806 FOREST AND STREAM. [June 22, 1895. 
ated in twenty-eight counties of the State of "Wisconsin. 
Some of this land was far from settlements, and we were 
obliged to camp out in order to visit each quarter section 
and report as to timber, soil, subsoil, etc., to place the 
land in market. Our headquarters were in Fond da Lac. 
My gun here was a double barrel, the right hand cylinder 
shot, the left rifle with a one and a half twist. We were 
often compelled to live on the production of this weapon, 
and it did good service. It was on these expeditions that 
my trapping experience was- considerably enlarged, and 
under the instruction of my partner (we always went two 
together), Eben Pierce, an old woodsman, I obtained my 
practical education of how to build, and build quickly, 
brush and bark shanties, and even the construction of a 
log house'for more permanent quarters. Sojourners in 
the wilderness were often called upon to use their best 
judgment and ingenuity in making themselves comforta- 
ble, and Eben was full of resources— a thorough woods- 
man, a successful trapper, a good shot and the best of 
companions. I wonder whether he is still in the land of 
the living. 
The financial crash of 1857 reached us a little later and 
finished the Improvement Company and my speculation 
in the land business, and I drifted East aga'in and went 
into Uncle Sam's employment. 
Early in the '60's Mrs. Eaton, with the intuition of a 
sportsman's wife that would enter into. and partake of the 
pleasures so dear to her husband's heart, presented me as 
a birthday gift with a Wesley Richards 14-gauge, 71bs. 
gun, a darling for light shooting. Not satisfied with this, 
a year later she found and purchased for me a "Joe Man- 
ton," a very superior article. Both guns made good bags 
for the household and friends. 
And now we jump to the '70's. One day upon 
passing a news stand my eye was attracted by a green 
colored paper, on which prominently displayed was a 
massive moose head, under which upon a knoll were two 
figures— a shooter and a fisherman. It was Forest and 
Stream, "Vol. I., No. 7. I purchased a copy, and oh! with 
what zest I devoured its contents. This was the paper for 
me; it filled the bill. 
I then wrote my first article, giving my first interview 
with a wild Indian in the woods, followed by "Loose 
Leaves from a Surveyor's Journal," boyhood reminis- 
cences, etc. Afterwards, from time to time, fugitive pieces 
on shooting trips, natural history, trapping experiences, 
etc. After my second article, which promptly ap- 
peared, I received a very kind letter from Charles 
Hallock, asking me to call at the office, 103 Fulton street. 
He spoke very flatteringly of my woodland articles and 
requested me to continue, which I have done to date. He 
proposed that I take a nom deplume, as that seemed to be 
the style then, and, as I was writing up "Loose Leaves 
from a Surveyor's Journal," I suggested "Jacobstaff "— an 
odd cognomen, but a reminder of my woods' experience; 
it (the staff) being a single iron shod stick upo"n which 
rested our compass— a very important part of our para- 
"dff alia "° r ' aS " Nessmuk " would say, I presume, our 
It was in 1877 that by accident, when looking for pas- 
tures new— that is, fresher hunting grounds, with my old 
boyhood hunting companion on Madison county hills, 
Major Beckwith — we stumbled on Recorder Hackett's 
ducking ground, which he had kept so inum about for 
years— Shinnecock Bay, Canoe Place and Pon Quogue. 
Here we found that prince of baymen, honest old Bill 
Lane, and we made big bags down there of ducks, geese 
and bay birds in their season, beyond all enumeration. 
Here I bagged my first black brant; I had killed the 
white brant or Mexican goose in the West. 
I was always more of an enthusiast with the gun than 
the rod, though I believe I had considerable of a local 
reputation as a successful trout and pickerel fisher in 
those early days; for I knew where they lived, and there 
was hardly a rod of ground for twenty miles around dear 
old Hamilton hills that I had not trod. Lance Beckwith, 
afterwards a gallant major in the army, and I knew every 
cornfield and every butternut and sweet acorn tree in the 
county, where the drumming logs of the partridge were, 
and the best cedar swamps for the white rabbit (we had 
no little gray fellows or quail in that region, and no bass, 
large or small mouth), and we brought in the first hawks 
and crows' eggs of the season. 
Ah, those were halcyon days. But I am getting garru- 
lous. I have not visited the scenes of my boyhood for 
years, but I have heard from there, and I know my heart 
would be sad. The shriek of the locomotive is heard in 
the valley, and those glorious old hunting grounds, where 
the grouse drummed in the thick copse or the gray squir- 
rel barked and with nimble gait skipped from limb to 
limb m the beech wood or maple sugar bush, are now 
only rotting stumps, with cattle or sheep feeding between 
No! like gazing upon the face of a dear dead friend in 
his last narrow home, I want it not. Let my last remem- 
brance of birn and of those dear spots of my boyhood be 
pleasant. I wish not to look upon either after death and 
destruction have shown their work. 
George Boardman Eaton. 
The Root of the Evil is in Bangor. 
Lowell, Me., June 11.— Editor Forest and Stream; I 
have just returned from a trip up river. I went up to 
locate the spots to build camps. I saw plenty of signs of 
big game, and came on one big bull moose feeding in a 
stream. I gave him a good scare, hoping that he would 
leave that section, as I saw plenty of signs of bad hunters. 
I saw where some one had thrown two fawn deer into the 
water. They were full-grown and all ready to be dropped, 
and were still in the sac, just as they had been taken from 
the doe. This had not been done more than three days. 
It doesn't look as if our big appropriation was going to 
do much good toward game protection. The efforts that 
our fish and game associations made and what they did 
accomplish are getting a set-back. The same wardens 
with whom so much fault was found for their unprin- 
cipled and illegal transactions have been put back into 
office, and I believe it will have bad results. I have been 
much interested and quite observing in our fish and game 
protective management, and from what I know and have 
seen for years past I believe that the whole evil has a deep 
root in the city of Bangor, and is nourished there, and it 
is hoped that our fish and game associations will not rest 
until they dig the roots up and burn them. 
J. Darling. 
A FEW REMARKS ABOUT A LIVE 
WESTERN TOWN.— I. 
BY HORACE KEPHART AND GEORGE KENNEDY. 
I think this is the first article written for the Forest 
and Stream by two foresters and streamers. It seems to 
mark a departure in the literature of the gun and his 
numerous offspring, and therefore to merit a passing 
notice. We have had histories and biographies written 
by joint authors, and several novels, but no true tales of 
the barb and the fulminate up to this moment. That is to 
say, we have had no joint authorships that were apparent. 
There may have been a few literary partnerships between 
the man out in the woods and the man who runs the 
paper, but this is the first one where neither fellow was 
ashamed of the other, and was willing to put his name 
down for what he said. The advantages of this method 
of literary composition are never so obvious as in such an 
instance as the present. What each fellow tells, he can 
prove by the other. It seems to open up to the literature 
of the fields a new era of faith and confidence. The pro- 
verbial skepticism of the times has nowhere been so marked 
as in the chronicles of the brothers of the angle, and those 
of us who sometimes chronicle have been scrupulous to 
remain well within the limits of modern credulity, often 
at the expense of the thing which really happened. As, 
for example, you all remember that story Kephart told 
about the snake sliding down a tree without ever moving 
a muscle. Well, the fact was he not only slid down with- 
out any apparent effort, but turned around, and just to 
show that he could do it every time, slid back up the tree 
in the same way. And yet, if Mr. Kephart had told the 
whole truth, nobody would have believed a word of it, 
and as a consequence he had to give a really remarkable 
serpent a very ordinary ending. 
Another advantage of this style of literary composition 
is that it enables one to conceal little idiopathic defects of 
syntax and orthography. For example, when Mr. Kep- 
hart begins his part of this undertaking, he will say to 
himself, "If I don't get all the long words out of the 
dictionary, it won't matter so much this time because they 
will lay it to Kennedy." 
Still another pleasant feature of this mode of brain labor 
is that it affords such a delightful surprise to one's col- 
league to get the front half of an article from a man he 
never did any business with before, coupled with a request 
that he get at and finish it. In the present case, Kephart 
don't know anything about this article. He never 
dreamed of it. The first thing he will say when it comes 
home to him in all its touching suggestiveness will be that 
he'd rather write the first part of it and then, for obvious 
reasons, have something to say about picking out the col- 
league himself. But there is no great force to this 
objection. In the first place, I am running a great 
deal more risk than he is. I am starting this thing 
with a lucid explanation of the advantages of its method 
of construction, and I have christened it "A Few 
Remarks about a Liv6 Western Town," andyetT have not 
said a word about the town, its whereabouts, or what the 
remarks are to be. I leave that all to him. My reputation 
is in the hollow of his hand. Could he get anybody else 
to run such a risk as that with him? Does he even think 
I would dn it myself if it were not for one circumstance — 
to wit, those turkeys? For I cannot but feel that the 
knowledge I possess with reference to them will make him 
as tender with my reputation in what he may say herein 
as if it were his own. He may treat the subject with some 
diffidence, especially when that part of it is reached which 
treats of diagrams; but I urge him to make a clean breast 
of it, in the full assurance that for once in his life, and 
perhaps for the first time in any sportsman's life, his 
words have attached to them, by way of prefix, the very 
imprint and apotheosis of the truth. 
George Kennedy. 
[Mr. Kephart's continuation is promised for next week.] 
TWO MONTHS ON THE ST. JOHN'S. 
[Continued from page /WA.] 
We made considerable of a mistake in not remaining 
here for a week or two, which we most assuredly would 
have done had we known how few good camping places 
there are in that section of the State. This proved to be 
one of the best places we saw on the whole trip; being 
quite high and dry, with plenty of fuel for the camp fire. 
Besides, there was a plenty of deliciously cool, shady 
places in which to lie down and take the world easy. 
That afternoon, after overhauling, we did nothing but 
lie around, read, or write letters home. It was hard to 
realize that, while we were indolently lying around in our 
shirt sleeves, the people at home were dressed in their 
heavy winter clothing. 
Sam upheld his reputation as a cook by making a most 
excellent potpie of some of the snipe and plover we had 
shot on the preceding evening. That afternoon about 4 
o'clock we sat down to a regular banquet. The menu con- 
sisted of snipe and plover, broiled, fried, and the afore- 
mentioned potpie. Besides, we had yams baked in the 
coals, pickles mixed, baked beans, hot tea, hard tack and 
molasses. The sauce consisted of a voracious out-of-door 
appetite. We also [found that Sam was not only a good 
sailor, but an excellent out-of-door cook; so it was then and 
there voted that he should fill that position when there 
was anything extra to cook. 
Nocturnal Visitors. 
We turned in early that night, so as to make an early 
start next morning. We soon dropped off into a sound 
sleep, from which we were suddenly awakened about mid- 
night by the furious barking of the dog. On looking out 
of the tent to ascertain the cause, we perceived four men 
walking about on the beach. Sam went out to see what 
they were doing. He found that they were collecting 
wood to build a fire. They had a rowboat drawn up on 
the beach. They said that they had rowed from Jackson- 
ville that day, and were on their way to Fernandina. 
I hey soon had their fire burning, over which they made a 
pot of coffee. Sam not knowing who they were, thought 
he might as well keep a watch on them while they stayed. 
They said they were going as soon as they had a cup of 
coffee, so he talked with them for quite a while, and upon 
being invited, he had a social cup with them s When 
they finally got ready to go, Sam bade them good-by and 
crawled back info the tent; and we soon went to sleep 
again, not being disturbed any more that night. 
We arose with the sun, and while Sam started to make 
the fire, preparatory to getting breakfast, Tom and. I took 
the tent down, and were rolling up the blankets, when 
Sam began to use some cuss words because he couldn't 
find the ax to cut wood for the fire. All hands turned to 
and we hunted high and low, but to no purpose, as that 
ax had undoubtedly gone to Fernandina with our noctur- 
nal visitors; and if the dog hadn't awakened us, some of 
our other property would have gone in the same direction. 
Breakfast was soon disposed of, and we were on our 
way again. It was slow, tedious work making headway, 
as the stream was so shallow in places that the Rambler 
would run on a mud bank every ten or fifteen minutes, 
or she would climb upon a bed of oysters. 
While passing through the Three Sisters we came across 
a great number of these natural oyster beds, and, although 
the oysters were nice enough looking, upon opening and 
trying some, we found them so salty as to make them un- 
palatable. 
About 1 o'clock that afternoon, after sculling, wading 
and pushing through the mud, and over the oyster bars, 
and even walking along the bank with a tow rope, thereby 
getting ourselves and the boat fairly plastered with mud, 
our eyes were gladdened by seeing Nassau Sound. 
We found this sound an excellent place to establish a 
winter camp. Without any doubt, it was the very best 
place we saw the whole time we were in Florida. Being 
about eight miles in length by five or six miles wide, the 
shores were mostly fine white beaches, hard and firm as 
concrete, with miles of fine places to pitch a tent. I sup- 
pose, though, it would be inconvenient, on account of a 
scarcity of fresh water, although of that I am perfectly 
ignorant, as we did not stay long enough to find out. 
We' made very slow progress that afternoon, in the hot 
sun. In fact, we did not get across the sound until 3 
o'clock, and had to resort to sculling to do that. 
After hunting around nearly an hour for the stream 
that connects the sound with the St. John's River, our 
efforts were rewarded by discovering a stream that we 
concluded was the one we were in search of. A very fight 
breeze having set in from the river, we sailed along be- 
tween the same old mud banks we had met with all day 
(Nassau Sound excepted), until we finally met a pretty 
fair-looking spot to pitch the tent. Just as the sun was 
casting his rays over marsh, woods and stream, the bow 
of the Rambler grated on a small sandy beach, and prepara- 
tions for the night's camp were under way. 
Before entering this stream Sam had absorbed the notion 
in his head that it was not the one that connected with 
the St. John's. But Tom and I thought it was. Being in 
the majority, we had it our way. 
A Night in Black Hammock. 
After supper, consisting of the usual fare, very much 
fatigued after our two days' work, we turned in early to 
secure a good night's rest. Sam and I occupied the tent, 
Tom and the dog the boat. 
We had no sooner stretched our weary limbs under the 
blankets than we were greeted with the singing of hun- 
dreds — yes, thousands — of mosquitoes. We had struck 
them beyond a doubt, or they had struck us rather. How 
they did bite! May I never live to see another night like 
that one. We covered ourselves head and heels with our 
heavy blankets, but it was no use. We pulled the tent 
down and nearly smothered ourselves under it. Still no use. 
They got there just the same. Finally I could stand it no 
longer, so crawling out and taking my blanket with me, I 
made for the beach. After wrapping my head, up in the 
blanket, I managed to gather some wood to start a fire, so 
as to smoke them out. 
I made smoke enough, heaven knowns. I smoked a 
pipe until I was sick, and hung around in the thickest of 
it from the fire, still it was of no use. Those incarnate 
devils fairly reveled in it. They peppered my face in 
spite of its covering, they gnawed my hands, they drilled 
through coat, pantaloons, and I honestly believe my grain 
leather boots, while I just galloped and danced. 
How Sam, Tom and the dog made out that night I 
don't exactly remember. I know that the infernal pests 
never gave me a moment's chance to think of anything 
else but myself and them. I just kept the shindig up all 
night long. 
When morning came we just pitched things aboard, 
shoved off, and started out of that creek without bother- 
ing about breakfast; we were not hungry. We all looked 
as though we were suffering from a most virulent attack 
of measles. Even at this late day the very thought of 
that night's experience sends an itching sensation stealing 
over my body. 
The sun rose as hot as an oven, and there was not a 
breath of air stirring, so we had to take to the oar again. 
By this time we all concluded that we were in the wrong 
creek. A sharp lookout was kept for some chance to 
make inquiries. Finally we spied a log cabin off on the 
left bank. Tom and I jumped ashore and started for it. 
After wallowing and sprawling through the mud for half 
an hour we finally emerged on firm land. The cabin 
proved to be the abode of a regular old-fashioned family 
of Southern darkies. They ranged from the four-months- 
old pickaninny to the monstrous fat old mammy. There 
was about a dozen of them all told, and they were as shy 
as weasels. Clothes didn't interfere with the movements 
of the juvenile portion of the family to any extent, and 
Tom and I agreed that the mosquitoes must fairly revel 
at their expense. 
We asked the direction to Jacksonville. The old 
mammy informed us that the man of the house had gone 
off in the woods to haul some firewood, and if we would 
follow an old road she pointed out to us we would soon 
find him, when he would give us all the information we 
wished, as he very often went to Jacksonville. Following 
her directions we started off in the pine woods and soon 
had the satisfaction of finding the man of the house. 
He had a couple of oxen hitched to a huge two- wheeled 
ox cart which he was filling with wood. He eyed us 
rather suspiciously, for which we couldn't blame him 
much. He probably thought we had the small pox. 
We found this person a very handsome, intelligent 
specimen of the colored race. He informed us that ' 'we 
were in the wrong creek. We had come too far to the 
west." He asked us with a grin if we were the persons 
that camped over on Black Hammock the night before? 
We told him that we didn't know the name of the place, 
but that it would always remain green in our memories. 
