284 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Oct. 9, 1897. 
where some old lumber camps had been burned. Several 
big deer trails led to it, an'^ the ground was literally- 
hashed up with tracks. It looked as if a herd of deer had 
been spending the summer there. Martin, L. and I reached 
this spot at dark, and seating ourselves on some charred 
logs awaited developments, of which there were several. 
First came the punkies, something less than a million of 
them; but a liberal application of tar-oil on our hands and 
faces stopped their fun. Then a pair of "saw-file" owls 
discovered us, and flitted about, squeaking their disap- 
proval of our presence. A hedgehog wheezed and grunted 
in the raspberry bushes; then there came a sharp rustle in 
the thicket, and the child-like scream of a rabbit proclaimed 
a nocturnal tragedy, in which a fox was probably the heavy 
villain. Finally the moon, which had been struggling 
through the clouds on the horizon, shone out in sudden 
splendor, and the whole face of nature changed. The inky 
brook became a stream of silver, the charred logs and 
stumps of the old lumber camp assumed strange fantastic 
shapes, and the gloom of the forest gave place to a subdued 
glory, which softened the rugged outlines of the hills and 
bathed the hemlocks and spruces in its gentle flood. 
Surely it could not have been intended that men should 
sleep on such a night as that ! 
Our admiration of moonlight effects was interrupted by 
a cracking of twigs on the other side of the brook, a 
sound which every still-hunter knows, and which makes 
his blood leap. But just as we were expecting to see a 
deer come into the open, a succession of loud snorts in- 
formed us only too plainly that his antlered majesty had 
winded us and would never show himself. He made 
noise enough for a whole herd of deer, blowing holes in 
the atmosphere and smashing around in the brush until, 
as Martin said, it sounded as if there were "half a dozen 
Frenchmen in there clearing up land." Convinced that 
such a racket would drive all the deer in the vicinity to 
another county, we started up the trail for camp. 
The natives in the Adirondacka have a way of utilizing 
old wood roads wherever they can, to save the trouble of 
cutting out trails; and as these roads are almost invariably 
on the lowest land, and only intended for use in the win- 
ter, when everything is frozen solid, they make the worst 
possible trails for the hunter, being boggy, overgrown with 
bushes, and full of low stumps and exposed roots. Bad at 
any time, their general cussedness is best realized at night. 
The Stony Brook trail is no exception to this rule, and 
when we got back to camp, after midnight, covered with 
numerous concentric layers of mud, and with a few square 
inches of skin missing from our legs, we decided that it 
was violating the spirit of the law to attempt to kill deer 
with the moon for a jack — especially on Stony Brook. 
Besides we didn't need a deer anyway. That night I 
dreamed of falling out of the top of a hemlock tree and 
being impaled on the sharp stubs of a dead spruce, which 
sank with me out of sight in the soft ooze of an Adiron- 
dack wood road. 
Just before daylight I woke Martin, and we went down 
to the lake to see if anything was stirring. It was still too 
dark for me to see distinctly, and when Martin, pointing 
to the farther shore, said, "There's a deer over in the 
cove," I could not at first make it out, although I had 
always prided myself on my eyesight. I presume, how- 
ever, that as Martin is partly nocturnal in his habits, he 
can see all right in night. We got carefully into the boat 
and headed for a point toward which the deer was feed- 
ing. Every time its head was raised we were motionless, 
and when it was lowered again the boat seemed to make 
noiseless leaps toward the shore. It was as pretty a piece 
of paddling as I ever expect to see. As we neared the 
dusky figure of the deer I found myself getting 
"Wild with all the fierce commotion 
And the rapture of the hunting." 
Suddenly the deer lifted its head, craned its neck toward 
us, and then looked toward the woods. A slight shake of 
the boat admonished me that there was no time to lose, 
and, holding just back of the shoulder, I "unhitched." 
With a mighty bound the deer cleared the bushes skirt- 
ing the shore and disappeared before I could get in 
another shot. "That's our meat," said Martin, and when 
I expressed some doubts, "You'll see," was the laconic 
response. We landed, and entering the swamp found "our 
meat" within 30yds. of the water, stone dead. I was very 
sorry to find that it was a doe, but my disappointment was 
tempered by the fact that she was dry and had no fawns 
dependent upon her. It was also a satisfaction to find 
that'the lead had been placed exactly where I had in- 
tended, and there was considerable comfort in having the 
meat supply assured so early in the game. 
At 5:15 the deer was hanging in front of the camp, and 
while Martin was preparing to celebrate the occasion with 
a breakfast of liver and onions I put the seventh notch on 
the stock of the good old Marlin. 
The camera was brought into play, and the first deer of 
the season was made a matter of record. The camera is 
indeed a most valuable adjunct to the camp outfit, enabling 
one to bring the woods and waters home with him, so to 
gpeak; giving to many a wild spot, where the foot of man 
has never trod, "a local habitation and a name"; furnish- 
ing endless themes for conversation and reminiscence, and 
incidentally revealing some of the facts and secrets of the 
wilderness to skeptical friends, whose experience of the 
woods consists of viewing it from the porches of the big 
hotels. 
In another paper I shall attempt to give a further ac- 
count of our adventures and successes, hoping it may give 
to others as much enjoyment as their articles in the col- 
umns of FoBBST AND Stkeam confer upon me. 
Akthuk F, Eige. 
Passaic, N. J. 
"Uncle Lisha's Outing," 
By Rowland E. Robinson, is now ready ia an attractively 
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counting the homely adventures of those Danvls Folks with 
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or your dealer will supply you. 
THE NATIVE AMERICAN HUNTER. 
I.— Buffalo Killing by the Cheyennes. 
As told by White Hawk. 
In presenting an account of the methods by which the 
Primitive American Hunter captured the animals on which 
he lived, and of the ceremonial which often accompanied 
this capture, some introduction is needed. At best it is dif- 
ficult for the civilized person to comprehend how the savage 
exists, but when this savage ia the man of the Stone Age, 
the ta-'k of putting one's self in his place becomes doubly 
hard. 
The American of the Western plains was, as a rule, a meat- 
eater, and depended for subsistence on the flesh of the wild 
animals who shared with him the country which he inhab- 
ited. These animals furnished him food, clothing, shelter, 
and, in large measure, the implements which he used in the 
vocations of his daily life. Unless he captured them, and in 
sufficient numbers, death by starvation must be his lot. 
Something of the difhculties that the Primitive Indian had to 
face I have endeavored to show ia my boik, entitled "The 
Story of the Indian," from which a few paragraphs may be 
quoted : 
•'It is ditHcult for us who dwell among the civilized sur- 
roundings of this age, to realize how severe was the struggle 
for existence of primitive man in America; what the condi- 
tion of the Indian was in the days before the white man had 
come, bringing with him firearms which kill at a distance, 
and horses which can overtake the buffalo. To comprehend 
this we must stop and think, trying to move ourselves some 
centuries back to the time of the stone age, when the people, 
wholly without knowledge of metal, slew with weapons 
made of flint the wild beasts on which they subsisted, and 
moved from place to place on foot, carrying their simple 
possessions on their backs or on the dog travois. 
"In those days the securing of daily food must have been 
a difficult matter for many tribes, and the laying up of 
provisions for the future doubly hard. The great beasts, so 
easily slaughtered by the rifle or even by the iron-headed 
arrow, shot into them at close range by a mounted man, 
must have been well-nigh invulnerable to the stone-headed 
arrow. The tough, thick hide, covered with a close mat of 
fur, presents resistance to the keen edge of a modem knife, 
and could have been pierced only by the best arrows of that 
day shot at very short range ; and if the Careful hunter crept 
close enough to drive the blunt-headed shaft deep into the 
body, the great best, irritated by the prick of the puny dart, 
instead of running away, might turn to fight the one who 
had injiu'ed it. Often, no doubt, the man kept out of sight 
and shot arrow after arrow into it, for there was no sound 
to alarm it, and it could not tell whence the hurt came; but 
let the animal learn the cause of this pain and the man was 
in great danger, for a wounded buffalo was a terrible antag- 
onist, swift of foot, resistless in power, only to be avoided 
by the exercise of that cunning which has ever given man 
the mastery over the brute. In that age of stone the contest 
between wild man and wild beast was not an unequal one. 
The beast was the stronger, the quicker, the better armed 
of the two. Man's advantage lay altogether in his intelli- 
gence. 
"Long before the time of the bow and arrows, there must 
have been a day when for these men — the ancestors of the 
Indians whom we know — the capture of such a great animal 
as the buffalo was an impossibility, a thing altogether beyond 
their power to compass, and not to be contemplated ; a time 
when the food of the people consisted of the fruits of the 
earth and the small animals, those which are so numerous, 
so timid, and so lacking in craft and wariness, that even 
feeble man, armed only with his club — the first weapon — 
could circumvent them, In some of the tribes there still 
persist traditions of those earliest times, when arms — the bow 
and arrow, the shield and lance— were unknown, and many 
of the practices of those ancient times have endured even to 
the present day. 
"Since his armament was so inelBcient as to make the cap- 
ture of game at all times uncertain, and since the effort to 
secure it was often attended with ilanger, it must early have 
occm-red to the Indians to devise, for capturing food in quan- 
tity, some method which should be more certain and more 
safe than the bow and arrow. The problem was long pon- 
dered over, and the first steps toward solving it, no doubt, 
took the direction of improving the traps and snares' which 
they employed for the capture of the smaller animals; and 
the evolution of the pen with the extended wings, into 
which the buffalo or antelope were brought and captured 
whole herds at a time, was slow. On the other hand, 
in those early, as in more modem, days, the Indian's 
whole study was the animals among which he lived. Con- 
stantly engaged in watching them, and trying to learn how 
they would act under particular conditions, he knew their 
habits better than he knew anything else. Long before the 
traps, so successfully used, weie devised, he must have 
known of the existence in buffalo and antelope of that curi- 
osity which made the trap feasible, and which, to the ani- 
mals, proved so self -destructive." 
In different books that I have published on the Indian I 
have described some of the methods by which some tribes of 
Indians captured their game, but in these papers I shall refer 
only to some of the ways of the Cheyennes, a tribe whose 
migrations brought them less than 225 years ago to the plains 
of the West and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. 
What their original starting point was is not well determined, 
though the investigations of Mooney and others show that 
they came from some point east of the Mississippi River." 
This is the way in which the old men tell us that the buf- 
falo were captured in ancient times, the narrator being 
White Hiwk, It is to be remembered that the evolution of 
these different deyices was no doubt slow, and that no mem- 
ory of this process would remain among the Indians. Tra- 
dition would tell them that at different periods in the tribal 
history different methods of capture were employed. This 
being the extent of their knowledge, it is very natural that 
they should attribute the devising of improved methods to 
dreams — in other words, to supernatural assistance or ad- 
vice. Lilje most primitive peoples the Indians are firm be- 
lievers in dreams. Like the prophets of old, they often 
recived in sleep suggestions from supernatural sources — 
were warned in a dream. Such visions — the Indian says — 
are sent us to tell us what is going to happen, and the advice 
which they convey must be obeyed. 
Qeokgk Bmx) Qkinnell. 
White Hawk's Relation. 
In those days the arrow point was made of stone. There 
were birds, and so they got feathers for their arrows so that 
they would fly straight. Men were out from the camp all 
the time looking for food. When any of these men found a 
herd of buffalo," twenty or thirty or forty, they would come 
back to the camp and "report to the chief. Then all who had 
bows and arrows would get ready, and go with these men to 
near where the buffalo were, and would form a big circle as 
far off as possible from the buffaloj but entirely surrounding 
them. The side of the circle to the leeward of the buffalo 
and the two other sides across the wind were formed first. 
The windward side was formed last. Then the people would 
bagin to close in on the buffalo, until, as the circle grew 
smaller, the people would be closer together. When the 
buffaloes began to smell the people, they would run away; 
but those toward whom they ran would would yell and toss 
their robes, and the buffalo would turn, looking for another 
place, and from being always turned back they were soon 
running ia a circle. When the people got pretty close, all 
those who had stroag arms to pull the bow and who could 
shoot straightest and the most ac'ive young men would 
charge in among the buffalo and begin shooting their arrows 
at them, while the buffalo were running round in a circle, 
not trying to break through the line of the people. The old 
men say that sometimes they would kill a whole herd in this 
way, none of them breaking out. At times a few would 
break out and get away, but often thev killed them all. 
The people had dogs, and when buffalo were skinned and 
cut up they packed meat on their dogs, and then every man, 
woman and child able to walk would carry a pack to camp. 
They left nothing behind, but carried everything in. Even 
the bones were carried in, and the entrails, for buffalo were 
hard to get and were only had occasionally, so nothing was 
wasted or left. 
Later, after they had learned to surround the buffalo in 
this way, some old man was told in a dream of another and 
better way. That he should take the wing of some large 
bird, perhaps an eagle and perhaps some other big bird, and 
that the people should take their lodges up on to the prairie 
and pitch them in a circle, leaving an opening it one side. 
When the buffalo were close, two old men, each carrying 
one of these large wings, should go out toward the buffalo 
and wave the wings in the air, beckoning to the animals, and 
that these would come toward them. They did this, and as 
the buffalo came toward them, the men moved away and the 
buffalo followed, and so the men led them right into the cir- 
cle of the lodges, where the people killed them all. The 
buffalo seem to be gentle and would not run, but would 
stand about, waiting to be killed. 
In later times, another man had a dream about this. His 
dream said to him: "You shall take your people and have 
them make a large pen out of wood and brush, with a gap 
in one side, and a chute with diverging wings running out 
half a mile into the prairie, a solid fence which shall hide 
the people from the buffalo. Then you shall take certain 
young men of the camp and go out with them on to the 
prairie and you can bring the buffalo into this pen." 
The man had the people build the pen and the wings as he 
had been told, and took his young men and told them what 
to do and went out and led the buffalo into the pen without 
any trouble. After that they could always go out and bring 
them. 
Before they set out to bring the buffalo, the old man told 
his young men to strip naked down to their moccasins, and 
to paint their faces, arms, legs and bodies red all over with 
red dirt. The medicine man and another old man, each 
carrying a wing, went before the painted men singing their 
mysterious songs. The painted young men were divided 
into two ( qual parties, and followed these two old men, be- 
hind them and outside of them, on either side. When the 
old men got near the buffalo, they beckoned to them with 
the wings, and soon the buffalo began to come toward them. 
When they began to come, the old men walked toward the 
chute in front of the buffalo, and on either side of them, but 
a long way off, walked the two parties of painted young 
men. The young men did not sing, but if at any time the 
buffalo tried to turn aside from following the old men, 
in either direction the young men held their hands 
up to heaven and waved them in a certain way, and 
the buffalo turned back. When the old men had 
led the buffalo in between the wings, the opening into 
the chute was filled by the medicine man's companion 
and by the two parties of painted men who stood on either 
side of him in the gap, and all sung. The young men who 
had been chosen to do the killing had been hidden behind 
the walls of the chute, and after the buffalo had passed them 
they climbed over this fence and followed them, hurrying 
them into the pen. While they did the killing, the painted 
men stood there at the gap of the chute, and kept on singing 
until all were killed. 
When the buffalo that were following the two men who 
called them with the wings, got near the gap into the pen, 
the medicine man walked a little to one side of the entrance 
into the pen, still singing and waving his wing toward the 
entrance, and the buffalo walked right in. Then, while the 
young men walked up and formed a line in the entrance, the 
medicine man walked along the fence, and outside of it 
around the pen to the back opposite the entrance He stood 
at the back of the pen and sung his mysterious songs all the 
time while i hey were kiUing the buffalo, and when they were' 
through killing he sat down on the ground and stayed there 
till they had finished the skinning and cutting up and had 
taken the meat all home to camp. 
The best pieces of the meat were selected for the men who 
called the buffalo, and the painted men had the privilege of 
going into the pen and selecting for themselves the next best 
portions of the meat. 
T?ie Forest akd 8the.4M is put to press each week on luesday 
Cortespondence intended for publication should reach v,s at tb,« 
otest by Monday, md «s much €«r{^er.a« pract^eoiWe, 
