248 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
LMabch 37, im. 
occupy the center of the line. Proceeding in this order, we 
had gone hut a short distance when Col. Rhodes began to 
shoot, and continued shooting until six or seven shots were 
fired. 
This being his first fire-hunt, Dennis at -once decided that 
he had found a hunch of cattle and was shooting them, think- 
ing they were deer. So Dennis started toward Rhodes as 
fast as his horse could run, shouting at the top of his voice, 
"Stop that, sir. Quit shooting them cows." But Rhodes 
kept blazing away. 
When Dennis got in good speaking distance of him 
he again imperatively ordered hinn to stop, and reminded 
him of the value of cattle, and suggested that it would take 
all the money in camp to pay for them: but the Colonel 
turned on him with a look of scorn and contempt thal would 
have paralyzed a Yankee lin peddler, and quietly yet with 
great emphasis informed him that he (Dennis) was a "bald- 
headed fool." "Why, sir," said lie, "I have been shooting 
deer, sir- wild red deer, sir; and I have the face of the earth 
covered with their dead hodies, sir. So you will kindly keep 
your mouth shut, sir, and assist me in getting these dead deer 
together; and if you please, sir, don't leave me too far, as I 
do not now just remember the direction to camp." 
And sure enough he had killed three fine deer, and had 
wounded two more, one of which we secured later in the 
night. 
About 11 o'clock that night Capt. Wilson killed one of the 
largest and finest deer we got on the hunt. 1 got four shots, 
but no meat. When we reached camp it was near daybreak, 
so vdthout i|oing to bed we began preparations for our de- 
parture to civilization. By noon we were in Kountze again, 
congratulating ouiaelves upon the results of our hunt. Our 
list was: one turkey, fifteen deer, and over 300 squirrels. 
This was indeed a hunt never to be forgotten. We had 
perfect weather, plenty to eat, good water to drink, and 
good luck. JSTot a man was sick, mad or hurt on the trip 
Some very poor shooting was done, principally by the writer, 
hut for which we would have bagged twenty five deer. 
This fall we plan to visit the Big Thicket again. While we 
may get more game, we don't expect a better time, as this 
was the "hunt of a hfetirae." W. H. JSTai^l. 
Bkyan, Texas, March. 
THE PENNSYLVANIA LAW. 
DnxESTGEHSViLLE, Pa., March 15.— Editor Fm-est and 
Streain: In your issue of March 13 1 read an article from 
the pen of W. W. McCain, of Stevensville, Pa., regardine 
the proposed game laws of Pennsylvania. I should like to 
ask Mr. McCain some questions regarding his views as to 
who protects our game. Mr. McCain rightly says that every 
good question has two sides. This is very true. Are we 
then to take for granted that that of Mr. McCain's pot hunt- 
er with the yaller dog. whom he seems to protect, is the 
best side of his question? The man who laughs at game laws 
and game protective a8.=ociati3ns? I think it is a fact pretty 
well known by the readers of the Forest akd Stream that 
the mtiin cause of our gime decieasing is supplied by these 
market -hunters with iheir yaller dogs. I can point out if 
need be several parties, who shoot for the market, who would 
exterminate the last quail in the State for the paltry sum 
they would derive from doing it. If Mr. McCain wishes to 
uphold thi.=i sort of yaller dog gmtry, all very well; but there 
are thousands who do not, and will not. 
I have lived the greater part of my life in the country, 
have observed, the ways of mo-it all sorts of men who gun, 
and have come to the conclusion that the worst men on our 
game are those vtry pot-hunters. The meanest sneak under 
the sun is this very game butcher, who loafs around country 
stores and taverns, waiting until the game season opens to 
sneak around the fence corners and get in his mm-derous 
work on the coveys of quail as they sii huddled together. Is 
this the kind of men Mr. McCain thinks will protect our 
game ? 
Now as to the millionaire sportsmen Mr. McCain speaks of, 
in all my travels afield with dog and gun in thirty-five years 
I have met with none. How many has Mr. McCain met? 
I should also like to hear from other sportsmen, through the 
columns of Porest akd Stream, how many millionaire 
sportsmen they have met afield. 
As to the bill Mr. McCain speaks of that his worthy Gov- 
ernor vetoed, I know alJ about that bill; it was signed by 
75,000 sportsmen (much credit to them). 1 am proud to say 
I also signed the same bill, and to day I signed another bill 
sent me by Dr. B. H. Warren, State Zoologist, of a like 
nature. I know it is the desire of every true sportsman of 
Pennsylvania, whether he be rich or poor, to see the eame 
of his State protected from the yaller dog pot-hunter, i ask 
Mr. McCain who was benefited by his worthy Governor 
vetoing that bill? Was it the 75,000 sportsmen who wished 
to slop the sale of ruffed gTOuse, or was it the pot-huater 
with his yaller dog? Our game can never be protected from 
extermination so long as the mighty dollar is attached to it- 
I have very often heard said: "Field sports were made for 
a gentleman's recreation and a loafer's business " Mr. Mc- 
Cain seems to have some grievance to settle with the owners 
of silken-haired setters and a good-fitting suit of corduroy. 
Oh, jealousy, thou art a corker! 1 have some wire-haired 
pointers and silken hau-ed setters— the kind Mr. Hou^h 
calls 'meat dogs'— and I really like them much better m 
the field than those yellow dogs It looks to me as if Mr 
McCiiin was favoring the pot-hunter. Does he not know 
thai it is the well-dressed, well-dogged, well-gunned sports- 
men, whom he despises, who restock the farms of our State 
most every year with game birds, and pay the farmers' 
boys to feed and protect these game birds duriug the deep 
snows of the winter? It is he who goes to the trouble and 
expense of having live quail shipped from the West and 
liberated, and perhaps when fall ot the year comes around 
he does not kill a dozen birds out of the hundreds he has put 
out. Who was benefited by restocking these farms? and 
why could om- well-drefcsed sportsmen not kill more than a 
dozen birds? Because they were not there to be killed? It 
was the same old story, the pot-hunter and his yellow dog 
got ahead of our well dressed town sportsmen and pot-pied 
the whole coveys on the ground. 
I trust that the time is not far distant when the sports- 
men not only of Pennsylvania, but of every State, can say 
"We all of us now have worthy governors, who beheve in 
Forest akd Stream's Platform Plank: Stop the sale of 
game.'' L W. Mazurte. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A few words, please, in regard to "Pennsylvania's Pro- 
posed Law," I have always stood squarely with both feet 
No. 98— on yom- platform plank. Therefore I would take 
exceptions to the way in which your correspondent W. W. 
McCain states the situation. 
According to Mr. MctJain, there are but two classes who 
kill game, the "millionaire sportsman" and the "farmer's 
boy " If such were the case, there is no doubt but the game 
"would hold its own against its enemy, man;" and some- 
thing such are the conditions that it is proposed to bring 
about by the prohibitory clause of the proposed new law. 
If he had desired to be fair, would he have ignored the 
class who kill at least nine-tenths of the game taken in this 
locality? I refer to the market -shooter. And he cannot 
plead ignorance in justification. Some twenty years' experi- 
ence as a country merchant, during which time he has taken 
the game brought in — although he denies being a game dealer 
— and furnishing in exchange the "tea, coffee or sugar," and 
the "hundred little things that are luxuries to the poor," 
and doubtless at a good profit to himself, has not left him 
without an accurate knowledge of who kills most of the 
game. I could name at least half a score of individuals, 
with whom both he and I are personally acquainted, who 
go out as soon as the law is off and there is a market for the 
game killed, and make an every-day business of shooting 
solely for the money there is in it. And Mr. McCain will 
doubtless remember how he, as a dealer, ordered an 
8-gauge gun for one of these market-shooters, as he— the 
shooter— wanted a gun with which he "could mow all the 
brush out of the way." Another of these market- shooters 
was loud in his denunciation of the law passed by the Legis- 
lature two years ago; and when he heard that the Governor 
had vetoed the bill he exclaimed: "Good! 'Now I will have 
the last bird this fall." Such is the spirit of the market- 
shooter — "I want the last grouse as soon as I can get it; it's 
worth three shillings." 
The game forms one of the chief attractions of the rural 
districts that should be preserved as long as possible. 'The 
county of old Susquehanna still furnishes plenty of excel- 
lent cover for that king of game birds, the ruffed grouse, 
and the conditions are much the same in most of the 
counties of the Stite. Remove the price from his head, 
stay the barter, eliminate the principle of "for revenue only" 
and he will furnish inspiration and sport, not only for our- 
selves, but for our boys, yet too small to handle a gun, but 
whom we shall expect, should this bill become a law, to en- 
joy better shooting in the years to come than we have known 
in the past. 
This rant about farmers' boys in game matters makes me 
tired. When any one wants special privileges for himself 
he feelingly pleads their cause. When any one wants to ex- 
tenuate his own violations of the laws their lawlessness 
is cited. After years of life on the farm, surrounded by 
(boys of all ages, sorts and conditions, I conclude that farm- 
ers' boys are just as conscientious, law abiding and self-re- 
specting as the boys of country merchants or -any other 
class; and they are second to none in their knowledge of the 
habits of game, and many of them are well posted and fully 
abreast of the times in all matters pertaining to field sports. 
And they are ever ready to welcome any genial, whole-souled 
sportsman from the town or city who shoots wholly from a 
love of the sport and the scenes with which it brings him ia 
contact; and they will aid such an one in every way in their 
power. But for the dude sport, who cares more for the 
"pistol" he carries in a side pocket than for his smooth-bore; 
or the dead beat, who cares nothing for the rights or prop- 
erty of others, only intent on the shilling the game will 
bring — for such they feel a pardonable contempt. 
As to the action of the Governor two years ago, we think 
he made a mistake both from the standpoint of the sports- 
man and politician, and he doubtless has realized it ere this. 
As between the cold storage men and the sportsmen of the 
State, 75,000 strong, there is no comparison. He most 
certainly made a mistake when he vetoed the bill on consti- 
tutional grounds that had been repeatedly passed upon hy 
the higher courts and sustained. 
We most sincerely hope the biU now pending will become 
a law, for to "stop the sale of game" will do more toward its 
preservation than all the laws now on om* statute books. In 
fact, it is the only thing that will prevent its utter extermi- 
nation and that within a very short time. Bon Ami. 
Susquehanna County, Pa. 
DUCK-HUNTING PORKERS. 
Yorr of course know what a game hog is, and doubtless in 
your rambles afield have met many of the two-legged varietj', 
but did you ever happen to come across one of the four- 
legged breed? An experience I had upon one occasion will, 
I think, bear repeating. 
I was sitting in a blind, built far out on the open meadow, 
near Custer's I3roadwater, Va. An eighth of a mile away 
there was a'depression in the marsh, where the cat-tails and 
a few low bushes formed a thick cover, used by a dozen or 
more disreputable porkers as a sort of headquarters in which 
to spend the night after their fatiguing worK of hustlicg all 
day along the water's edge for soldier crabs, dead fish, etc. 
The evening before 1 had remained late, and on returning 
to the yacht failed to remove all my birds from the box, 
where I had placed them on top of the decoys. Tiiere were, 
if I remember aright, some half dozen calico-backs {Arenuria 
interpres) overlooked, and these were not discovered until 
the next morning, when, the blind beirg reached, I 
started to set out my decoys. They were certainly 
odoriferous, but nevertheless I utilized them by placing 
them ifl as natural positions as possible among the 
decoys. A gentle air breathed rather than blew across 
from left to right, and being directly to windward of the 
depression mentioned above, the raak perfume of the dead 
birds floated slowly down to where the hogs reposed. You 
know how one's eyes are continually wandering about in his 
vicinity at such times. Well, as 1 glanced over there for at 
least the hundredth time, 1 saw an old pig waddle out of the 
reeds and stand with head in my direction in such a lazy, 
trampish attitude that my curiosity was mildly aroused as 
to what he purposed doing. Presently he raised his head 
and appeared to sniff the air; then slowly, with a hitchy sort 
of gait, due no doubt to sciatica or rheumatism from sleep- 
ing on a damp bed, he started in the direction of the blind; 
never halting, never hesitating, he hitched along until per- 
haps half the distance was covered, when another equally 
trampish looking porker came out, and after repeating the 
same preliminary action of the first he also came on after. 
I could not conceive what they were up to, the idea of their 
following up a scent for such a distance never entered my 
mind, but so it was, 
Number one soon arrived, and stalking without hesitation 
among the decoys deliberately ate up the dead birds lying 
there. He took them all in, and then nosed carefully about 
for more, being joined by number two, who had arrived by 
this time. 
Slowly and thoroughly they quartered the ground. Fear- 
ing their presence among my decoys would not prove much 
of an attraction to passing birds. I arose and shouted to them 
to move on. It was laughable to see the effect my sudden 
appearance had upon them; one of them actually squatted on 
his hams for a moment, so great was his surprise. 
They could not run apparently, so they hitched off in the 
same "woebegone and dejected manner as they had ap- 
proached. 'There was actually not enough spunk between 
them to put a curl in the tails that hung down perfectly limp 
and unkinked. 
I Lave heard of hogs following the trail of crippled wild- 
fowl on the marsh, but this is the first instance of their fol- 
lowing a scent that had ever come to my notice. They were 
truly a fine pair of "dead game sports." 
WiLMOT TOWNSEND. 
BLUE J AY CAMP. 
For months Sam and John had been planning a camp 
hunt for ruffed grouse (pheasants we call them). The 
fates seeming propitious, Monday, Oct. 26, was chosen for 
the trip. The place chosen was a wild locality, where the 
timber had been cut several years ago, and was about ten 
miles from Sam's house. As it was accessible by wagon, 
we were not forced to scrimp ourselves as to outfit. We 
took two tents, a sheet-iron stove for cooking on, an oil 
stove for use in the tent, boards for a bunk, a lot of straw 
for a bed and lots of blankets. One wall tent was used for 
a sleeping room and an A tent as a living tent. We in- 
tended the dogs to sleep in it, but they preferred the open 
air. 
Warren had volunteered to go along and tend camp, as 
he was not able to do much hunting; so he and his brother 
Jim took the wagon and outfit around by the road, while 
John hunted up the creek with his two dogs, Pard and 
Gleam; reaching the appointed place about 12:30 with five 
pheasants. As the boys had not yet arrived with the 
wagon, he looked around for a place to locate a camp. He 
found an ideal place across the creek, about 200yds. from 
the road, from which it was hidden by second-growth pine 
and hemlock trees. There was an old clearing of about 
three acres, perfectly level and dry, with plenty of wood 
and water handy. 
The boys arrived about 2 o'clock, and after cooking and 
eating dinner Jim returned with the wagon, and AVarren 
and John proceeded to set up the tents and get to house- 
keeping. This took them until nearly dark, but when 
they had finished they had the satisfaction of knowing 
that everything was in shape for comfort. 
The next morning they '*ere trying to choose a name 
for the camp, when a bluejay lit on the topmost twig of a 
big dead pine about 75yd3. from the tent. 
"That would be a nice shot for my Winchester," re- 
marked Warren. 
"You couldn't hit him in twenty shots," replied John. 
"Just see if I can't." So saying. Warren picked up his 
.38 Winchester, took a quick sight, and at the crack of the 
gun the jay bounced off the limb, and came tumbling to 
the ground. A fine shot. 
"Bluejay Camp," says John, "we'll have a christening 
when Sam comes." 
.lohn then tpok the old dog, Pard, and went for birds, 
while Warren washed the dishes and prepared a couple of 
birds for dinner. When John returned at 1 o'clock with 
a couple of pheasants he found Sam just arrived, he also 
having got a couple of birds on his way up. By the time 
the camp had been christened dinner was ready. The 
birds that Warren had cooked were so good (as were also 
our appetites) that after dinner we were more inclined to 
lie in the sun than take any violent exercise. After smok- 
ing our corn-cobs and resting, we started out about 3 
o'clock. Sam took his dog Tony and went up the north 
branch of the creek, where he found a bunch of birds 
among the little pines, and bagged a couple of them. One 
of them, which he crippled at the first rise, gave him a 
great chase up and down the side of the mountain before 
he finally captured it. 
John took the pup, Gleam, and went down the creek 
below camp, where he got stuck in a windfall where the 
big pines and hemlocks had overgrown with briers, laurels 
and pine and hemlock shrubs until it was impossible for 
anything without wings to get through. 
If there is anything exasperating it is to have a pheasant 
burst out of a tree above your head while you are attempt- 
ing to crawl under a fallen tree, and have a snag caught in 
your coat collar, a big brier gripping your ear and your gun 
tangled up in a laurel bush. He eiidn't have a feather to 
show when he got back to camp, but his temper seemed 
unruffled. "I'm used to it, you know," he said, and Gleam 
couldn't tell what actually had occurred down there in the 
windfall. 
In the forenoon following they hunted out a strip of 
woods where they had found birds plenty the year before, 
but did not find many, and those were very wild. They 
only brought in a couple. In the afternoon they went up 
the North Branch, where Sam found the covey the day be- 
fore. While going up an old timber road hedged on both 
sides with pine and hemlock shrubs, Tony flushed a bii'd 
ahead and just around a sharp turn in the road. Sam, who 
was ahead, made a break to get a shot as it crossed the 
road, but the bird turned and flew right in his face. See- 
ing him just as it was about to strike him, it nearly fell 
through itself as it set its wings and pitched into the hedge 
beside him. John maele a quick snap into the brush and 
knocked a wing off it. He retrieved it himself and Sam 
said he mouthed it badly, besides breaking shot. 
A little further along the dogs found a bunch of five or 
six birds down beside the creek, but the leaves were dry 
and noisy, and they all got away behind the pines before 
we could get a shot.~ 
After the birds were all gone, a black squirrel jumped, 
or fell, from a tree, striking the ground beside Sam, and 
made off on the ground. Sam shot at it^ but it ran up a 
big tree. While they were looking for it in the tree it fell 
to the ground dead. John declared it got dizzy and the 
fall killed it; said it had vertigo or something of "that kind, 
as that was the second time it had fallen from a tree in a 
few minutes. 
We retraced our steps to camp, Sam getting another 
bird on the way in, and arrived hungry and tired, as- 
usual. The next three days were put in in similar man- 
ner, and Sa,turday morning came too soon, when we had 
to break camp and return home. 
