for moon- 
shining and took him to a house for safekeeping until the 
next boat should come down the river. Sims's boys and 
other men of his gang soon surrounded the house, killed 
one of the officers, wounded another and carried the old 
moonshiner back to his stockade home. Finding that 
one of his neighbors had given information to the IT. S. 
officers regarding his illicit distillery, Sims and his gang 
surrounded the informer's house, set fire to it, and shot 
the whole family, men, women and children, as they 
came from the burning building. 
The whole county armed and marched to the stockade 
of the desperado. They surrounded the fort, but, Indian 
like, kept well hid behind the trees, for the Simsites shot 
at every man who "showed up." 
After holding a council, they decided to fire the Sims 
fort, but it was hard to find the volunteer to pour on 
the oil and touch the match. Finally, an old, gray- 
