370 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 6, 1897. 
in the spring, and the men and hoys hum kegs 
of gunpowder shooting them. These lands are very 
fertile in the valleys and lowlands, and if cleared 
would produce good crops of corn, peas, potatoes, 
etc. There are lots ot good pine timher and some cedar, 
dogwood,' etc. These settlements are located some eight to 
fifteen miles westward of Bogue Inlet; no settlements on the 
east end lill you reach Fort Macon, opposite Morehead City. 
A few fruit trees, plums and peaches thrive, but af pies and 
pears don't seem to grow here much. They are now (June) 
catching clams to bed out for next winter's maiket. About 
4,000 bushels are caught here in a month, sellicg now for 25 
cents per bushel. If some pleasure-seekers want to see fun, 
we tbink they could see some by coming to Bogue Banks in 
the spring, summer or fall. G. W. Ward. 
[ BwANSBORo, Onslow county, N. O. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Champion Fly-Caster. 
Chicago, 111 , Oct. 23. — Field Sports, of San Francisco, 
has the following to say in regard to the appearance and style 
of Mr. W. D. Mansfield in the open contest at Stow Lake, 
'Frisco, Oct. 9, at which time Mr. Mansfield again broke all 
existing records — even his own astonishing one made at Chi- 
cago this summer. On this last occasion Mr. Mansfield cast 
113ft., easily over his lllift. record at Chicago. In the way 
of personal description, the joiurnal above-mentioned says: 
"The appearance of Dr. Lowry on the platform brought 
another round of applause and all watched his performance 
with marked interest, as it was known that in practice he 
had been on all sides of the record mark. He made the 
splendid cast of 109ft , beating all records except Mansfield's 
Chicago record and the one just made. 
"In appearance and manner of casting, the Doctor is the 
very opposite of Mr. Mansfield. Tall and lithe, he takes his 
position erect and with but little swaj'ing of the body, his 
casts are gracefully executed with the arm movement. To 
see the two men together one would certainly expect more 
from Lowry than from Mansfield, just as one sees more in 
the grace of his execution, hut when it comes to such 
extremely long distances as these men are casting, Mans- 
field's manner is surely productive of the better results. 
Watching the two men carefully and noting the position of 
the rod at every stage, and just wherein and at what points 
of its carriage the force which brings forward the long lire 
is applied, it is easy to see why the body movement becomig 
so great an assistance to Mansfield. Not only is the same 
force and full spring of the rod given by Mansfield that can 
he given by the arm movement alone, but in carrying his 
body forward this full tension of the rod is maintained, 
while the butt passes at least 6ft. forward from the point 
where it is first applied, getting the line well under way be- 
fore the spring of the rod is allowed to do its work. While 
the butt of the rod is being brought forward by the sway of 
the body and the outstretched arm, the rod is sprung to its 
fullest, and the reaction can only begin when this forward 
movement ceases, leaving the full spring of the rod to act on 
the line after the line is well started on its forward course by 
the sway of the body. As we remarked before, it is by no 
means so graceful as the arm movement, but when it is con- 
sidered from the standpoint of the laws of mechanics, it is 
plain to be seen that the same individual can attain greater 
distances by the body movement than otherwise." 
Possibilities In Wisconsin Bass Fishing. 
The possibilities in Wisconsin bass fishing in some of the 
wild pine woods lakes have been the subject of frequent 
comment in these columns. Recently I made mention of 
some heavy bass fishing done by Messrs. Chas. Jernagin and 
Chas. E. Anthony, of Chicago, and below I give more de- 
tailed information of other and later scores made by the 
same fishermen in different waters of that region, the facis 
being taken from a letter written to a friend in this city. 
The bass of Roche Lake are spoken of as being very gamy 
savage biters and hard fighters. No especial merit attachts 
to the scores from a sportsman's standpoint, though I have 
earlier remarked that all fish except a few were returned to 
the water. The dates and catches were as follows: Sept. 
27, Lake Elma, 44 bass; Sept. 28, Palmer Lake, 15 large 
hass; Sept. 29, Lake George, 27 bass; Sept. 30, Roche Lake, 
205 bass, from 1 to 21bs. each, in four hours' fishing; Oct. 1, 
Roche Lake, 137 bass, in two hours' fishing; Oct. 2, Roche 
Lake, 89 bass; Oct. 3, Roche Lake, 70 bass; Oct. 4, Plum 
Lake, 38 large bass; Oct. 6, Plum Lake, 33 large bass. 
E. Hough. 
^1206 BoYCK Bdilding. 
New Jersey Coast Fishing. 
AsBTJRT Park, Oct. 29. — Sea and river fishing has been 
completely at a standstill during the past week. The heavy 
winds and seas have made fishing an impossibility. Yester- 
day, however, the wind shifting to the west, sent the plaice 
shoreward with a rush, and some good catches were made. 
If weather conditions continue good, we should have the best 
of our fishing now. While the blues may be counted on as 
"departed," still the weakfish and plaice should be with us 
at least two weeks yet; and at this period they are at their 
best, both on the line and table. : 
The cod has put in appearance, and is taking the hook at 
points to the north along the beach. This argues much for 
us. While he never can be classed as a game fish, still, to 
the enthusiastic angler who takes him on rod and reel when 
there is hut little else to claim his attention, he is most wel- 
come, and will he enthusiastically received so long as he 
favors us with his winter presence. Leonard HuivIt. 
A Gosebic Bass. 
Ballentine, Mich., Oct. 2Q.— Miter Forest and Stream: 
I caught the largest black bass here in Lake Gogebic on Oct. 
18, weight 7ilb8., and I still have him in a live box. It is 
rumored around that there is a prize offered for the largest 
bass in this lake. Please kindly inform me if it is so. 
Frank H. Woods. 
[We are not advised of a reward out for large Gogebic 
bass. Most folks would consider the taking of a 7^1b. bass 
its own reward.] 
The FoRBST AND Stream is pxti to -press each week on 
Tuesday. Correspondence intended for ptiblicatioa 
should reach us at the latest by Monday, and au much 
earUer a$ priHticabUf 
"THE STORY OF THE COWBOY."* 
"The Story of the Cowboy," byE Hough, far exceeds in 
scope what is implied by its title. It is ths story of the be- 
ginning, progress and decline of the vast cattle industry 
which had its place in the immensity of area bounded by the 
Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains 
and British America. It is a story of the unfenced plains, 
where free grass tempted the cattlemen to face hardship, pri- 
vation, peril and sometimes death. The contrasts of the 
nomadic life of the range with all its peculiarity of effort and 
incident are graphically described and contrasted with the 
conventional life of the fixed domiciles of civilization. 
Through it all is skillfully interwoven the story of the cow- 
hoy. Stoically habituated to the dangers and hardships of 
range life, constant in his fidelity to his employer's interests, 
energetic, untiring, a master in his calling, undaunted by its 
labors or its perils, he was the man who made the wilderness 
produce food bountifully for the civilization of the world; 
the same civilization which first made the cowboy a possi- 
bility and which later caused his undoing ; the surging, rest- 
less civilization which encroached more and more on the 
wilderness and ran metes and bounds where once all was free 
and open. 
In "The Story of the Cowboy," Mr. Hough touches on all 
the lights and shades of ranch life, on the practical, the pa- 
thetic, the heroic, the silent fortitude, which were 
alike a requisite in the monotonous drudgery or 
the greatest perils. He begins by describing the 
abandoned trail, The Long Trail, and there is a 
poetic touch as he says of it: "It was like a 
long rope tnrown idly on the ground, aban- 
doned by the hand that used it. Its strands are 
unbraided and have fallen apart, lying loose and 
forgotten upon the sandy soil. The wind is blow- 
ing dust across these disconnected threads, and 
the grasses are seeking to cover them, and the 
waters have in places washed them quite away. 
The frayed ends are disappearing. Soon the en- 
tire cords will have disappeared. The Long 
Trail of the cattle range will then be but a mem- 
ory. The braiding of a hundred minor pathways, 
the Long Trail lay like a vast rope connecting 
the cattle country of the South with that of the 
North. Lying loose or coiling, it ran for more 
ttian 2,000 miles along the eastern edge of the 
Roeky Mountains, sometimes close in at their 
feet, again hundreds of miles away across the 
hard tablelands or the well-flowered prairies." 
The origin of the cattle industry is ascribed 
to the residents of Mexico, who, nomadic in 
their way of life, drifted into the country of the 
Rio Grande, where the long-horn flourished and 
multiplied many years ago before the American 
cattle industry — as a distinctly American insti- 
tution — was known. Thence it spread. The 
ranch in the South — with its quaint customs, its 
simple manner of hfe, its open hospitality and 
heterogeneous specimens of life, whose etiquette 
demanded that no questions concerning their past 
life be asked of each other — ^is mof=t interestingly 
described. The ranch in the North — distinct 
from the South in its setting of arid plains, 
rainless climate and severe winters, yet in a 
land bountiful in the yield of its fattening grasses 
— is no less fully treated. A chapter is devoted 
to the cowboy's outfit: his saddle, bridle, hat, 
gloves, "chaps" boots, pistol and rifle; and 
the demon which he called by the generic term 
"cow-horse," broncho or cayuse, is well deserv- 
ing of the chapter devoted to him. 
The description of the breaking of this demon 
of the range has a thrill of interest. After having 
been saddled by craft and force, "He feels his 
head 'turned loose.' He hears a long, keen yell 
from a dozen throats about him, answered by a 
similar shrill yell, not of fear but of confidence, 
above him from this creature which is crushing 
his back, breaking in his sides. All the hate, 
the terror, the rage, the fear, the viciousness, the 
courage of this undaunted wild beast now become 
blended into a mad, unreasoning rage. He has 
fought the wolves, this pony, and is afraid of 
nothing. He will unseat this demon above him; he will kill 
him as he did the wolves; he will trample him into the dirt 
of the plains. Down goes the pony's head and into 
the air he goes in a wild, serio-comic series of 
spectacular stiff-legged antics. His nose between his knees, 
he bounds from the ground with all four feet, and 
comes down again with all legs set and braced, only to 
go into the air again and again. He 'pitches a-plungin' ' — 
that is, jumping forward as he bucks, perhaps going 600yds. 
before he stops from lack of wind. Or he may stand his 
ground and pitch He may go up and down, fore and aft, 
in turn, or he may pitch first on one side and then on the 
other, letting his shoulders alternately jerk up and droop 
down almost to the ground — a very nasty sort of thing to 
sit through. He may spring clear up into the air, and come 
down headed in the direction opposite to that he originally 
occupied, or he may pitch 'fence-cornered,' or in a zigzag 
line as he goes on, bounding like a great bull from corner to 
corner of his rail-fence course of fiight. " After the horse is 
acceptably broken for the cowboy, he is hut little less than 
a wild horse for all others. 
Marks and brands, their uses in establishing and protect- 
ing ownership ; the advent of the thief who flourishedby chang- 
ing or blotting brands, or stealuig the cattle outright; the 
growth of protective associations as a measure of defense ; 
free grass and waterfronts; the drive and its privations, 
hardships and perils; the round-up whereby the property 
rights were determined or the crop of beef harvested; the 
terrible drifts and stampedes, with their wholesale destruc- 
tion of life; the commonplace Ufe of the ranch; the cowboy's 
manner of diversion; society in the cow country; the nester; 
the rustler; the fierce wars of the range and the rapid changes 
made by the building of the railroads, are all set forth in a 
masterly manner, one which could only he done by one who 
had shared in the cowboy's life by actual experience as has 
Mr. Hough. Through it all, the cowboy is portrayed as a 
hard-working member of mankind, and there are many 
* "The Stoey of the CowBor." by E. Hou?h, author of the "Sing- 
ing Mouse Stories," etc. Illustrated by William L. Wells and C. M. 
Bussell, New York: D.Appletoo& Co., 1897. Cloth, 350pp, ' " " 
protests against the injustice done the real cowboy 
hy the fictitious cowboy of the sensational type, who 
always rode furiously in a gallop, and whose diversions 
were the imbibing of great quantities of -firewater and the 
promiscuous shooting right and. left, whether in bar-room or 
street. The volume is a most thorough analysis of the cattle 
industry, fully delineating its origin, growth and decline. 
No feature of it is left untouched, and it is all treated in the 
skillful manner so peculiar to Mr. Hough's writings. The 
railroads, which brought so great prosperity to the cowman 
by affording him a means of transportation, in lime worked 
his downfall; for while they took his cattle to market they 
brought back the people who wanted small holdings for pur- 
poses of agriculture; and the httle encroachments made at 
first increased into great waves of humanity, which took up 
the land under forms of law and wip'jd out the free grass 
forever. With the free grass of the plains went the free, 
wild rider, the cowboy. Mr. Hough writes of this under- 
standingly, as one who knows of his own knowledge the 
perils, hardships, fatigues and uncertainties of the cowboy's 
life, and of the sterling manhood which was necessary first 
of all to make the cowboy eligible to the name; he writes 
sympathetically of him as a man who has been misrepre- 
sented, misunderstood, and denied the place and appreci- 
ation justly his due as a useful member of a great industry, 
one which none but the brave, the enduring and the indus- 
ti'ious could follow. To his physical capabilities was added 
a high standard of professional and personal honor, one 
which impelled him to shirk neither work, nor danger, nor 
personal responsibility. The unwritten code of the plains, 
The cowboy. 
From "The Story ot the Cowboy."dCopyrlght, 1897,Iby D. Appleton & C!o. 
crude and simple yet necessary and sufficient, demanded 
that he be a man amongst men; a code whose keynote was 
that one man was equal to another, and that everyone should 
mind his own business; the dangers and labors of his voca- 
tion were to be faced calmly and stolidly as a matter of pro- 
fessional routine, but a personal affront brooked no delay in 
meeting it. It was a matter for prompt, special attention. 
A few excerpts as to the cowboy's personality, character, 
etc., will best serve to illustrate Mr. Hough's masterly grasp 
of his subject: "The story of the West is a story of the time 
of heroes. Of all those who appear large on the fading page 
of that day, none may claim greater stature than the chief 
figure of the cattle range. Cowboy, cattleman, cowpuncher, 
it matters not what name others have given him, he has 
remained himself. From the half-tropic to the half-arctic 
country he has ridden, his type, his costume, his character 
istics practically unchanged, one of the most dominant and 
self-sufficient figures in the history of the land. He never 
dreamed that he was a hero, therefore perhaps he was one. 
He would scoff at monument or record, therefore perhaps 
he deserves them. Either chiseled or written record may 
distort if it merely extol. For this central figure of the cat- 
tle days, this early rider of the range, it is hest to hope that 
he may not commonly be seen as thrown up commonly on 
the air In a mirage, huge, grotesque, fantastic, but that he 
may rather he viewed clearcut against the western sky, a 
glorious silhouette of the open air. Before many years have 
passed, the original of s ich a picture will have disappeared. 
We shall listen in vain for the jingle of his spurs, or the 
creak of his leather gear, or the whipping of his scarf -end on 
the wind. Tinkle and creak even now die away in the 
distance beyond An explorer, a guide, a scout, a fighting 
man, he passed his way. . . . Certainly the man aspiring to 
the title of cowboy needed to have stern stuff in him He 
must he equal to the level of the rude conditions of the life, 
or he was soon forced out of the society of the craft 
He who sought to ride by the side of this new man, this 
American cowboy, needed to have courage and constitution, 
a heart and a stomach not easily daunted, and a love for the 
hard ground and the open sky, 'There were many who wer^ 
