486 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
LDeo. 19, 1896. 
All forenoon we plowed our way downward through 
the desert sand. All forenoon we viewed the strange 
shapes of the corrugated and variegated hills; all fore- 
noon yellow clouds of sand and white clouds of powdered 
gypsum and red clouds of powdered paint rock rose frora 
beneath our wheels and drifted away on the slumbrous 
air. We had noisily admired the flawery parks and 
somber nines, and had laughed with the turbulent streams 
of the other side; here we silently wondered. 
By noon the scorching heat of the sun and the irrita- 
tion caused by alkali dust settling on our skin had begun 
to draw our attent'on from the wonders about us when 
we turned down into Medicine Lodge CafLon, with its 
rock- fretted stream and fresh, green foliage and clustered 
fruits and red banks of rosebuds — an oasis in the desert 
indeed. Here in the rook-bound avenue of loneliness we 
pitched our tents and prepared to enjoy a few days' sur- 
cease from toil of travel. 
On Tongue River, near the summit, we hid feasted on 
mountain grouse, the most delightful of all the grouse 
family. Here we feasted on mountain trout, the most 
delicious of the finny tribe. 
After one day of trout fishing — which is an excellent 
pastime for women and children, but has not the attrac- 
tions to hold a strong man in subjection — I shouldered a 
gun early in the morning for a day's ramble on the moun- 
tain side. Climbing out of the canon on the right, I fol- 
lowed up the divide between Medicine Lodge Creek and 
the next gully on the right; though somewhat steep, the 
ascent was regular and the trail smooth, while the morn- 
ing air was cool and bracing and stimulated to continued 
exertion, and I climbed steadily on till near noon, when 
I met a rancher on his rounds, who informed me I was 
' eight miles from camp. I could see the tops of the pines 
that grew along the sides and in the bottom of Medicine 
Lodge Canon near the upper end, and I walked down and 
seated myself on the verge of the wall to rest. The canon 
was not deep here, and half a mile further up I could see 
its abrupt ending. 
Ever since crossing the summit the atmosphere had 
been unduly cloudy, preventing anything like a satisfac- 
tory view of objects at a distance; but to-day the haze 
had dispersed, and the Big Horn Basin lay mapped out 
before me with surprising distinctness. I could trace the 
Big Horn River by its silver thread from where it laved 
the feet of the Owl Creek Mountains, sixty miles to the 
pouthwest of me, to where it was lost in the gloom of the 
Bier Horn Canon, a like distance to the northwest. 
But what caught and held my wandering gaze was the 
snow-capoed peaks and frowning gorges of the Conti- 
nental divide far across to the west of me? What a mag- 
nificent distance it was away I How its thousand of 
snowy peaks glistened in the* sun! How its northern- 
most, shadowed wall frowned, and how threatening 
were its jagged precipices and frowning C3ums and 
gorges; and all of it so grandly far away. My eyes, after 
wandering over the queer shaped and colored hills and 
fragments of mountains and the silver-f^readed network 
of streams in the basin, would return again and again to 
this great masterpiece. But they returned once too 
often, for at last I discovered that the Continental divide 
was moving to the north and also rising to higher alti- 
tudes, and then a gleam of blue sky beneath it revealed 
to me that I had been having '-duck fit" after "duck fit" 
over a very ordinary summer cloud. As before stated, 
water is very scarce on that side of the range, and what 
with climbing and the heat of the noonday sun I began 
to feel the n^ed of some and decided to climb down into 
the canon and look for it. 
I had discovered before leaving camp that the creek 
came out of the mountain only two miles above camp, but 
I hoped to find some spring where I could slake my thirst. 
Down under the pines, where the sun never penetrates, it 
was cool and the way was smooth ; but the canon wrs dry. 
Keeping on down its bottom, I continued my search. 
The scenery was grand and the walking good, and I soon 
began to leave the pines behind, while the side of the 
can in assumed more of the perpendicular and towered 
higher and higher above me. At last a crackling sound 
drew my attention, and turning up a side draw I saw the 
coveted water dropping from an overhanging rock like 
rain falling from the eaves of a house. The crackling 
was caused by the drops falling on a large fl'itrockbel'^"" 
from there it ran in tiny streams to a depreed. ^n the 
ronk, ?,nd f rrm^d a splendid basin of oparkling water. 
S itisfying the demands of nature from the pool, I cast 
about for a convenient place to scale the wall, but I soon 
discovered that if I scaled it at all it would be a desperate 
climb. But why scale the wall at all? The camp was in 
the canon below, I could follow on down to it. This I 
decided to do. 
For half a mile or so I got on very well, and then the 
way began to narrow and become more obstructed, while 
the walls towered ever higher and more insurmountable. 
From the top down was a thousand feet of perpendicular 
rock wall, and then the b«8e sloped in to the center of the 
caflon, forming a letter V at the bottom. The point of 
the V was a dense tangle of trees, shrubs and vines, com- 
pelling me to climb along the steep sides. The cafljn 
was narrow, and I calculated that should both walls fall 
inward at once their tops would meet at least 500ft, above 
me. 
The tops of the walls were surmounted by all man- 
ner of fantastic shapes carved in sandstone by wind, 
water and the iDassing ages with their respective little 
hatchets. As the sun sank lower and lower and the 
shadows in the cailon became denser and denser, I be- 
came mindful of the fact that I was likely to spend the 
night down there. Yet I did not regret coming, for the 
grandeur of the place was a satisfactory tender for a 
night by a camp-fire with nothing to eat. At the thought 
of camping out I felt for my match safe only to find I 
had left it in camp. Anticipating a hard climb, I had 
left my vest in camp with the match safe in the pocket. 
I must either reach camp or spend the night in scram- 
bling over the rocks, for my underclothing was damp 
with perspiration and it would not do to lie down in the 
cold night air. The sun was not down yet, however, and 
I could not be more than four miles from camp, but the 
climbing was a slow process, and I might not reach it 
before darkness made it dangerous to proceed. About 
this time I was encouraged though by the roar of water 
below. I had been informed that it was only two miles 
above camp to where the water made its first appearance 
in the stream. I was then only a little over two miles 
from luxurious repose, with a good trail covering a mile 
and a half of that distance. 
I noted a great many places as I passed where huge 
slabs of stones had broken from the face of the cliff and 
fallen hundreds of feet to the sloping base below, where 
it was ground to fragments and scattered down the slope. 
As I was clambering over one of these piles of crushed 
rock, steadying myself by placing my hand on the rocks 
on the upper side, I was brought up standing by the 
warning bigs of a rattlesnake. Looking sharply about, I 
soon located the old fellow, whose domain I had intruded 
upon, lying half coiled among the rocks somewhat above 
me and a,t a safe distance. 
I had evidently disturbed him al; his eveniuK meal, for 
his jaws half inclosed a small animal, of which I saw 
numerous specimens in the mountains, which resembled 
a young rabbit and also had some resemblance to a rat. 
I have since wondered if this animal was not the 
lagomys of Webster's Unabridged, though that is said to 
be a native of Siberia and upper India, Picking up a 
stone, I hurled it at my challenger, missing him of course, 
and as the stone came rattling back no less than three 
other notes of warning issued from the rocks about me. 
Reflecting that these fellows would have little chance to 
injure me or my kind in the future, I concluded not to 
kill them, but to go away from there, which I did as 
rapidly as the ground would permit. 
I had scarcely got a safe distance from the temptation 
to kill those snakes when two mountain grouse fluttered 
from the rocks in front of me and went sailing down the 
cafion. Here at least was game that had some respect 
for me, and T sent a couple of loads of No. 7 shot after 
them. The birds had hardly collapsed in mid-air when 
the tremendous roar of the two shots rebounding from 
the precipice near which I was standing went crashing 
against the opposing wall, only to be hurled back with 
redoubled fury; like some fabled* foe of Hercules, it 
seemed to gain strength at every contact with the rocks 
until the roar was appalling. In spite of my philosophy 
I winced at every recoil lest the walls give way and come 
tumbling about me. Standing still, I waited for the echo 
to spend its force, which it finally did by straying away 
down the caiion and losing itself in the distance. 
Scarcely had the sound died ere another grouse rose 
from the same spot and skurried away, but he was safe, 
for, though I was not afraid of the grouse, I did not want 
to risk knocking down the mountains and spoiling the 
scenery again. Yet the agitation bad not been great, 
for the clumps of feathers that marked the spot where 
each grouse had met his fate were still drifting near. 
Soon after this I missed the roar of the water, and 
climbing down to the stream found that "the faithless 
thing was dry." This left me in doubt as to the distance 
yet to be traversed before reaching camp. 
Following on down the dry bed of the stream, and 
clambering over boulders weighing all the way from lib. 
to many tons, I soon heard the roar of water again. 
Boiling up through the boulders, it rushed along for 
100yds. or so and again disappeared. Stooping to get a 
drink from this short reach, I noted several trout from 10 
to 13in, long dart away and hide among the stones. Some 
day in the future some adventurous trout fisher will ex- 
plore this can 'U with rod and fly and great will be his 
reward. Another thing I noticed, in a narrow spit of 
sand, was the huge cat-like tracks of a mountain lion. I 
began to think there were whole lots of things in this 
canon I could get along without and hurried on. 
Though it was deep twilight below, looking far aloft I 
could still see the line of light creeping higher and 
higher up the face of the cliff, which marked the descent 
of the evening sun. Fainter and fainter grew the light, 
until it rested only on a dome of rock which towered 
high above the rest, where it dallied for a minute with a 
strange red glow, twinkled and was gone. Then a few 
scattered stars flashed out in the narrow strip of sky 
above and night was over the land. 
As I crept along through the darkness, stumbling over 
rocks and stones, and tearing through bramble bushes, I 
was again startled by a challenge, "Who! whol who!" 
Demanded a voice from the cliff above me. At first I 
was minded to answer "None of your business," but, 
as the challenge was taken up by the rocks and echoed 
and re-echoed with such earnest persistence, I became 
penitpr.*- • , ^answered "It is only me," 
• ill 6m that time on the challenge was incessant, it came 
from above and from below, from bfefore and behind, in 
tones of entreaty and of stern demand, in whispers and 
in roars, a never ceasing babble of who, who, who. I 
was evidently a stranger in that locality. 
Just how the rest of the journey to camp was accom- 
plished I cannot tell, as it was too dark forme to see. At 
one place, where I was pushing my way through a thick 
tangle of bushes, I stepped off a ledge of rock and landed 
in a net of grapevines a couple of feet b-alow. Working 
a hole through the vines, I let myself down to another 
ledge. Another place I walked out on a ledge of rock, 
supposing I was going round the base of the cliff as usual, 
when I suddenly caught the gleam of water beneath; one 
more step and I had taken a plunge into the creek from a 
aOft. elevation, but it seemed a foolish thing to do, and I 
called a halt. 
I remember standing there and winding my watch. 
The lowering of the walls was the first sign of approach- 
ing camp, and then I came to the horses grazing on a lit- 
tle flat, and next came the white-walled village only a 
few rods away. 
I had expected to find the camp in tears over my pro- 
longed absence, but it was only snores — muffled, yet 
audible. I slipped into my tent and striking a match 
looked at my watch, . It was ten minutes after 12, 
After retiring I heard a faint who, who, who, from the 
outer air and I drowsily answered: "It is only me," and 
slept, and a red-letter day was done. E. P. Jaqctes. 
Genb)6ko,-IIL 
Pennsylvania's Game Commission. 
Haurisbubg, Pa,, Dec. 7.— Commissions have been 
issued to the following gentlemen as Game Commission- 
ers: William M. Kennedy, Allegheny; E, B. Westfall, 
Williamsport; James H. Worden, Harrisburg; C. K, 
Sober, Lawisburg; Charles H. Heebner, Philadelphia, and 
Major I. B. SCearns, Wilkes- Barre. They will no doubt 
take up the work at once and try and make some report 
on the condition of affairs in the State, as well as make 
some suggestions as to legislation, as the act requires, al- 
though they have but a short time in which to do it. 
There is, however, a good amount of data which they 
can make use of. F. 
A THUNDERSTORM ON THE MUSKOKA 
LAKES. 
Sept 38, 18 — . — The sun had sunk behind the western 
hills, bathing a tiny cloud that hung just over the horizon 
with a rich, ruddy hue. The soft evening light fell across 
the autumn-tinted woods, blending and giving added rich- 
ness to their already indescribable beauty of varied color — 
color peculiar to Muskoka foliage in its lovely autumn 
garb. The roar of Balu. Falls, with its ceaseless monotone, 
knowing neither day nor night, sleeping nor waking, 
alone seemed not to feel the touch of Mother Nature, as 
in the quiet of that evening hour she "touched each nod- 
ding bough to rest, and calmed each brood in their toubled 
nest," But like time, ever forward, ever onward, heed- 
ing neither that men may weep along its brink nor the 
silent stars that gaze serenely into its troubled, tossing 
waters, on it rolled tumultuous through the slumbering 
wood. 
And just above its roar at this same hour the little Typsy 
stood proudly upon her keel once more, looking not a 
whit worse for her recent immersion, while the little 
group of toilers on the shore stood over her with no less 
pride and satisfaction in the result of their arduous labors 
m raising her from the gloomy depths into which she had 
been plunged so ingloriously a few hours before. A fire 
had been kindled under the boiler, and while it was ful- 
filling the twofold mission of drying the engine and 
making steam for the home trip, our party repaired to the 
hotel near by to enjoy a well-earned meal and recount 
the strange vicissitudes of that already eventful day. For 
since the early morning when we left home to bring back 
our little craft, rowing several miles and covering several 
more in that still more ordinary method of walking, com- 
mon to rich as weU as poor in that scarce broken country; 
then footsore and weary, obliged to call a farmer from his 
field to drive us at a quarter a head the remainder of the 
journey behind two jaded oxen, in the bottom of a spring- 
less wagon, jolting and jarring over the rocky, xmtraveled 
road — the philosophy of which progress is best described 
by an experience of Thoreau on a similar, only more so, 
excursion, where he says, "When the runners struck a 
rock 8 or 4 ft. high the sled bounced back and up- 
ward at the same time; and as the horses never ceased 
pulling it came down on top of the rock, and so we got 
over." Bat the concussion we sustained made that drive 
linger long in our memories, and altogether our day had 
been a succession of events too numerous and trifling to 
detail, from the bagging of a few ducks, for which, lack- 
ing a dog, we were obliged to swim, to Squirt's successful 
beheading of a beer bottle with a revolver shot, in the 
absence of a corkscrew — but all of which added variety 
and interest, and even a shade of adventure, to the day's 
journey. Bat suffice it to say that when we reached our 
destination to our great delight our craft had been 
brought up safely from below the falls, where it had done 
service on that most picturesque Moon River, and now lay 
on its ways within a few feet of the water, in readiness to 
be borne out upon the bosom of that broader expanse on 
which it should henceforth sail. 
Bat every pride has its fall, and so our little Typay, ex- 
ulting in an opening of wider usefulness as it looked out 
across the deep blue waters through which it soon should 
gayly plow its way, was doomed to like disaster. The 
order had been given, the blocks struck out from under 
the rollers, a flag floated lightly from the bow, the ex- 
pectant crowd stood in readiness to cheer its departure; 
and amid it all she moved slowly, gracefully down the 
inclined plane till, just as she reached the water's edge, 
the unsecured ways tilted to a perpendicular, precipitat- 
ing our boat until it stood at right angles to the surface 
below. Not for long, however, for her nose had already 
buried itself , and in less time than it takes to write it she 
had listed to port, filled and gone down into seventeen 
feet of water, which in another moment had closed over 
her, leaving not even the smokestack visible to mark her 
resting place. The waiting cheer of the spectators stifled 
itself into a dismal moan, and the laborers who had 
toiled all night in anxious hope now looked at each other 
in dull silence, except where one had found an outlet for 
his pent-up feelings in a string of oaths as long as 
our whole day's journey, to whom our "cook," with 
a gravity that became his humor, handed a lever 
with a laconic suggestion as to its greater utility 
in such an emergency — a suggestion ultimately acted 
upon and attended with such success that, after 
four hours of patient, steady application to such rude 
rude appliances as were at hand, the craft had regained 
the surface and its equilibrium, and was now standing 
there as gayly as before, its vanity but slightly modified. 
The small, white clouds of steam that circled about her 
seemed to fill her with impatience to quit the scenes of 
her misfortune, and while we were still engaged with our 
evening meal her fast generating power had several times 
been forced to expend itself through the safety valve — "a 
very necessary attachment to boilers and men," as our 
philosophic cook pointed out, "but frequently omitted by 
nature in putting together the latter, hence the oft recur- 
ring explosions among them," 
But our boat was'not more impatient than we to start 
on our homeward journey, and detailing a couple of the 
crew to forage for firewood, which fortunately lay near 
to hand at the schoolhouse hard by, and for which I now 
take this fijst opportunity, on behalf of the party, pub- 
licly to thank the corporation— a little courtesy omitted 
at the time, chiefly owing to the absence of any repre- 
sentative of their interests— we stepped aboard, amid 
many good-byes, and quietly steamed away. 
Twilight was deepening to night as we rode out through 
Bala Bay, and already the brighter stars were peeping 
through the coming darkness. Overhead Altair and 
Vega were shining with growing luster, and well up in 
the eastern sky the bigger stars in the constellations, Pe- 
gasus, Andromeda, and following the line northerly, Al- 
gol and Oapello just above the northeastern hill, had 
already silently taken their places as vigils over the sleep- 
ing earth. Away in the western sky, behind the tiny 
cloud that a little while ago was bathed in sunset hues, a 
light flickered intermittently, as if from the dying embers 
of the sun; and except this glimmering light, nothing in 
that silent and serene sky suggested or portended the 
storm that was to follow while we sailed across that 
peaceful bay, where, bounding it on every side, the forest 
stood against the horizon grim and silent too, save a chirp 
here and there of some belated bird. Bj,la Park was 
passed, and Sandy Point, and still the darkness of th3 
growing night alone marked the passing moments. Bu 
