102 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 6, 1897. 
TIM, HiC JACET— III. 
Yeaes roll on. Once in a while, as I sit by the camp-fire 
or dream amid more luxurious surroundings, come faint, 
Bweet memories of my comrade, wiiom I liave come to re- 
gard as an incident in my variegated life. I picture his 
hope crowned with success and I can see the clieerful fire 
in a New Jersey farmhouse. 
A sweltering July day was drawing to a close. I was 
tired, thirsty, disheartened. My companions, two burros 
and a saddle horse, the latter noted for safety rather than 
for speed, were in the same mental and physical condition. 
I was among the Buckskin Mountains in northern Ari- 
zona, for the purpose of quietl^v investigating certain cop- 
per propositions in which I had been offered an interest. 
I had arrived at an age when I preferred solitude vo com- 
pany, and regarded life as a fake and this copper claim as 
the biggest fake in it. At the rate I had traveled I .should 
have reached water by 3 o'clock. Now it was 5 o'clock 
and no sign of the precious fluid. No sign? Yes, there 
was. Old Jack forgot his weary bones and Jill her pack. 
They pricked up their ears and ambled down the trail, re- 
newing their youth like the eagle. Bursting through the 
bushes, I saw Jacob's Lake. 
It was useless to try to head those donkeys. Sultan 
wanted a drink even worse than they, their desire being 
in the positive, his in the comparative, and mine in the 
superlative degree. As soon as this want was supplied 
and my servants showed an inclination to return to duty, 
1 spied on the further side of the pool a log cabin. Thither 
we proceeded. It was scrupulously neat,'from the bed on 
the floor to the chunks of glistening ore that capped the 
topmost log. The sole occupant was a dog, toothless, half 
blind, and decrepit with the infirmities of age. A 
prospector's home in very deed! Here we could find 
shelter and food for man and beast. It was all we needed. 
Where was the owner? There M'as a small dump on the 
hillside to the south. From somewhere near it came the 
souiid of a pick upon the rocks. That solved the problem. 
I took the packs from the burros, unsaddled and hobbled 
Sultan, and started in the direction of the noise. The hole 
was not deep. In the light of the western sun every crev- 
ice seemed to sparkle. The worker did not see me. He 
was evidently old— bowed with age. H is stroke was feeble, 
but each one told. His long gray hair kept silent rhytlim 
with the swing of his arms. My shadoAv fell athwart him: 
he glanced up, laid aside his tool and said: 
"Stranger, give me a hand outer har. I'm powerful 
weak." 
"Why, Tim, can this be you?" 
"Yaas! I'm Tim, .but who be you?" 
"Walt! Don't you remember Walt?" 
"Walt! Walt who?" 
"Why, Walt that was with you when the Apaches 
burned your ranch on the San Francisco." 
"Oh! bless my soul, boy, why of course I know ye. My 
old eyes ain't ez good ez they wuz twenty year ago. An' 
so you're Walt! Waal, I've struck it at last." 
I gave him the helping hand, and together we went to 
his cabin. He was not inclined to be talkative, but when 
the supper dishes were cleared away, and the pine logs 
burned brightly on the hearth, he essayed to speak. It was 
passing strange! That which he still anticipated I had 
won, and it had left me. I called myself young, but for 
me life was a memory. He was old, yet to him life was a 
glorious prospect. 
"Walt, I've traveled a weary bit sence I seen ye. 
Couldn't save a thing at the ranch, so I tuck ter prospectin'" 
Footed it through Colorader an' Utah an' Arizony but 
now I've got a claim that pays. See har!" ' 
"He moved his bed, and lifting a trap door disclosed a 
cache made of an old packing box. There Avere specimens 
of ruby copper, horn silver, antimony and auriferous 
quartz, from which the precious metal could be picked 
with a pine sliver. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he 
closed the outer door and brought from the same hidden 
receptacle four tomgito cans, each filled with shining flour 
and altogether worth enough to take him back to the States 
and provide for his declining years. 
"Got this daown tew the river. Went daown Powell's 
trail an' struck a bar. Can't be worked only at low water 
an' it's powerful hard work gittin' up an' daown, but thar's 
bring a-plenty. I'll give ye a quarter ef ye kin sell it. I 
won't go daown tew the river no more. ' What! ye're goin' 
tew look at the Copper Queen? This is a hull lot better 
I'll go over with ye in two or three days ef ye kin content 
yerself har, shootin' deer an' partridges. Thar's piles on 
'em. Then, bein' ez ye hevent no 'bjections, I'll travel 
back with yer ter Saliny, an' take the keens for hum 
Guess Cynthy'll be powerful glad tew see me. Cynthy's a 
good gal." 
The next morning bright and early our little camp was 
astir. Tim told me where to go, and gave all the necessary 
directions to avoid getting lost in this unmapped region 
where every swale looks like its neighbor, and each tree 
is the exact counterpart of every other tree on the moun- 
tainside. As I was going after grouse. I took only a shot- 
gun. The birds proved elusive. There were plentv of 
them, but they were high in the trees; not on the ground 
as I had anticipated. They would lie close to some dead 
limb or hidden away among the long pine needles until I 
had passed. Then they would dart awav with a deridin-^ 
whir. In spite of their wariness I managed to secure a 
brace. 
The charm of the day lay not in the hunting, but In the 
rambling. The fragrance and beauty of phlox and shy 
mountain lily were new to me, and when I reached the 
brink of some injutting chasm that yawned down to the 
G rand Canon of the Colorado I could only sit and feast my 
eyes on color, immensity and distance. It was late in the 
afternoon when I returned. Tim hailed the grouse with 
an exultant whoop, and through the evening he was the 
very personification of happy old age. I had not time to 
put in a Avord. Story after story of work and adventure 
fell from his lips, and these Avere interspersed Avith sundry 
details of the domestic felicity that he and Cynthy were 
about to enjoy. 
On the second morning, deer meat being ou the bill of 
fare for dinner, I took the rifle. Not having far to go, Tim 
allowed me to sleep late. I had traveled perhaps half a 
mile when a muffled report startled me. Then I remem- 
bered that Tim Avas going to put in a shot about 10 o'clock. 
Presently a buck sprang up scarce ten rods away. He 
hesitated before he leaped. The hesitation cost him his 
life. After bleeding, I concluded that he was too heavy for 
me to pack to the cabin; so I drew and hung him, intending 
to bring up Jack after dinner. 
It was hardly noon when I built the fire and put On the 
coffee pot. There was no sound from the mine. I called 
Tim; no answer. What was the matter? I climbed the 
hill_ and looked into the hole. There he lay, his legs 
buried in a mass of earth, a cruel rock on his breast. In an 
instant I was kneeling beside him. His heartbeat. He 
was breathing. With superhuman strength I uncOA'ered 
him and bore him out and doAvn to his humble bed, and 
made him as comfortable as possible under the circum- 
stances.^ It was seventy miles to the nearest settlement, 
and thrice that distance to a surgeon. Through the Avhole 
of the afternoon I sat by him, moistening his parched lips, 
binding his mangled limbs, and dressing that horrible 
wound in his side. At length, as the shadows grew long, 
heopened his eyes and recognized me. He made an eflTort 
to point beneath him to his treasures. 
"Fur Cynthy," he said. I understood and nodded, for I 
could not speak. Longer and longer fell the time marks 
from the pines. The breathing had become fitful and 
labored. The sun was setting. Once more his eyes 
opened, but they were looking far beyond the mountains 
of Arizona. 
"Cynthy!— Cynthy— love!— I've— come— home." 
There was a rattling in his throat. The breathing grew 
fainter and fainter. The limbs stifiened. A long gasp; the 
muscles relaxed. I was alone. Tim had indeed gone 
home— to the land of eternal youth, the only country 
where his hopes could be realized, his dreams come true, 
where he and Cynthy should be never parted. 
I lighted two candles and washed the blood-stained 
body. About his neck I found a silk cord and a locket in 
which Avas a tress of hair— faded now, but once as broAvn 
as the glittering chestnuts that fall from the frost-opened 
burrs on a New Jersey hillside. I put the relic back. It 
was sacred. Then I laid him out as decently as 1 could, 
moved the bed and took the treasures from their recepta- 
cle. Among them I found a pasteboard box containing let- 
ters, all postmarked Mendham and dating back to the sum- 
mer of the Apache episode. Their predeces.sors must have 
been burned with the cabin. 
With the first streak of dawn I tore up a portion of the 
cabin floor and made a rude box. Next I dug a grave in 
the soft ground by .Jacob's Lake, and, after taking a wisp 
of the matted gray hair, I buried Tim. Upon his coffin I 
placed his rarest specimens. LIoav they glistened in the 
first rays of the sun. They were his. No other eyes 
should ruthlessly pry into their secrets. Upon the long 
mound I placed a board Avith this inscription: "Tim ' 
a native of New Jersey, died July 23, 1896." The spot will 
be respected. Once more I climbed the hill and staked 
off his claim and posted the necessary location notice, his 
name first, mine second. Then I left, not for the Copper 
Queen, but northAA^ard. In my saddle bags were the let- 
ters, the gold and the lock of Tim's hair. 
Near the village of Mendham is an old red farmhouse. 
It is Christmas Eve. Amid the merry throng of young 
folks sits a silver-haired woman. She has spoken scarcely 
a word in four long months. She has sufficient money to 
be considered rich by her friends and neighbors, but she 
does not realize it. The laughter seems to disturb her. 
She rises to leave. 
"Do stay, Aunt Cynthy, just for to-night." She does not 
notice the pleading of her little grandniece. the pet of the 
family. The little one, still entreating and unperceived, 
folloAvs her to her desolate room. She sees the lonely 
woman take from her trunk a box and from the box a 
lock of gray hair, and, half sobbed, half whispered, as Aunt 
Cynthy kisses it, the bare walls echo the words: 
"Dear Tim!" Shoshone. 
PODGERS'S COMMENTARIES. 
San Francisco, Jan. 23. — In my commentaries of Dec. 20 
I made mention of the troubles and tribulations of our 
shooting clubs in their fight against the poacher,sAvho have 
organized themselves under the title of "The Game Pro- 
tective Association," a most farcical designation. It should 
read non- protective, inasmuch as they are the gentlemen 
who proclaim that every man has the right to shoot any- 
where and everywhere he pleases, and, I might add, irre- 
spective of seasons. Well, they have had to throw up the 
sponge at last. They have found it kicking against the 
pricks, and have withdrawn their arks from the outskirts 
of the clubs' grounds; couldn't stand the law and the clubs' 
breechloaders, and are going to have the Legislature pass 
laAVS to knock out the clubs' privileges, or failing in that 
are going to have the supervisors of the county pass an ordi- 
nance forbidding all shooting at any season, AA'hich is of 
course ridiculous. It is a clear victory for the clubs as it 
stands, and will continue tp stand, at which every sports- 
man will rejoice. 
I believe I mentioned also that there was rumor that an 
earthquake had destroyed Eobinson Crusoe's Island, and 
that this was generally believed, but it turns out to have 
been given on the authority of the captain of a schooner 
sent from Valparaiso wit h a cargo of supplies for the colony 
on the island. The captain said he could not find the 
island, and it is not surprising, considering that he was 
drunk for three A\'eeks, and finally found his way back to- 
Valparaiso, and a.sserted that the island had disappeared, 
goats and all, and not a vestige remained. As a general 
thing, gentlemen in that condition see a great deal more 
than really exists, but in this case it Avas reversed, so your 
correspondent who is describing the Islands of the Pacific 
for the Forest and Stream can take up San Fernando in 
its course, as not one of the has beens, but as still in exist- 
ence, to verify that good old tale of Robinson Crusoe's ad- 
A^entures. It is not an uncommon fact that gentlemen who 
have been out until the small hours have difficulty in find- 
ing the keyhole, but for a navigator not to be able' to find a 
large island near the coast in a three Aveeks' search speaks 
loudly for the staying quality of South American mescal. 
When I have charged ladies with devoting an entire 
day .to the subject of dress, without a moment's interval 
they have retaliated by saying that men can spend a 
whole evening discussing dogs and horses. I chuckle to 
myself that they never struck on fishing and shooting. I 
am reminded of it in perusing the endless discussions on 
those subjects in the Forest and Stream, although one 
would imagine that the subjects would have been ex- 
hausted in the years the paper has been published. Yet 
the discussion goes on with as much regularity as if just 
begun. It is wonderful, this floAV of "Avi.se saws and modern 
instances," apparently endless, and yet Ave Avho have had' 
our experiences and are not yet satiated continue to read 
them with as much interest as if the subjects were new. 
Speaking of which, here am I, one of those unfortunates, 
"chained to business," who has to peg away at the desk' 
when "the boys are knocking over the' mallards and can- 
A'asbacks within an hour's ride of the city, and in two 
hours' distance whacking aAvay at the steelheads (salmon) 
and bagging ten or fifteen in a day's fishing, almost from 
the steps of the hotel — 10 and 1.5-pounders fresh from the 
sea, and such fighters! It was not so many years ago that 
I have shot many a canvasback from a pond a square or 
two from wh ere the United States Mint now stands and a 
little beyond where Uncle Sam is spending a million on a 
post-oflice. I read daily of Sam Jones's and Bob Smith's 
return from the marshes, two hours from the city, grum- 
bling at the scarcity of game, bagging only fifty brace of 
mallards and canvasbacks in a Avhole day." Poor fellows! 
and the newspapers talk about the passing of more strin- 
gent laws for the protection of game, on this evidence 
of its growing scarcity. Every Sunday tliere are probably 
from oOO to 1,000 ducks shot on these marshes, and yet 
we hoAvl about there being HO; longer any game in the 
country. 
I was reading in the Forest and Strham recently of an 
expedition of a couple of gentlemen in Greenland, who 
spent a week floundering through snow, mud and Avater, 
having to SAvim rivers, being nearly frozen to death as well 
as starving, and losing their way, "and with not a feather 
or a hoof to show for it. Great Scottl thinks I to myself, 
can men be bo demented, when in three or four days' rid- 
ing in a palace car they can strike a country where deer 
will nearly run over them, and a climate where they can 
camp out eight months of the year without an umbrella? 
And as for fishing, what is the matter with the west coast 
of Florida or Catalina Island, just below us, where fish 
from lib. to 3001 bs. can be caught ofl' the wharf in front of 
the hotel, with a pretty girl either side of you, to bait your 
hooks (or hers) while fishing for yoit, in a matrimonial 
sen,se? If ever a demented community needed missionaries 
sent out tTi enlighten it, it is yours. 
Speaking of fishing and fish stories, I am reminded that 
in rereading Mr. Prime's book, "I Go a-Fishing," which 1 
picked up the other day, he says on page 267 that "one day 
off Block Island, in a boat Avith some other gentleman, "l 
caught 300 bluefish in three hours." If he liad said "we," 
I should not have laid the book down and flgui ed up that 
it was just one and six-tenths fish a minute, for three liours 
in succession. It makes me feel small Avhen I have often 
been four or five minutes hinding a big bluefish in the boat, 
or a salmon in fi'pm half an hour to an hour. 
Walking down Market street this morning, I stopped as 
usual to look into the gun shop display Avindows to see 
Avhat was new, and was admiring some" beautiful .12 and 
.20-bores, and wondering when the happy day was coming 
when I could afford to buy every new gun ttlat came out, 
and add to my seldom used collection, some of Avhich have 
not smelt powder for many moons. Just then along came 
a friend, one of these matter-of-fact fellows Avho consider 
shooting and fishing frivolous amusements, and said, "What 
are you looking at?" "The beautiful jewelry in this win- 
dow." He peered into the Avindow, saying, "I don't sefe 
any jewelry." "Don't you see those beautiful guns?" 
"Guns! Y''ou don't call those things jewelry, do you?" 
"Yes, I do, and I would like to be able to buy every one of 
them." "What for? You could not use all of them." 
"Perhaps not; but I would have them in a glass case to 
look at." "Oh, pooh! What nonsense. I would not give 
10 cents for the enj^ire lot." 
I said to myself, " 'Lives there a man with soul so dead,' 
Avho had no more appreciation of a beautiful gun?" My 
friend added that he had never shot a gun in his life. 
J list think of such a man going through the world, never 
catching a fish or shooting a bird! I never see a split-bam- 
boo that I don't want it, although I have a dozen that I 
have never used, and many a month's house rent invested 
in guns. 
In the earlier days, Avhen times Avere better, I set out to 
collect eA^ery new thing in the gun line — repeaters, etc. — 
until the new iuA^entions came along so fast that I had to 
throw up the sponge, and my den looked like an armory. 
And Avhen one day I grumbled at my. wife monopolizing 
my special closet, as all married men have expferienced, 
and said, "Have you a thousand dresses that you can't 
leave me a chance to hang up a single coat?" she replied, 
"I will bet you a new dress against another gun that you 
have three guns to my one dress." I accepted the chal- 
lenge, and, by George! I had to pungle for that new dre.ss. 
I was not after any more bets, and meekly hung my coats 
on nails in odd corners and never said closet again — the 
common experience of any man whoever tackles a woman 
on her extravagance. In this instance it led me, out of 
curiositA'', to take an inventory of my armory, with the re- 
sult that I announced to my friends that I was keeping a 
gun store, and proceeded to sell off guns galore, until I had^ 
reduced my stock down to a baker's dozen, mollified my 
conscience, and increased my bank account. But I still 
hang on to my split-bamboos, stowed aAvay in sly corners 
where they do not attract attention, and only take them 
out when the Madam is down town shopping. She might 
challenge me for another bet, on bamboos this time. 
Podgers. 
Sealing Guns in ihe National Park. 
Guns carried through the Yell OAVstone National Park are 
;sealed by the authorities in charge, Avh en their bearers eu^ 
ter the Park, and are subject to inspection from tinae to 
time. The sealing is done by Avrapping red tape about the 
^hammer and trigger gnd sealipg jt with sealing Avas. 
