282 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[ApRiii 10, 1897. 
TALES TOLD BY THE CAMP-FIRE.— IH. 
BY AMATETJE. 
CContinued from page 3680 
The next night one of our number said: "Boys, I feel 
moyed by the story told last night to give you another tale 
of some of the men named. 
"Old Nosey was a medicine man of his tribe, most of 
whom were carried oflF by smallpox, and the survivors 
united with another tribe of the same blood, by which they 
lost their tribal name and became consolidated and com- 
mingled with that into which they entered. Nosey lost 
his standing as a medicine man, or would have done so 
had he gone into the larger tribe, whose medicine men re- 
mained the medicine men of the consolidated tribes, and 
Nosey would have been simply an old brave. There were 
only about twenty or thirty braves of Nosey's tribe left to 
enter the kindred tribe, besides some squaws and children. 
Nosey's pride forbade his giving up the position of medi- 
cine man, and having no kindred he came from what is 
now West Virginia down into Pennsylvania, into Greene 
county, and lived there as a privileged character among the 
whites for some twenty years or more. J. have seen his 
grave and the tombstone erected by our friend's grand- 
father to his memory. Nosey was a powerful man among 
the Indians down to his death and a man of great intelli- 
gence, and in his way a man of learning. The token of 
his tribe was the bear, and the token of the tribe into 
which his remnant were adopted was the raccoon. His 
influence was always exerted for peace on the part of the 
Indians in their dealings with the whites. I had occasion 
to look all this up several years ago. 
"The Engles were Germans, or Dutchmen, I think, per- 
haps from Holland. There were several Ezra Engles. 
Old Ezra Engle settled near where Wheeling, W. Va., is 
now, and was a gunsmith there; he settled there very 
3ft. Ezra IV. claimed to know how to make a rifle, as he 
said, 'self-cleaning,' that is that never required cleaning, 
and there was a peculiarity in this respect about his guns. 
I have seen them that loaded as easily after the one hun- 
dredth shot as after the first. His locks always had steel 
pans, and he possessed a method whereby he entirely pre- 
vented burning out at the breech, and enlargement of the 
touch hole through long use. No man ever saw a gun 
made by Ezra Engle IV. with a bushed touch-hole or an 
enlarged breech. 
"Barnes Engle believed that the more grooves there are 
in a rifle the better. He also claimed to be able to make 
a self-cleaner sometimes, but not at will. He believed in 
the gain or increase twist reversed. I have seen rifles 
made by him with twelve grooves, and they were great 
shooters. Barnes Engle followed his brother Ezra IV. in 
this that he used a copper fore sight, and set it into the 
barrel tight and fast, without any base.* 
"Ezra Engle IV. married Charity, the sister of our friend's 
grandfather, and Ben Wood married Patience, another 
sister; while Isaiah Jones, the powder-maker, married 
Bathsheba, a third sister. When Ben Wood and Patience 
were married, Ezra Engle IV. brought a very handsome 
new silver-mounted rifle to the wedding, and gave it to 
Wood as a present. The gun in that day was no doubt 
worth at least $75. When Engle oflfered the gun to Wood 
old Nosey was in the room, and came hastily up and said: 
" 'Ben no take um. Gun much heap bad medicine. Ben 
have bad luck, all heap bad luck. White squaw bad luck. 
White squaw no let Ben take um gun.' 
"Ben Wood, however, accepted the gun, and the occur- 
rence was forgotten. They lived together, Wood and his 
wife, for several years, but had no child. One day Wood 
came in and took up the gun, saying a turkey was gob- 
bling in the woods and he was going out to shoot it. He 
went, but soon returned, saying something was wrong with 
his gun; that it had flashed in the pan every time, and he 
had failed to get the turkey. He was about to unbreech 
his gun when Patience said, 'You'd better take the gun 
over to Ezra, and get him to see what ails it,' 
THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE, 
early, I'm not sure of the year. His son Ezra was a gun- 
smith also, and went up the Ohio River and settled near 
where Pittsburg now is. These Engles all named their 
first-born sons Ezra and taught them the trade. Old Ezra, 
or Ezra I. (for he is the first of whom we have any knowl- 
edge), was a man at least thirty, maybe forty, years old 
when he settled near Wheeling. Ezra II., who settled 
near Pittsburg, was a man grown, and had a son Ezra, a 
gunsmith, of course; he was Ezra III. and came into 
Greene county. Pa., as it is now, and settled, teaching his 
son, Ezra IV., the trade, and Ezra IV. is he of whom we 
heard last night. Ezra IV. had a brother, Barnes, to whom 
he himself taught the trade, because he had no child until 
late in life, and he violated the family tradition by giving 
the. trade to his brother. 
"The Engles all manufactured their own gun barrels, 
bored them and rifled them, and each had his own partic- 
ular place to mark his initials. Ezra I. put his initials on 
the end of the barrel, the flat end just over the bullet 
hole. Ezra II. marked his barrels just in front of the fore 
sight toward the muzzle. Ezra III. marked his barrels 
just in front of the hind sight, and Ezra IV. marked his 
just behind the hind sight, while Barnes Engles's barrels 
are always marked on the side, so that a portion of the 
letters B' E. in script is covered by the stock, and the point 
between the letters is always exagtly under the hind 
sight. 
"Ezra IV. made a trigger action for his guns different 
from any that I have ever seen; he was the only one of 
the Engles that used it, and seems to have invented it. 
As our friend said last night, by means of a screw it 
can be set for a very heavy trigger pull or to go at a touch. 
"Engle guns may be found scattered through Greene, 
Eayette and Washington counties in Pennsylvania, and in 
the counties of West Virginia which border on the Penn- 
sylvania line, and their maker can always be known by 
the position of the initial, as I have given it. These old 
guns have nearly always been changed to percussion locks. 
"The Engles each had a diff'erent system of rifling their 
gun barrels. Ezra I, thought that no gun shot so well as one 
with only two grooves, and they very deep. Ezra II. 
was of the same opinion, but made the twist of his guns 
the reverse of the usual direction. Ezra III, used six 
grooves, while Ezra IV. thought no gun shot so well as one 
with four grooves, very deep, reverse twist, and one com- 
plete turn in a 3ft. barrel; but most of his guns that I have 
leep have eight grooves, a reyeyse twist, a full turn in 
"This was three or four miles, however, and Wood said 
he could look after it himself. He unbreeched the gun 
and took out some loose powder, and then tried to drive 
the bullet out, but could not move it. Then he put the 
breech into the bright wood embers on the hearth, with 
the intention of melting out the bullet, though Patience 
told him he would likely ruin the barrel. After the gun 
had been in the fire a short time he took it out and held 
it up to look at the barrel, when just as he had got it in 
position a report came, and Ben Wood fell back in his 
chair with a bullet in his brain through his right eye. 
Our friend's relatives, who lived near, came hurrying in, 
and found Patience in convulsions and Wood sitting dead 
in the chair. Her brother Een and Ezra Engle both ex- 
amined the gun and said there had been two loads in it, 
and the bullet of the first load had acted as a breech pin 
and enabled the discharge of the second load. Patience 
recovered sufficiently to tell them what had occurred, but 
became worse and died that same night, and she and her 
husband, with their prematurely born baby, were buried 
in the same grave. 
"Old Nosey came to the house the day after Patience 
died, and asked to see their bodies. After looking at them 
awhile he said; 'Poor Ben! Poor white squaw! No do 
what Nosey tell um; think Nosey, ole Injun, know nothin' 
when he say, "Gun bad medicine. No take um." ' 
"Our friend's grandfather was standing by and said: 
'Nosey, you were right. The gun was bad medicine. 
What must be done with it?' 
"Nosey replied: 'Put um on stock, all together, and put 
gun and powder horn and bxiUet pouch, all just as he am, 
in same box with Ben, at him right side, with muzzle of 
gun toward Ben's feet, and gun cocked, an' put um all in 
ground together, an' leave um there. Gun much heap bad 
medicine, but you do um so as old Nosey say. Bad medi- 
cine no kin hurt. You not do um so, gun kill some more, 
and kill um till he put in ground as old Nosey say.' 
"There was a consultation among the members of the 
family, and the gun was buried as old Nosey had di- 
rected. 
"Some time after this Ezra Engle IV. sold out, and went 
to Missouri some time after 1815 and settled at what is 
now, and I believe then was, Cape Girardeau. He had no 
children until late in life, when a son was born, whom he 
named Ezra, and taught his own trade. I saw Ezra Engl© 
* paraes Engle died between 1880 and 1890.— WiirrBii's notj;. 
V. at his home in Cape Girardeau, and from him I learned 
these particulars and many more. He has put out many 
fine guns, and, like all the family, has notions of his own. 
He uses the peculiar action of trigger that his father in- 
vented, and copper front sights. He believes that for a 
rifle that runs 100 round bullets to the pound the barrel 
should be exactly 3ft. long inside; for larger balls shorter, 
and for smaller balls longer. He also claims to be able to 
make a self-cleaning gun at will, and believes in using the 
hardest steel barrels obtainable. Another of his notions 
is a three-groove gun, and he thinks the grooves should 
be shaped like a V, the wide part at the bore, and 
running to a point, in any rifle. He told me, however, 
that he usually turns out fom'-groove guns with gain twist 
reversed." 
THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE. 
When the leaves turn brown and the gusty wind sends 
them whirling to form at last a noisy carpet for the frozen 
earth, memory takes wing and flies away to a clime where 
winter is a glorious reality, a stanch friend of no uncertain 
disposition. My brethren of the sunny South, my friends 
of the treeless prairies, did you ever follow a deer track 
through 6in. of snow amid the music of the pines? Let me 
show you a few pictiarea from the gallery of my recollec- 
tion, pictures which will ever grow brighter and more dis- 
tinct as time swings on. 
In the far-away woods of the Northern State which was 
my boyhood home there was and yet is a great rambling 
house, half log, half frame, on the shore of a lake in a val- 
ley among the hills. 
Those who have sat by the great fireplace will never, so 
long as life lasts, forget the hospitality and cheer that 
were warmer than the glowing fire. They will remember 
the hearty tenor voice, now still in death, which used to 
sing: 
"And there I'm gwine to live and die. 
In the little log cabin in the dell." 
Perhaps, late in the evening, the poultry ih the barri- 
caded hen house would set up a tremendous cackling — evi- 
dence that Mr. Fox, the sneak, was tr-ying to find a breech 
in the palisade which protected the chickens. Then the 
lop-eared hound would go to the door and whine, eager to 
take part in the disturbance. But Ave all knew that the 
wooden ramparts were secure. 
The nearest other house was twelve miles away, but 
from the very door, looking out on the borders of the lake, 
I have counted the snowy tops of more than 100 muskrat 
habitations, where, snug and cosy, the little animals defied 
the storm and cold. 
It seems to me that every right-minded man would pre- 
fer to have a muskrat city to look at than to own a hun- 
dred town houses. 
' And then besides that, there were the ducks that used 
to come in hundreds to feed on the wild rice at the far 
end of the lake, two miles from the house. Oh, but wasii't 
it fun to hide in the rushes and fool 'em with five or six 
wooden ducks that had their bills knocked off" and one 
without any head because the horse had stepped on it one 
day. 
Back from the lake half a mile was the eagle's nest, 
pl'etty nearly as big as a grocer's wagon and getting bigger 
every year. It used to seem wonderful how those birds 
could drag up the big sticks they put into the nest. 
Sometimes at night two or three wolves would get to- 
gether on the other side of the lake and howl. Do you 
think the effect of a wolf chorus is depressing? Now let 
me tell you that since then I have heard about all the 
finest music there is, and music is a lovely thing — the 
sweetest intangible thing on earth. But if 1 were com- 
pelled to choose between chances — if it was one thing or 
the other — ^and I could only have the one, knowing what 
I do now, I should say "good-by to the Kneisel quartet, 
the Boston symphony orchestra, Yeaye, Paderewski and 
all the rest of them; let me go back to that farmhouse 
among those wild hills; and when I step to the door on a 
moonlit night to get a drink of water out of the tin 
dipper from the bucket on the shelf outside the doorway, 
let me hear again floating across the still lake through the 
frosty air the friendly voices of the wolvep." 
It makes me laugh now to remember how those forest 
vagabonds would shut up their jaws and "make their 
sn^ak" when the farm dogs would tune up in reply. The 
dogs knew enough to let the wolves alone, though, gener- 
ally. The Northern timber wolf, who looked about 4ft. 
high — as I remember him — was a bad man for a dog to 
tackle generally. 
But perhaps you think there wasn't any other fun in 
that country besides the music! That is where you are 
mistaken. I'll tell you a few. 
In the stream fed by the lake was an Old dam — built 
years before bj' the lumbermen — and the vicinity of that 
dam was the scene of many joyous memories, winter and 
summer. In the spring the big pool below was full of 
