Jan. 16, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Tire detached from all thought of material gain. It isn't. 
The capture and the material results are quite as essential 
to pleasure as ar the pursuit and the rt finements. To 
•capture without skill or effort is without sport. To strive 
and seek without adequate return for labor and skill are 
repugnant. Such is not sport. There must be a reward 
ior effort. 
To assume that one's personal pleasure is all there is at 
<8take when one sets himself forth for the capture of 
game is to take an unwarrantably selfish view of the 
matter. Probably not one sportsman in ten thinks of the 
•amount of game as a gratification to himself. There are 
kins'^olk and friends at home who spur him to his great- 
est efforts, so that he may have enough to bring a present 
and pleasure to all of them. If he return empty-banded, 
ihis gratification at his own selfish pleasure is chilled by 
"the disappointment of his friends. When his time is lim- 
ited, or when game is scarce, the sportsman may not be 
assured of enough game to supply his needs. He may 
hire a guide to shoot for him to make up the deficiency. 
The guide may not add a jot to the sport or to the sports- 
man's personal pleasure or gain. But the former may 
add enough birds to make the trip an unselfish success, 
and the pleasure of having them to give may be greater 
than the pleasure of their capture. 
It may be retorted that people should not like birds to 
eat; that the birds should only serve for the sport of seek- 
ing them. That is absurd. So long as people have good 
appetites, with mouths which have a taste for good things, 
they will continue to eat regardless of what a few may 
talk. Many of the people who decry the considerations 
of game aa something to be sought for its own sake can 
themselves show a nice performance on it with knife and 
fork. 
The game shot by a guide is not as if bought in Fulton 
Market. The associations and machinery for its capture 
are the sportsman's own. His organization of the plan 
and supervision of the sport, and his own conjoint effort, 
are widely different from walking into a market and buy- 
ing game. 
"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall 
be no more cakes and ale?" Simple Simon. 
BUCK RANCH. 
*'Deab Trtpod," the letter ran, "Capt. Bradford has in- 
cited me to join a hunting party which he is organis;ing, 
to go out from here in a few weeks; as I will not have 
time to go, I have his consent to your going as my substi' 
tute. Affectionately your father, Coahoma." 
This arrangement was far from distasteful to me, the 
receipt of the letter being the first of a sequence of 
events which have furnished a store of happy memories 
to brighten the moments of future pensiveness. 
In due time came a message over the 'phone: "The 
party is to leave here Nov. 19. CoAHoaiA." 
******* 
Armed with a hasty pencil sketch of the intricate route 
over which my jjurney lay; mounted on a gay sorrel 
pony, the property of an indulgent friend, and contem- 
plating with expectancy the beauties of the new 38 Win- 
chester which was to do me service, I cantered toward 
McKee's, where I would me^t the other members of the 
party, whom I had left in the forenoon to go by rail from 
Clarksdale to Tutwiler, where wagons waited to convey 
baggage and camp equipage. Nightfall— McKee's. No 
party to meet as yet, but a big log tire and a warm supper 
well constructed on a groundwork of bear meat, the Iruit 
of the labors of Capt. McKee and Mr, Caffe, and pre- 
pared in tempting style by Mesdames Caffe and V/ilber. 
Later came the wagons. Darkness had o'erspread the 
face of the earth nearly two hours when the mile and a 
half lying between McKee's and Buck Ranch was covered, 
and we were welcomed by Mrs. McMannus to Capt. Jas. 
L Bradford's new hunting lodge. 
Buck Ri,nch, in Qjitman county, Miss,, ten miles 
east of Tutwiler Station, is, I think, the only game pre- 
serve in the Mississippi Ddlta owned by an individual. 
"No partnerships for me except the matrimonial one," 
said the Captain when a club was suggested. 
Buck Lodge is on the east bank of Cassidy Bayou, 
100yds. below the Captain's new private bridge, which is 
330ft. long, and built at a cost of $600, solely to insure ac- 
fcess to the ranch, A frame house, ceiled with tongue 
:and grooved pine; two rooms, 20x20, with a 12ft. hall- 
way between, and a broad porch in front; two shed 
rooms behind; fireplaces nearly 4 Jft. wide and high in 
proportion — what log fires we had! 
Capt. Bradford is negotiating for the control of 4,000 
acres of forest, all good feeding ground for deer, turkeys 
aoid bears — ^indigenous. Already he has bought some of 
this land. The ranch will be surrounded by a wire fence, 
* 'dog tight," "bull strong," but not "deer high." For, 
says the Captain, "the deer when run with dogs, or shot 
at by market hunters outside, will jump into my ranch. 
When they find fewer enemies inside they will not jump 
Tjack out." 
The ranch scheme is only a few months old. The lodge 
had just been finished and there had not yet been time 
for putting in furniture, but a five wide (five men wide) 
bed spread on a softening of hay made the night hours 
glide softly by, while in the interim before bedtime we 
sat on trunks, camp stools and boxes and compared guns 
— Maynards, Winchesters ('94 and later models), combina- 
tion shotgun and rifle, Old Betsy (a muzzle-loading 
shotgun which the Captain uses when he fire-hunts), and 
a certain long, meddlesome-looking old rifle with 7in. of 
notches under the stock, recording its slain deer, which 
he had brought along as a present to McMannus, his 
keeper, and turned over to its future owner with the 
comment: "Oh, that is a wicked gunl" 
Capt. James L. Bradford and E. A. Stanford, of New 
Orleans; Col. Berry, member of Congress, and his son 
Shaler, of Newport, Ky. ; A. L. Dabney, of Vicksburg, 
Miss., and Arch McMannus, of the Ranch, Hapless day 
for the deer I 
"Yes, that is a beauty," said the Captain, of Mr. Stan- 
ford's new rifle. "If I were a deer, I should like to be 
killed with just such a gun!" And then, "Oh, that is a 
wicked gun," as his eye rests affectionately upon the 7in. 
of notches on his old standby. His newer gun, a .40 May- 
nard, was also not without a display of notches, "Well, 
boys, let's spread the bed ! We want to be up early in the 
morning, and get ready to go down, (q our camping 
ground." *^ ^ 
"How far off do we camp. Captain (" 
'•Oh, about three or four mileSi" 
"But, Captain, why do you go out and camp when you 
have all this fine house to live ir ?" 
"What! me liv° in a house when I have the -whole wide 
woods before me?" — and soon three members of the party 
were being lulled to sleep by a duet of snores, It was of 
no moment that our bed had no springs, for the roof of 
Buck Lodge was over our heads, the great log fire blazed 
above a bed of glowing coals, and without, the wide, wild 
woods of Buck Ranch echoed the occasional hoot of owls. 
"Give me another cup of coffee, please, Mrs. McMannus, 
this one has worn out," says the Captain, as Stanford and 
Col, Berry replenished their plates with bear meat (more 
of the McKee bear); Shaler and Arch turn their attention 
to hot biecuits and molasses as a second course, and I my- 
self realize that this is no time to waste in idleness. Too 
soon is past that happy interval between the beginning of 
breakfast and the end of breakfast, and we are all busied 
with selecting necessary luggage for one week under can- 
vas: folding bedding, packing the provision chest, shuck- 
ing corn to take along for the horses, and finally adjust- 
ing to them their new harness, and loading the wagon. 
Late in the forenoon we steamed out of port, bearing 
down through the cane toward Possum Bayou. Possum 
is a small bayou between broad, sloping banks, skirted on 
each side by a continuous, narrow ridge of switch cane, 
interspersed with beautiful holly groves. On the slope of 
the bank, with one of the holly groves in the background, 
we stretched our little open-front A tent and spread the 
bed all the way across the back end; for this time we 
would have Arch also for a bedmate, and the bed must be 
for six. 
As the afternoon advanced the Colonel and Shaler weht 
down the bayou to find their lost deer, Stanford wan- 
dered up the bayou to see, perchance, what the future 
had in store for him, and I went with Capt, Bradford on 
an exploration to the northeastward. Three-quarters of 
a mile from camp he left me to sit on a log and keep a 
deer-scrape from getting lonesome, A gray pquirrel in- 
troduced himself and barked at me excitedly from a limb 
overhead for half an hour. I thought that in his chat- 
tering he said, "Now here's a mighty brave. He couldn't 
hurt a deer when he'll sit there humbly and let a little 
fellow like me low-rate him like I'm doiner. I've seen Sev- 
eral uglier fellows that I'd be afraid to sass this way," 
And then he laughed in derisive glee. 
Nightfall, and the Captain approached, the squirrel 
went to bed and we journeyed toward camp, where was 
found a hot supper which Arch and Stanford had scared 
up on short notice; for McMannus, who had been in- 
trusted with the duty of engaging a cook for our hunting 
camp had been unable to find one. The cooking was to fall 
to my lot next day; so I had a big pile of wood collected, 
and all preparations made for daylight coffee by early bed- 
time. 
"B iys, let's spread the bed," yawned the Captain, "and 
if you'll only let me shlape how sorry Oi'll be in the 
marnin'. That's what the Irishman said. He was ex- 
hausted with watching by the bedside of his sick wife 
and had lain down for a nap, 'Patrick!' 'U-u ugh!' 
'Patrick, wake up!' Oh, go 'way 1' 'Wake up, Patrick, 
your woife's did!' 'Oh, go 'way an' I'ave me alone!' 
'But your woife's did, mon, yez must wake up!' 'Oh, if 
you'll only let me shlape how sorry Oi'll be in the 
marnin',' " 
The Colonel was reminded that we were sadly in need 
of fresh meat, and he was expected to provide us with 
fresh venison for dinner, as the hunters started out in 
several directions after daylight coffee, and I turned my 
attention to the preparation of a 10 o'clock breakfast for 
them, 
I was caused discomfort by not having a dishpan, first, 
because the log I had to stand on do vn at the creek bank 
was slippery; second, because cold creek water won't half 
take off grease from a tin plate anyhow. But I put the 
oatmeal on to stew and then proceeded with the dish- 
washing. The rest of the washing that they didn't get 
doesn't matter now, because the boys didn't know any 
better, and anyway it is all over now. 
The oatmeal stewed away to perfection, the coffee 
turned out well, and I happened to hit the right propor- 
tions on the corn bread, having been previously coacned 
by Mr. Stanford. 
All came in on time except the Captain, and seemed to 
think that the breakfast would pass. 
Stanford and the Colonel concocted a cabbage, onion 
and red pepper stew with a chunk of bacon for trim- 
mings, and put it on the fire to simmer down. This 
would form the body of our 2 o'clock dinner, and these 
two in p articular "sat great store" by it. Then we waited 
lazily for the Captain to come. And when he did he was 
panting over what he said was a five-mile walk. The 
Captain is a quiet, reserved man, hence the more strange 
his actions seemed. He whooped before he was in sight 
of camp; then when he came up he looked all sorts of 
ways — especially restless like — and sat his gun against a 
tree. On the stock was a new notch — a large one — deep- 
er and longer than the others. Before we could ask him 
how it got there he lit in on Shaler: "Didn't you hear me 
shoot?" 
"Yes." 
"Didn't you hear me holler, and didn't you answer?" 
"Yes." 
"Well, why didn't you come to where I was? I killed 
the biggest bear on the American continent out there 
where I was, and waited and waited for somebody to 
come and help locate him, until finally I had to leave 
him and go away around over a route that I could locate 
him by. Get the horses ready while I have breakfast, 
and then I want several of you to go with me to bring 
him in, for he's as long as from here to that tree, and I 
could just raise his head off the ground! Give me an- 
other cup of coffee. Tripod — this one's worn out. You 
needn't have dinner until about dark, because it will take 
all thejBvening to get that fellow in. And you can get 
ready to have bear steak," 
I am not a professional cook. One never learns entirely 
how to succeed at anything until he has made one failure 
in that thing, it is said. Thus did it come about: 
The cabbage had simmered full two hours (for it was 
now an hour past noon and the party had gone for the 
bear); the water in it had boiled low and been replen- 
ished, and the fire stirred up. What more could I do 
now, for the other preparations for dinner need not be 
begun until shortly before sundown. I was weary and 
lay down for rest, Dl day for me; I unwittingly fell 
asleep oo duty, and knew no wore for several hours! 
And when I did know, would I had not knownl Ovef 
the smouldering ashes, where I had left a crackling jBrei 
still nestled the cabbage pot, but within it was a picture 
of desolation — neglect. The water was simmered away, 
the meat nearly all evaporated, and onions, pepper and 
cabbage — oh, the cabbage — were a mass of cinders. And 
then when I tried to drown my care in biscuit making t 
had more hard luck, for I didn't quite know how to make 
dough, and by the time I learned it was sundown. Ajid 
then I saw a flock of wild turkeys down the bayoii, and 
forgetting higher duties gave chase, returning twenty 
minutes later empty-handed, I never recovered from the 
time lost chasing turkeys and learning to make biseuita, 
I had just gotten them on to bake when Stanford, Shaler 
and the Colonel hove to, tired and hungry, reporting 
Capt, Bradford still searching for the lost bear. 
• 'What ! Dinner not ready?" 
"Naw!" 
"How's the cabbage?" 
"And no biscuits done, either?" 
"No. It took me longer to make them than I thought.'' 
"You're a fine cook anyhow. Where's the coffee?" 
"Haven't had time to make it." 
"Not even any meat sliced 1" 
"Waiting for bear steak." 
"Got back at last. Arch? Needn't look huhj^ry aroiind 
here! The cook's played out. Heard anything of thie 
Captain?" 
"No, He ought to be here, too. It's already pitch dark 
out in that cane and he'll have a time getting out. What 
do you say if I shoot Old Betsy?" 
"Let her go then." 
Old Betsy roared like a battery, and then Arch called 
for a volunteer to go with him and hunt for the Cap- 
tain. 
The cabbage episode was painfully fresh in my niem- 
ory; the biscuits wouldn't cook; nowthe coffee; I couldn't 
get the bacon to work right; evervbody was hungry and 
mad — in^short, though it was dark and raining, I volun- 
teered, and we pa.troll<>d two miles of that bayou for t^o 
hours, making the woods howl with war whoops and rifle 
shots in answer to a distant horn, which sounded now 
north, now west, now south, and at last was located di- 
rectly down the bayou; and wet and humble we crawled 
into camp, where the Captain had been nearly the whole 
of that same two hours comfortably reclining, and trying 
to convince us, hy an occasional blast, of the folly <rf 
staying out there in the rain. 
"Well, boys, let's spread the bed," said he, "We mtist 
find that bear in the morning." 
"Don't believe you ever killed one," 
"You're into it now, Captain, You must find that heait 
or your reputation 's gone." 
"Ob, I'ave me alone, and if you'll only let me shlape to^ 
night, how sorry Oi'll be in the marnin'," 
And he turned his back upon us, leaving Stanford and 
the Colonel to uphold the superior epicurean advantages 
of Kentucky and New Orleans respectively in a heated 
argument. 
"Yes, and you don't have any papaboti," says Stan- 
ford. 
"B it we have other kinds of fish just as good," re*^ 
torted Col, Barrv, and then we all nestled into a sweet 
repose. The rain pattered on the canvas, and in dream- 
land were the grimy black pots and kettles tinted with 
a roseate hue. 
It was a monster bear that we found twenty-four houifs 
after he was killed, lying where he had sank in his tracks 
and died without a struggle, for the single bullet was in 
his brain. The night had been so warm that the meat waa 
spoiled, but his coat was perfect. A shaggy black rug . 
will bring to the Captain's mind in future years the rainy 
night in Possum. 
After the hear was skinned, camp was struck, as it had 
been decided that we were not in the best deer ground. 
Meanwhile, by permission of the Ciptain, I scoured the 
country for a cook. At nightfall I victorinusly returned 
with a man of promise, who was duly commissioned. 
This night we spent in the house, moving next day to 
our new camping ground, in the midst of an extensive 
oak wood, where deer tracks were unnumbered. It was 
with regret that we had to say good-by to our Kentuck- 
ians on this morning. Col. Barry had been racked with 
rheumatism for several nights, and it is small blame for 
him if he did pine for the blue grass and leave next 
morning instead of accompanying us to the new camp. 
We were perplexed to know how the Colonel came at 
the weight of our ' 553 b. bear," which he reported to his 
folks on his arrival at home. 
Thanksgiving Day hMd come, and yet no fresh meat on 
the table. That morning the C^ptain explained to the 
cook now to wash the coffee pot, for variety's sake. 
"Well, I believe I'll quit the drive," quoth the cook, 
"Why, are you tired?" 
"Yes, very tired." 
"All right," and we were cookless. 
On learning that the cook had quit I found occasion to 
wander over toward Possum and try to find the flock of 
turkeys that had helped me to forget the biscuits. Our 
camp was away from any water course, in the middle of 
an open wood, so it was necessary for me to blaze a trail 
as I went to Possum, by which to return. A big flock of 
turkeys was there waiting for me, but I had a very 
momentary e'limpse of them as they took the cane on the 
opposite bank. 
It was a case of necessity. Our party would be basely 
humiliated if turkey didn't grace at least our supper table, 
and now or never must that turkey falll 
Half a joint of cane, a log for cover, a few imperfect 
"yelps," and out tripped a gobbler of tender years! I 
don't know why I missed the half of his body that was 
visible from behind a tree, but any insinuations about 
buck ague are uncalled for. 
Other yelps failed to bring any response, I crossed the 
bayou and took a new position, then made some more 
music on the y»lper. Finally, with an un-Thanksgiving 
Day spirit, I decided to go to camp, and was preparing to 
rise, when ray eye lit on feathered objects — one, two, 
three— eight, yes, there stood ten or more of the proud 
birds, within 60. ds.. drinking unconcernedly at the edge 
of the bayou. • CracM" ssiid the rifle, and he was mine. 
Instantly reload ns:, I downed the companion that bad 
stood at his elbow before he could drcide what was 
wrong. Thus did we have Thanksgiving turkey. 
I ^Such a clatteration of yelps all around me for the next 
half hour, yet they wouldn't come any more to that 
funny'talbing turkey, though I bad ehanged my positioa 
