Sept. 25 189^] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
245 
ment when I declined to take SchuKz's view of the case. 
I told him we were so near the top that we ought to go 
over now sure, and pointed out to him that it was surely 
pafer.up above the snow-shdes than it was below them- 
Moreover, I explained to him that I had bad a few thou- 
sands added to, my life insurance before I came on this 
trip, and maybe it would be a good thing for my folks if 
the snow-slide did catch me, as a live newspaper man 
never is worth much anyhow. At this Schultz giieved 
openly, saying that his folks had no one to look to but 
himself, and that he had no life insurance; so he thought 
we'd better go down. "Go down." said Schultz, "Go up," 
said I; and so we had it. And as we argued, blamed if 
she didn't let go, just up above us at the foot of the rock, 
and sent a little slide rippling and shuffling and rolling 
right down by us, the edge of the roll spreading well about 
as it widened below the big rock under which we lay upon 
the snow! This made eacli more determined in his 
position, Schultz that it was f^afer below, I that it inust 
surely be safer up stairs above such little avalanches as 
that we had ju.st seen. At last Schultz said he'd like to do 
anything on earth to oblige me, so with a sort of good bye- 
vain-world look on his im:e he left the cover of the rock 
and started up the pitch above us. And then she turned 
loose on the other side, and this time the roll of the snow 
spread well up to our knees as we stood on the shoes above 
the rock. Schultz made a few plunges and wallows, and I 
saw we could not make it further except by plunging 
through Ihe snow and not getting over it. A few more 
plungts, and Schultz said it could not he done, so we 
turned back, and chanced all sorts of snow-slips gettin" 
down over the face up which we had come, though I pre" 
surae that this was really the sensible thing to do. We 
were both tired and wet, not talkative when we got to the 
camp, which Boak had hxed up. but that worthy soon set 
us right with a cup of tea and a bite of beef and beans. 
McChesney and Kearney had a climb very much like 
ours, but with a shade more of success. They found that 
there were really goats wintering in this country, and 
struck the trail of eight or ten goats, finding where they 
bad been rooting around in the snow under the phort pine 
trees. They saw only one goat, a big Billy, which was 
fcalillly threading his way down the sharp rocks below 
thein, some SOOyds. distant, 'they tried to head him off 
and get a shot, and counted on getting him surelyj but the 
same fatality which had attended McGhesney all throu^^h 
the trip stayed with him still. The goat, instead of coming 
on up the ravine where he was expected, turned up a side 
coulee, and got above and away from the hunters while 
they were waiting for him to appear. This was too bad, 
for it did seem as though the coveted head ought to fall to 
Mae at last; and we were all sorry enough that the old goat 
had for once in a way showed a little cunning, and gone 
away from danger instead of into it, as sometimes they are 
about as apt to do as to try to escape. 
Damp NiKht In Camp 
That night we were all very wet, the damp quality of 
the snow making itself felt in this rolling and plunging 
about in it all day as we were forced to do iu the climbing 
Kearney was m et to the waist in spite of his rubber boots 
McChesney'H buckskin-topped rubbers were soaked like so 
much brown paper. My socks were getting a little tender 
from frequent dryings at a hot fire, and showed thin 
places through which the snow found ways. As I had no 
tops to my rubbers, and as the snow was now too wet to 
keep ont in that way, I went to work and sewed some can- 
vas tops to my rubbers, having by good fortune found a 
eail needle and bit of string in my war bag. This rig I 
found to be all right, and by wrapping my legs well in the 
wide canvas tops and lashing the wlioie with thongs, I 
found I had a very comfortable and dry footgear, soft and 
fit for shoeing and yet impervious to wet snow. 
We had had a warm day, a sort of Chinook, and that 
night It came on to storm in a most threatening way; first 
a heavy, blinding snow, then a change which turned it 
into rain. This was really serious. The lean-to we had 
made of boughs for the night's camp was all well enough 
for snow or wind, but it could not turn rain. If our blan- 
kets got wet we were in troubje, for the warm storm was 
sure to be followed by a cold one, and to lie out in winter 
w^ith wet blankets and wet clothes would be more than 
any of us cared to do. There was no escaping the situa- 
tion as It was, however, for we had nothing to make a roof 
of except our snowshoes, and they leak in a heavy rain 
McChesney was philosophical, Schultz a trifle gloomy" 
Kearney cheerful, and Boak openly hilarious. "All you 
•want to have is faith," said Boak; ' it ain't goin' to rain 
very much." Nor in point of fact did it, though it rained 
enough to start our roof to dripping; and the action of the 
fire on the damp snow kept up a pretty constant dribble 
over us all night long, or until the threatening change in 
the weather reached us. 
Again After Goats. 
The next morning was anything but mild. A terrible 
black storm settled down in the mountains and swept over 
our heads as we lay in camp, the wind roaring through the 
trees in anything but comforting fashion. We were twenty 
miles from a cover; it was getting very cold and very black 
in the mountains, and worst of all, we hadn't got that goat 
and only had part of a day to get him. At least, McChesney 
said he would have to start back that afternoon at latest 
though he wanted just one more try up there where they 
had seen the billy the day before. Bad enough was the 
prospect when we turner! out of our cheerless bivouac and 
Btarted out on our cheerless hunt. The wind, cold enough 
at the foot of the peak, was cutting in its intensity as we 
got up higher, and blew the flymg rift of icy powder almost 
into the skm whenever we were obliged to face it. Yet 
once more we found fresh goat trails, though once more we 
failed to find goats. The storm shut in worse and worse 
so that we could not hunt. If we had had a good dav we 
should have killed McChesney 's head that day, for we knew 
we were close to th& game, but as it was, the weather was too 
thick to see anything, and all knew it was useless to try to 
get a shot, for the game could smell further than we could 
see. Moreover, the goats that had been feeding low down 
among the trees at the timber line had now taken fright 
_at something and gone up to the high rocks. We thought 
possibly they had been troubled by the mountain lions, 
whose fresh tracks, made the previous night, covered the 
ide of the mountain where we hunted. We saw a great 
eal of lion sign in there, ^ut could do nothing mth the 
_ A httle after noon we all rounded up and concluded to 
give up the attempt to hunt, McChesney finally admitting 
his fate and accepting it like a very game sportsman He 
was sorry he had killed nothing," but this was his limit, 
and he had to get back to the railroad and start East as 
quickly now as possible. Therefore, at late afternoon of 
that day he and Schultz left us and pulled out for home- 
nor have I seen McChesney .since, though I hear from him' 
often by; letter, he always wanting to try that winter trip 
over again. 
Short Rations. 
We were now again nearly out of grub, and Schultz 
promised to come back at once and meet us with more 
meat and flour as soon as he had taken McChesney to the 
railroad. I had still a couple of davs available before the 
council at the agency, it being now Tuesdav, and the coun- 
cil date being set for Saturday following. I decided to use 
these last days in trying to get my goat, and next week I 
shall tell, m the last chapter of this long series, whether 
or not I did get him. I remember very distinctly that I 
felt very gloomy when McChe!=nev and Schultz turned 
down the trail on their long walk toward home. It 
was cold in camp, and we had no decent shelter 
for such weather. We were nearly out of food the 
beef being all gone except some scraps. We had a 
little sugar and plenty of tea, but outside of this we 
had nothing but a little bag of flour, and investigation 
proved that this had no baking powder in it. We had been 
baking: bannocks, or "dough-gods," as Boak called them, 
mining up. flour and water with salt and cooking the 
whole m the frying-pan, which made almost our only 
cooking utensil. At our last meal before our companions 
left us we had little to eat but dough-gods and tea, and 
thereafter it seemed we were to have nothing else 'until 
Schultz with the relief expedition got back to camp again. 
I am not especially fond of tea, and I don't like dough-gods 
as a steady diet, but in the winter and on a mountam hunt 
almost anything tastes good. Attempting to eat mv por- 
tion of this hard bread, I had the misfortune to break off" 
a tooth, and was assailed with a most abominable tooth- 
ache, one of the worst things that can strike a man when 
he 13 in the wilderness, where help or mitigation is im- 
possible. As I sat on the browse bed under the rude roof 
of our bough house, hungry, but with small prospect of 
anything to eat, with the cold wind screaming in the tree- 
tops, and with my companions vanishing down the trail 
in the thickening light of the storm, it did seem to me 
for the time that maybe I hadn't lost any goat after all, 
and I woiidered if I was reallv having a good' time. 
But then came Boak, with his steady cheerfulness and 
his watchword aboiit having faith. He told me to tie up 
my aching face, and he put on another pot of tea, and 
then, with a rough kindness which I shall never forget if 
I live to he 100 years of age, he came around to where I 
was sitting humped up, and pulled off my shoes and 
hunted up a dry pair of stockings, and told me to lie down 
on the blankets and holler if I wanted to, but to have 
faith. 
"I'll bet you any kind of money you kill a goat to-mor- 
row," said Boak. "We're in now to where they are, an' 
you've got to git him." 
Kearney, a very quiet man, and, as I had occasion to 
observe, a very good man in the mountains or about the 
camp, when asked what he thought was the probability of 
getting a goat, was, as usual, non-committal. Maybe we 
would get one, maybe not; but he thought the goats near our 
camp had now been disturbed, so that it would be harder 
to get them. If I could stand it to move camp a little 
further up, in between the two high peaks which appeared 
across the flat just over beyond us, he thought we would be 
sure of a goat, provided any were wintering on those peaks, 
as he thought very likely there were. If we stayed where 
we were we might get a goat, anyhow, but the chances were 
not so good. So, badly as we felt at our poor circum- 
stances, we three remnants of the party pulled out and up 
that evening, and, tired well-nigh to the limit of endur- 
ance, made camp aaain still nearer to what we took to be 
the home of the animal we wanted. It was another night 
under a bough shelter, with no tent, with not even proper 
food now, and one of us with a malady which bid fair to 
prevent his hunting on the morrow. AVe were not en- 
thusiastically happy when we went into the blankets that 
nigh t,_ and for my part, I slept but little. When the fire 
was high, I dreamed of places where it was warm and com- 
fortable, and when it had fallen low again, I dreamed that 
I was frozen and quite beyond all human aid. This, how- 
ever, was nothing but a dream. E. Hough. 
1206 BovcE BtjiLDWG. Chicago 
THE SENSE OF DIRECTION. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
YouE correspondent Shaganoss has aroused me to a sense 
of my duty as I see it. He has advanced a theorv in rela- 
tion to direction which I believe is full of error," because 
his conclusions are based on false premises. I trust he 
will not deem me guilty of egotism, if I claim the ability 
to correct some of his conclusions by pointing out his false 
premises. His interesting paper, "The Wild Animal In- 
stinct of Direction," contains a word that affects me as a 
red rag affects a bull. I refer to that equivocal, worn-out 
word, instinct. As applied to the lives of wild animals, 
it is such an elusive, meaningless term, that it seems a pity 
it should be used so often by writers on natural history. 
The word instinct savors of the supernatural, and was in- 
vented m ancient times to separate man from the brute, 
when the lower animals were supposed to lack reason. 
The word heredity is a far hetter word, for it renders in- 
telligible all of fact that the word instinct implies, without 
resorting to imagination and the supernatural. 
I can meet your correspondent on common ground in 
his theory that wild animals possess the power of direc- 
tion. I am a firm believer in the sixth sense, the sense fff 
direction. Your correspondent, if I understand him cor- 
rectly, believes that an animal, blindfolded and carried to 
a distance, would, in most cases, ttrike a bee line for home 
through the instinct of direction. I can neither under- 
stand or entertain such an idea. An occurrence of that 
kind would have to be classed with the miracles. The 
sense of direction, as I know it, does not imply a super- 
natural power. 
I believe that most animals possess the power to strike 
a bee line for home, after wandering for days through field 
or forest, not by the aid of a blind instinct, but through 
a sense of direction. The ability to keep the direction of 
home in mind, to never lose bearings whatever the sur- 
rounding conditions. But the animal must not be handi- 
capped by the loss of sight or any other sense. I claim 
that the sense of direction is dependent on the other 
senses, just as these senses are dependent on each other. 
Man posse.«ses the sense of direction in a marked de- 
gree. This I know from my own experience. I can 
tramp through a strange forest day after day and never 
lose my bearings. It is a sort of woodcraft that practice 
fosters. The sense of direction, for the most part, acts 
secretly and we are not aware the we are under its influ- 
ence unless our attention is attracted to results or sur- 
rounding conditions. 
Eleven years ago, when Magnolia Swamp was unknown 
to me, I wandered, or rather pushed my way, through its 
dense shrubbery from daylight till twilight in search or 
magnolia blossoms. It was a rainy dav, but I did not lose 
my bearings. As a fact, I did not think of direction more 
than two or three times during the day. After I retired 
that night my mind was engaged for some time in recall- 
ing the peculiar features of this strange swamp (the only 
swamp in the New England States where the Magnolia 
glaitca grows in a wild state) I found that I could recall 
a great amount of detail that had escaped my notice dur- 
ing my wanderings. This was no new experience, for I 
had often studie<l the phenomenon of the sense of direc- 
tion after a day in the forest. In recalling this day's work 
my memory brought out a mass of detail relating to the 
appearance of clumps and shrubbery, the direction taken 
when searching for new clumps, distances, etc., details 
that did not engage my thoughts at the time. Unknown 
to me, these minor things were registered on the brain. 
Through these involuntary impressions sense of direction 
is made possible. If the sportsman, after a day in the 
field or forest, will do some deep thinking, he will be 
surprised to find that he can make a fair map of his day's 
sport and bring to mind many minor details unthought-of 
before. 
It will now be understood that my sense of direction 
controls movement, or, to state the idea fairly, it is the 
province of the sense of sight to see, of hearing to hear, of 
feeling to feel and of the sense of direction to direct. All 
directed movements are registered on the brain and are of 
great assistance in defining bearings and locaUty. The 
untrained mind cannot separate movement from the five 
senses. If a waterfall is heard and approached, then hear- 
ing directs the footstepM. If an object is seen and ap- 
proached, then sight is the motive power, and so with the 
other senses. The error in this reasoning is evident when 
we learn that these senses have no connection with the 
muscled that control motion. We may see an object, but 
to approach it depends upon the will. The w'U may act 
directly upon the motor muscles, or it may register or ex- 
press its desire and the motor muscles will perform the 
work while will may be otherwise occupied. It is the 
capacity of the motor centers to intelligently perform the 
work parceled out by the will, which I claim constitutes 
the sense of direction. In the simple act of walking will 
is seldom in proof We walk automatically, but at the 
same time there is an intelligent control over the direction 
of our footsteps. What is this but the sense of direction? 
You may move to a strange city. Your business office 
may be a long distance from your residence. At first you 
employ a guide, but after a time you become familiar with 
the various streets, and act as your own guide. Later you 
may leave your doorstep engaged in a brown study and 
reach your office without a thought of a street, or knowl- 
edge of anything but the matter in your mind. Unknown 
to you, sight pointed out the landmarks, and the sense or 
direction did the rest. 
The sense of direction, as I understand it, is the power 
that controls movement when will is not employed. 
The writers and lecturers on "Body and Mind" are all 
agreed on one point— that there are motor centers outside 
the brain that may act independently of the will while 
obeying its orders. On this theory I base the sixth sense, 
because it is impossible to explain intelligent movement 
by any other mode of reasoning. 
I believe that wild animals possess the sense of direction 
to a degree that makes some of their acts appear to us to 
enter the domain of the supernatural. The circumstances 
which surround their lives necessitate the cultivation of a 
sense of direction. It is the evolution of a want. 
I have given my i^^eas of a sixth sense for what they are 
worth, and now refer the whole question to the readers of 
EoEEST AND Stkeam, knowing that it will receive intelli- 
gent consideration. 
I hope I have made my meaning plain. I have endeav- 
ored to do so without making use of hair-splitting technical 
terms. 
Now,if Shaganoss will dve me his impartial attention 
I really think that I can convince him that some of his 
conclusions are wrong because his premises are false. He 
concludes that birds are endowed with a supernatural gift, 
which he calls "instinct of direction," because of the mys- 
tery of migration. He writes: 
"That the migratory birds, when the time comes for mi- 
gration, do not have to stop and think which way they 
will go. They just get up and go. They maybe fright- 
ened and become confused, as by being frequently shot at, 
but once 'beyond the danger line,' their instincts regain 
control, and they will resume their journey in a direct line 
for their ultimate destination, and that, too, without stop- 
ping to think which is the right way." 
If this were true. If birds could launch themselves into 
the air and go South without thought, and if turned aside 
miraculously regain their course without a thought as to 
the right way, then indeed would I be forced to admit the 
supernatural, to acknowledge that the days of miracles 
were not past, but I should be a miserable being the rest 
-of my days. It would upset all my preconceived ideas of 
Dame Nature and her laws. 
Eeally, friend Shaganoss, before we resort to miracles to 
explain migration, would it not be well turn to natural 
laws— laws that are explained by intelligent thought 
ought to decide such questions. 
I have ever found the birds as intelligent in relation to 
the needs of their lives as we are to our lives. Migration 
is not an exception to the rule. 
If man mitjrates he does so intelligently. Why not grant 
to birds the same factilty? 
