§4^ 
P6mfi§t Ant) stRfiA: 
[Oct. 30, 189?. 
thE NATIVE AMERICAN HUNTER. 
IV.— HOW THESE HUNTERS SUFFERED. 
This is the story not of a hunting party, but of a war 
party. Yet these men made no war, and did much hunt- 
ing, not because they wished to, but to keep themselves 
alive. The narrative gives a true notion of the endurance 
of the Indian in old times, and of the suffering that he 
often underwent. Such misfortunes as this party met 
with might happen to any group of men who set out to 
travel. 
The events here related took place forty years ago last 
autumn — ^in 1857. The story was told me by White Bull. 
This party started out from the mouth of Lodge Pole 
Creek, on the South Platte Siver. There were twenty- 
eight of them, all on foot, going to take horses. "White 
Bull was the leader. They went into theUte country, into 
the mountains. It was in the autumn, when the leaves 
were just beginning to fall, and in the mountains it had 
alreadV begun to snow a little. 
They went on up between the South Platte and the 
Arkansas, following up between the mountains until thej'^ 
got into South Park. There they found where some XJtes 
had camped lately, and it looked as if they had been gone 
only a couple of days. It had snowed a little in the 
morning, so that the ground was covered, and they built 
up a war lodge, which was also a kind of fort, and thought 
that they would look about to see if they could find any 
trail, and then come back and sleep there. They did so. 
The next morning they scattered out to go to all the 
high points, so as to see what they could discover. Two 
of the men found the Ute trail, where the lodges had 
moved along. They followed it on to the next creek, and 
found where the Utes had camped, two lodges of them. 
They had moved away that same morning. They had 
been there the same niaht that the Cheyennes had 
camped in the park. The two young men went back and 
reported what they had seen. It now began to snow. 
When all had got in and had heard what these two had 
found, White Bull said to his young men: ''I think we would 
better go on now to this Ute camp that we have found." 
They did so. Just a little way from the camp there was a 
projecting ledge of rock. _ It was still snowing hard, so 
under this ledge they built a lire and stayed there all 
night. It snowed all that night and all the next day and 
all the next night, taut the next morning it cleared up. 
During all this time, from the day when they had entered 
the Park, they had had nothing to^eat. They bad been 
starving for four days. 
That morninc AVhite Bull took hiagun and went out to 
try to kill something to eat, a deer or some other animal. 
The snow was so deep that he did not go very far. He 
found no game, and pretty soon he went up on a hill 
and sat down there, and for some time he sang his war 
song, and then sang his medicine song, to try to bring 
something to help them. Nothing came, and he went 
back to the camp and went in under the rocks, where all 
were waiting for him. He said to tbem, "1 can find 
nothing to kill, and it is my opinion that we would better 
try to go home. There is no game here, and we are likely 
to starve to death. If we go on further and find the camp 
of the enemy and take their horses, we cannot get home 
with them because the snow is so deep; therefore, we had 
better try to go home now." All agreed to this, and they 
started on the trail back toward their home, leaving this 
camp about the middle of the day. They traveled on for 
about half the afternoon, but the snow was so deep and 
the men got so tired, that White Bull said to them: "Now 
we are all tired out, and we are, all getting wet in the snow; 
let us turn around and go back to our old camp, and take 
the chances that some game may come to us." They did 
this, and spent the night at their old camp. 
Early in the morning White Bull Went out and found a 
place where many cherry bushes grew. He cut a lot of 
the limbs of these bushes and brought them into the 
camp. Then he sent some of his young men out to get 
snow and melt it by the fire and told them that they 
must unplait their rawhide ropes; then he made a frame 
of the cherry brush, and with the strands of the lariat he 
made a snowshoe, and then they all made snowshoes and 
on these they started home. 
They walked easily with the snowshoes, but they could 
not go very far in a day. All they bad to eat was the 
buds of the rose bushes sticking up through the snow 
along the creek. They went on for eighteen days, eating 
Dothmg but such buds as they could gather. On the 
eighteenth night they camped at a place where a big pine 
tree had fallen and its limbs had broken oflT, and they 
built a fire against the trunk of this tree. After the fire 
had heated the log, two rabbits came out of the hollow in 
it. They caught them, cut them up and divided them, 
and ate them up, flesh, entrails, hides and all. From this 
time on they went without anything to eat for two days 
more. By this time they were out of the mountains and 
down close to the South. Platte River, Here there was 
less snow than there had been higher up, and White Bull 
said to his young men: "Now we can walk better without 
these snowshoes. Let us throw them away," They took 
off their snowshoes and threw them away. Going on, the 
snow got less deep and they made a camp early, for they 
were very weak and tired. Then White Bull said to his 
young men: "Now, my friends, the snow is less deep and 
we are about starving to death, let the stronger ones take 
their guns and go out and see if they cannot kill some- 
thing to eat." He went out himself, and only the weakest 
ones, those who could not walk, stayed in camp. 
As White Bull was walking along, looking about to 
see what he could find, he beard something whistle. He 
looked about him, and presently he saw, not far off, one 
of his own men standing by a pine tree and beckoning 
him to come to him. White Bull went over to where the 
man was, and there, up in the tree where he pointed, was 
a great big porcupine. It was too high up to be reached, 
and they did not like to shoot, because that day they had 
seen in the snow signs where people had passed, but the 
tracks were not very fresh, for snow had tallen or blown 
into them. Still, there was danger that if they shot they 
might alarm these people. 
They finally made up their m,inds that they must shoot 
the animal, and they did so. He fell down, turning over 
and over, and they opened and skinned him, and then the 
two men sat down and devoured the entrails raw. They 
took the carcass into camp and cut it into pieces — a piece 
for each man, telling them that they could cook it or eat it 
raw. Some cooked it, and some ate it raw. 
The next day they started on again toward their home. 
The snow kept getting leas deep, and now they could walk 
easily. White Bull said to his yorng men: "Now, there is 
not much snow, so all of you scatter out and see what you 
can kill, and we will all meet to-night at an appointed 
place." When they got to camp at night, one man had a 
wildcat, and two had turkeys. They skinned and ate 
these, and all felt better and as if they would get home. 
They told stories, and acted as if they had never been 
starving. 
Next morning all got up early to start, and one young 
man went out a little way from the camp, and soon those 
in the camp heard the report of a gun, and then the 
young man came in dragging a wolf behind him. This 
made them a breakfast. The wolf was following the 
trail where the wildcat had been dragged along the day 
before. 
All that day they traveled and killed nothing to eat. 
There was still a light snow on the ground, and they 
walked fast; but they got tired early and camped, and built 
a fire and lay down about it. Not far from the camp there 
was quite a little butte, and White Bull thought he would 
climb to the top of it and see if he could see anything. He 
climbed up there, and found that he could see Cherry 
Creek where it enters the Platte (^where Denver now 
stands). As he sat there looking, he thought that he could 
see something moving far off, coming down toward the 
creek. It looked like a man on foot. He sat there and 
looked, and pretty soon he saw a herd of horses close to 
where the man had disappeared in the creek bottom. He 
went back to the camp and said to his young men, "I have 
made a discovery. I have seen a man and a herd of horses 
on Cherry Creek, where it enters the Platte, I think we 
would better start to-night, and travel there. It may be a 
camp where we can get something to eat." 
They set out, and had only gone a little way, when they 
came to a place where there was a tree full of turkeys. It 
was not yet dark, and the turkeys were just flying up into 
the tree and lighting there. They began shooting with 
bows and arrows, and with guns, and killed nine turkeys. 
White Bull said, ''We will not go further. We will go 
down onto this little creek and cook our turkeys, and eat 
them to-night. They went down to the water and camped, 
and skinned the turkeys and roasted and ate them, and 
all were happy and talked and sang. 
At daylight they started again to go to where they had 
seen the man and horses. They traveled on, and got 
pretty close to the camp, when White Bull, who was 
ahead, saw a wagon. He stopped and waited, and when 
the others came up he said to them: "These must be 
white people; I see a wagon." He looked at all his people 
and saw that they looked like ghosts. Their eyes were 
sunk in and their cheeks hollow, and he thought that he 
would look at himself to see how he looked. He got out 
his mirror and looked at himself, and was almost scared 
when he saw his face, for he looked like a dead man. He 
said to his people: "If we go ijito the camp looking like 
this we will scare the people. They will think that a lot 
of dead persons have come to them. You can all see each 
other how you look. Let us all paint our faces, so that 
we will not look so queer." They did this, and went on 
down to the camp, and found it was a white man's camp, 
a man named Peiselle, who had married an Arapahce 
woman. His wife is a relation of White Bull. This man 
had some cattle, and gave them a beef, and told them to 
kill it and to eat all they wanted to. They did so. The 
old man gave to each one of the Indians a blanket and a 
shirt, and each one gave to him a horse and five robes. 
They stayed here with him and borrowed two horses to 
ride, and sent two of the party to the village to bring back 
horses on which they could ride home. These men were 
gone four days and then returned, bringing back a horse 
for each man to ride, and also the horses that had been 
given to old man Peiselle. Also, many of the people 
came back with these young men to see their relations. 
This happened in 1857. 
THE CHESTNUT RIDGE. 
VII.— And Along Its Foot. 
Dr Jackson, in his book, "The Mountain," has treated 
very thoroughly, and with characteristic humor, the Fauna 
of the Alleghenies. "The forms of this fauna," he sayp, 
"are not much diversified, and present a medium variety be- 
tween the region north of the tree limit or isothermal zero, 
the line of perpetual ground frost, and the tropical zone of 
plants and animals." 
In the great class of mammalia — he, of course, places 
man at the head of the list— the original or indigenous man, 
he remarKs, has disappeared But little trace of him re- 
mains outside the records of history. The humble tumuli 
here and there, that mark his flual resting place, where, we 
may add, they have not been raasacked and ruined by his 
successor in search of "relics," and the occasional hint 
arrow heads and stone hatchets that are picked up by a race 
of curiosity hunters, faintly attest his former presence as the 
occupant of the soil. 
Next in order descending from man is the quadrumana, 
or monkeys. Of the^e there are none indigeuous on the 
Allegheny ranges. The nearest approach to this creature — 
and an approach so near that it would probably give great 
encouragement to a modern disciple of Darwin — is an ani- 
mal which Jackson dt scribes as having many ooints in com- 
mon with the niam-niams; but it is of a different color, a 
rougher skin, and the caudal prolongation of the vertebral 
column has been abraded by an obstinate indulgence in tte 
sitting posture, the animal being given much to contempla- 
tion and quietly beholding the flow of the river of time. 
Among its chief characteristics is a love of indolence and 
ease, being improvident and disposed to let things a'one, 
with the exception of an occasional surveillance of the 
neighboring hen coops and sheep pens. "The great predom- 
inance of the bones and muscles of the face," he says, "the 
protrusion and magnitude of the jaws, constituting the 
prognathous muzzle, or countenance, which may be taken 
hold of, together with the extreme minuteness of the brain- 
box, or skull, would point rather to the Hylobates." He 
would recommend the missionary who would attempt to 
evangelize this variety, to provide himself with a sufficient 
number of steel-traps strong enough to hold a bear, and a 
supply of cat-o'-ninetails. Some of the animals once com- 
moaon the llidge have disappeared or grown few inmimber; 
but the creature here described may likely yet be found 
without difficulty. 
Jackson speaks of the panther, the wildcat, the gray wolf 
and the elk as still in his day more or less common on the 
ranges of tbe Alleghenies in Pennsylvania, but I am inclined 
to think them all extinct at this date. A hear or a deer may 
possibly be met with at rare intervals, but all tbe larger wild 
animals have practically disappeared. When the Doctor 
wrote, the common red fox was found in plenty. "From 
the abundance of the red fox," he says, "he can be started 
at any time by hounds, and from his well-known habit of 
circling about his native den or thicket, and running for a 
great length of time in circumscribed spaces, the richest and 
rarest sport may be enjov^d by those who love the excite- 
ment of the fox hunt. Eight, twelve or twenty- four hours 
of effort on the part of the pack i.s required to fairly beat the 
red fox, ungorged acd in good condition, the surface being 
equally propitious to both dog and fox " This animal may 
still be found occasionally, though be is not now greatly in 
evidence. The weasel, the skunk, who has been "smelled 
twenty miles at sea," the night prowling raccoon, the opos- 
sum, the squirrel, the prophetic ground hog and the rabbit, 
still exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the sportsman in 
hoping for a shot 
About the same is the history of our native birds. Hawks 
of various kmds, owls, crows, partridges, pheasants, and 
other birds of many species are still to be found. A jrenera- 
tion ago wild pigeons visited the Ridge country in vas*^. 
flocks, and two generations ago wild turkeys were abun- 
dant. The latter bird is now practically extirpated. Dr. 
AVarren, ttie State ornithologist, in his report on the "Birds 
of Pencsylvania," 1890, says that the wild turkey "is still 
found in small numliers in many wooded and thinly popu- 
lated districts of the State," He adds, however, that some 
of the old residents believe thai the so called wild turkeys of 
the present ate really domestic fowls that have wandered 
into the woods and returned to a wild state. This may be 
true. But formerly the wild turkey was abundant, and was 
depended upon by the settler as a sure resource for the 
larder. 
Of the wild pigeon, Dr. Warren observes, "We never see 
large flights of pigeons any where ia the State as in former 
years," This bird is still to be seen occasionallv, but mostly 
in small numbers, and only as migrants. The flacks of wild 
pigeons thirty or forty years ago were sometimes reported as 
darkenmg the sky, and when they settled at night they 
broke down the branches of the rrees over acres of ground 
with their weiiibt. But they seem to be rapidly passing the 
way of the buffalo and the wild tuikey. Thev were killed 
in great numbers with guns, traps and nets. Nature, how- 
ever, has her revenges, and the wanton destruction of tbe 
poor birds has resulted in their scarcity, A favorite method 
of capturing ttiem was by means of nets and decoy pigeons; 
these latter were of two kinds, flyers and stool pigeons; the 
stool pigeon was held by a string; the flyer had his eyes 
sewed shut and then he was thrown out. Of course, being 
blinded, he could only flutter about aimlessly and feebly. 
We trust that in sewing up the eyes of the poor victim his 
captors followed Walion's advice in sewing a frog to a 
hook — that they "used him as though they loved him," 
The bu'ds of Pennsylvania, as of everywhere else, are 
becoming noticeably few. The edicts of fashion are unspar- 
ing and cruel. It i.'j to be hoped that a lime will come before 
long when every woman who wisties to be thought well of 
will disdain to wear any part of a bird as a decoration. 
When tbat day comes, we may hope to save "the feeble rem- 
nant" of our feathered songsters from extinction. 
To my mind, the crow is the gentleman among birds; al- 
ways diessed m his shining suit of scholarly b!ack, tiptoeing 
so eiaintily across the fields, or uttering his cheerful caw, caw, 
from the top ot some tall tree, he is a reminiscence of the 
past and a reminder of our days of youth and innocence, 
"Thou were not born for death, immortal bird !" 
Opposite my bedroom window, and only thirty or forty,, 
roos away, is a high, wcoded hill, what good old GUbert 
White would call a "hanger," and on the summit of this hill 
in spring and fall bevies of crows are wont to gather, and 
many a morning the first sound that has met py waking 
senses has been the call of the crows from the far-off 
tree tops, softened into music by the distance, I love the 
crow ; and I am glad that the law has again taken him within 
its embrace. May his days be long in the land ! 
On the other hand, I regret that mv boyhood's friend, the . 
owl, has been excommunicftted. One of my very earliest 
recollections is of seeing au owl with great eyes blinking at 
me from the joist of an ontbinlding. A few years later in • 
life my best-ioved boots was the "Boys' Winter Book," by 
Thomas Miller; and it was introauced by a passage fromi 
Shakespeare, wheiein the owl appealed strongly to my imag- 
ination : 
"When icicles hang by the wait. 
And Dick, the shepherd, blows his nail. 
And Tcm bears logs into ibe hall, 
And milk comes frozen home in pail; 
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foal, - 
Then nightly sings the stariug owl, 
"f u-whlfc, tu-who.' " 
I know of no sound in nature more weird or startling in its 
effect than the voice of the owl calling out in the darkness 
from the lonesome woods. 
As a slight offset to tbe black eye that the poor owl has 
received at the hands of the law, I copy the following fiom 
Bin gley's "Natural History," which shows that he haa a. 
better status in some countries than in this: ' 
"The Mogul and Kalmuck Tartars pay almost divine hon-t| 
ors to the white owl, for they attribute to it the preservation ' 
of Jenghis Khan, the founder of their empire. That prince 
with a small army, happened to be surprised and put tu 
flight by his enemies. Compelled to seek concealment in a I 
coppice, an owl settleel on the bush under which he was 
hidden. This circumstance induced his pursuers not to 
search there, since they supposed it impossible that that bird 
would perch where any man was concealed. Tbe prince 
escaped; and thenceforth his countrymen held the white owl 
sacred, and every one wore a plume of feathers of this bird 
on his head. To this day the Kalmucks continue the cus- 
tom on all their great festivals ; and some of the tribes have 
an idol in the form of an owl, to which they fasten the reai 
legs of the bird." ST. J. Chapmajs, 
Pittsburg, Pa. 
