Jan. 8, iggS.I 
During all the- portaging of my outfit from the railroad 
to the camping place, the "three gentlemen from Chi- 
cago" had very considerately refrained from obtruding 
themselves oh my notice, sticking closely to their camp 
instead, as if afraid of giving offense if they offered to 
give me a lift in hoisting the canvas bag or provision box 
on. my shoulder. 
After cogitatin' a gpod deal over that episode I have 
come to the conclusion that there is nothing lovelier 
than a good supply of good fellowship and courtesy to 
your fellow man to tal<e to the woods with you, and u I 
ever have a good chance I am going to take some along 
and try it, but I am afraid I may never hope to attain to 
the standard of the Chicago party in social ethics for 
the woods and camp; I yield them the palm in advance. 
I cut some tent poles in the swamp between the foot 
of the ridge and the river, a ridge pole and two crotched 
uprights for it to rest in, and had just got it set up when 
one of them came up the bank and asked if he could be 
of any assistance. The tent had just fallen down, as I 
had not driven the sharpened ends of the uprights far 
enough into the ground to hold while I drove the corner 
pins, and I was standing looking at the wreck, wonder- 
ing what to do next. We set it up again, he holding it 
till I had driven a pin at each corner, when, after a few 
minutes of desultorv chat he went back to the camp, and 
I saw no more of them after that except once or twice 
when they passed along the path below to the spring for 
water, McLaughlin usually doing that part of the camp 
work. 
I cut a balsam sapling and stripped a lot of boughs, 
which I shingled along one side of the little tent till they 
looked about right, and then with the rubber piano 
cover, a cotton mattress doubled, a pair of blankets and a 
big comfort, I made a bed that was simply perfection, 
and then I rolled over it two or three times to make 
sure there were no humps in it that would move me to 
make a few remarks during the night. 
Next I wanted a table, and this I made by flatting with 
the axe 4 or Sft. of the top of a fallen "tree 6 or 8ft. 
in front of th,e tent,, whiqh had been chopped down by 
some former camper, seemingly for my especial benefit. 
Then I made a scaffold of poles about sft. high, near 
the log, on which I placed the provision box, to be out 
of reach of porcupines and other varmints; drove some 
nails in a tree on which to hang the frying-pan and other 
kitchen furniture, and lastly 1 made a fireplace handy to 
the table, cut enough firewood to last a day or so, and 
sat down on the log — I had forgotten to bring a camp 
stool — to smoke and surve}' my work. I was satisfied 
with it and happy as a chipmunk. The Camp of ye Lone 
Kingfisher was complete from a solid-comfort outlook, 
and I rested and smoked some more. 
I was congratulating myself in a selfish sort of way,' 
as I made it out afterwards, that I was to have this 
camping spot all to myself, when the train from the 
West stopped, and directly after three men and a boy 
of ten or eleven years came trooping up the path past 
my "front yard" and dropped a lot of camping duffle in 
the larger open space 15 or iaoyds. to my right, separated 
only by a narrow strip of low bushes and briers that 
grew near my tent. 
As the last one reached the top oi the slope, with a 
sheet-iron camp stove on his shoulder, he hailed me: 
"Hello, partner, where ye from? Come over and get 
acquainted." 
I "come over," and when relieved of his load he turned 
and said: "My name is Thomas; this (pointing to the 
smaller of the three) is Mr. Jensen, and this (with a 
flourish of his arm toward a jolly, good-natured Dutch- 
man) is Mr. Schreiber — George Schreiber — and here's 
my boy. Now what's your name, and where are ye 
from?" 
I gave up my name, where I was from, with the fur- 
ther information that I dropped oft' the west-bound train 
and had about got my camp fixed up, and that I had 
come over from the camp of the Kingfishers on Presque 
Isle Lake for a week's trout fishing. 
"All by yourself? Well, I guess you're all right; there 
ain't many fellers that would come over here to camp 
alone for a week. But come, boys, let's put up that tent." 
They had but one tent, and that was soon up, the stove 
set up, their bed made, and their camp was finished. By 
this time we were all on the best of terms, and as long 
as they stayed we "neighbored" together as if we had 
been "old friends for years, exchanging commodities and 
good fellowship to the benefit, I trust, of all concerned. 
They were the very best of camp neighbors, and I was 
glad they were there, and sorry when they went away. 
They had come over from Bessemer for a few days to 
fish a little for trout, incidentally, but mainly to pick 
iDlueberries in a big patch a couple of miles back, up the 
railroad. 
They were off early every morning and back in the 
evening in time to catch a few trout, maybe, and get 
their supper in the twilight "or by the light of the camp- 
fire, and I saw little of them except in the evenings; but 
when we got around the fire after supper was over, it was 
better' than a seat in the gallery to listen to the quaint 
yarns of Schreiber, one of the drollest, best-natured, fun- 
loving Dutchmen that ever turned the English language 
upside down. He was high and low comedian, and the 
whole show, and kept the audience in great good humor 
till the fire would burn down and it was time to go to 
bed. Mav he never grow old. 
By the time their camp was made it was well along to- 
ward sundoMai, and my fingers were itching to grasp 
the butt of the old rod. My neighbors were sooner 
ready than 1, having only to tie on a piece of line to 
poles picked up along the stream, hive a grasshopper 
or two and go to work. They went down stream below 
the bridge, and I took my way up the creek through a 
tangle of "bresh" that reminded me of some other trout 
creeks that I have "rastled" with in the past eighteen 
years of camping in the north woods. 
I only fished about forty rods up the stream, using for 
bait some barnyard hackles that I had brought over in 
a tin can from the main camp, for it was impracticable 
to use a fly on account of the overhanging limbs and 
bushes. 
1 made my way back to Camp a little before sundown 
with seven trout of 6 and /in. in length, ready to eat a 
well-earned supper — when I had cooked it. 
The others came in with eleven trout — if I remember 
rightly — of about the same sise as mine, except one 
"whopper" of a half pound taken by the genial Dutch- 
man from a pool a few yards from the bridge. 
I dressed my seven trout at the foot of the big spring 
basin, started a fire in my new fireplace and fried them 
brown and dry^not forgetting a couple of generous 
shces of bacon to give them the proper flavor. Then I 
made a pot of coffee strong enough to float a brick, and 
with some hard tack and a few other good things that I 
fished out of the provision box I "hived" a supper that 
would have astonished even our spindle-shanked dude 
back in the camp on Presque Isle Lake. T didn't leave 
a fin of the seven trout that a couple of hours or so 
before had been "disportin' o' theirselves in their natyve 
element," as Dick M. would say, and by shaking out 
a reef of my corduroys I might have held a couple more; 
but the fryin'-pan was cleaned out. bacon and all. After 
supper I swapped a few fish lies with my Bessemer 
friends around the camp-fire, and turned in tired and 
chock full of good feeling and — ^trout — and slept as only 
one can on a. bed of fresh, odorous balsam browse, in 
the quiet of the woods, with the soothing voices of the 
night for a lullaby. I was up next morning at the break 
o' day, with my trout tooth still bothering me a little, 
and to pacify it I went down stream a couple of hundred 
yards, looking for a few trout. I was back to camp 
when the sun was a half hour high, with five that were 
just above the limit, and it only took a short time to 
OLD TEMl"" AND " OLD HICKOKY." 
Photo by Dr. A. E. Elliott. 
start them on the trail of their seven brethren that I 
had taken the evening before. 
After breakfast, and when my neighbors had got off 
for the huckleberry patch, I went down the stream 
and fished it for about a half mile, taking ten trout, one 
of which would weigh J^lb. The capture of that trout 
was one of the episodes of the trip. I had pushed my way 
through the bushes to the stream where it was not more 
than rsft. wide, and OA^erhung with alders from both 
sides. It was quite a likely-looking place for a trout — 
water 6 to Sft. deep — and I poked the rod under the 
drooping bushes toward the further bank, with about 
3ft. of line clear of the rod tip. As the bait — a trout fin- 
struck the water, a violent swirl indicated that something 
was about to happen. 
The tip of the rod was jerked violently imder water 
before I had time to think the situation over. I struck 
instinctively and instantly with a side twitch, and we 
had it out right there — as beautiful a fight as ever was 
"fit." 
However, the trout had the advantage, for I couldn't 
raise the rod for the bushes that hung over and in the 
water, nor could I lead him either to the right or the 
left for the same reason. There was a clear space of 
water only about 2yds. square, and I had to keep him 
in the bounds of that, or he would get a turn around a 
limb or twig in the water, and that would end the contest. 
•I reeled up a foot or more of the already shortened 
line, and stood there and held the rod firmly in one posi- 
tion as nearh"^ as I could, and let him cavort and surge 
and tear around and turn somersaults in the water and 
make desperate dashes to get into the submerged bush- 
tops, till he wore himself completely out and came to the 
top rolling leebly from side to side, with the fight all 
knocked out of him by the inexorable pull and spring 
of the faithful old rod. 
Now I was in another category. I could neither raise 
the rod up through the bushes to get hold of the line, 
not lead him to the bank aboA-e or below me, so I just 
backed up the sloping banks and dragged him out 
through the brush to where I could work along to the 
rod tip and get hold of the line before he coidd flop back 
into the stream. The performance on the whole could 
probably not be classed as artistic angling from a fly- 
fisher's standpoint, but it was the only possible way to 
get that trout — and I got him. Had that "crimson- 
crested princeling" of trout fishers, "the aesthetic fly- 
caster of the North Shore," the big Injun of rodsters, 
been looking on, he would doubtless have been shocked 
into a fit at my methods, but — I wanted that trout, and 
I have a notion that he was so bewildered when he was 
dragged up the bank that he didn't remember whether 
he had sucked in a "professor" or "swallered" a bullfrog. 
There are more ways than one of taking a trout, but 
whether deftly handled with a Soz. split-bamboo and a 
cunningly devised fly, or yanked out with a tamarack 
pole and a chunk o' pork, the end in view is the same — 
to get the trout — and it may be safely ventured that nine 
trout fishers out of ten who would scorn to take a^ trout 
only on a fly will, on occasion, fall back on the humble; 
despised worm' for a lure — "when nobody's a-lookin'." 
I might mention, as a postscript to the tussle with that 
trout, that when I opened him to prepare him for the 
fryin'-pan I found in him some grasshoppers and two 
small trout, one about 3in. long and the other an inch 
shorter, with the crimson spots yet plainly visible on 
them. The cannibalistic cuss! ' 
I got back to camp about noon; no one in sight and 
nothing to di-sturb the quiet of the woods except the 
west-bound train that went by soon afterward. I cooked 
my dinner alone and ate some more trout. (I've made up 
my mind concerning trout, about the same as the old 
darky did about possums: "Dey's mighty delusive crit- 
ters, but dey's pow'ful good eatin',") • 
When the last morsel of bacon and trout had gone ths 
way of other trout and bacon. I sat on my front porch — 
the log table — and smoked and dozed in the sun, and 
conjured up visions of other camps of bygone days, till, 
to keep from going to sleep, I took the axe and got up 
'some more firewood, and by this time I felt so lazy 
and shiftless that I lay down on the big comfort in the 
shade of some bushes — it was too hot in the tent — and 
slept soundly- for a couple of hours. 
I can think of nothing more satisfyin' on the face of 
this livin' airth than a nap in the woods in the shade of 
a bush when you're tired — or think you are, and are only 
lazy and indolent and "wuthless," incident to having no 
■cares to bother and nothing on your mind only to make 
the most of the opportunities and good things that are 
put before you. 
I got up refreshed in mind and body and went a-fishin' 
again down the stream — I had had enough of the up- 
stream fishing — and caught a few more trout. 
Back to the camp again, and finding the berry pickers 
had not returned, I got supper and took it without com- 
pany, except for a little pine squirrel that sat on a limb 
of a nearby tree and jerked himself out o' shape and 
flipped his tail in unison with the "sassin' " and 
"scoldin' " he was giving me for not sharing my supper 
with him. Leastways, that is the way I interpreted his 
chatter. 
This little fellow and a bright-eyed, frisky little chip- 
munk that had staked a claiiu on an old log near the 
spring, became quite familiar and friendly, and got many 
a piece of cracker and scraps from the table, placed 
where I knew they would get them, and soon Frisky (I 
had named the little chipmunk Frisky and the pine squir- 
rel Sassbox) got so tame that he would come tripping 
boldly up the bank, and then move shyly up to within 
a couple of yards and sit up and look wise till I threw a 
piece of cracker toward him. Then he would skurry back 
down the bank, soon to come tiptoeiu'^' uack to hunt up - 
the cracker, which he never failed to find and carrj^ 
to his retreat somewhere near the old log. 
I am always interested in the habits and ways of- the 
birds and the wild things of the woods, and I took a 
good deal 01 pleasure in watching the capers and cun- . 
ning maneuvers of Mister Frisky and Mister Sassbox, 
albeit I have no doubt the two rascals had a high old 
time exploring the camps when no one was around; but 
the provisions were in such shape that they could not get 
at them, and they had to wait for their share till it was 
handed out to them, as it were. However, when I broke 
camp I left them enough to last a couple of weeks, to re- 
member me by. 
The afternoon train brought three newcomers from 
Bessemer, who put up a tent in an old gravel pit across 
the track from the Chicago camp, and along toward sun- 
down they came over to the spring for water and we soon 
struck up a fishing acquaintance. One of them offered me 
a "swaller o' wrath" from a bottle concealed somewhere 
about his person, and seemed a trifle surprised that he 
had found a fisherman who didn't drink. Kingfisher. 
[The photograph comes to us from Dr. A. E. Elliott, 
who has labeled it: "Portraits of Allen Temple, alias Old 
Temp, alias Tempus Fugit, of Cincinnati, and James M. 
Hickman, alias Old Hickory, alias Kingfisher, of Cincin- 
nati, both of the Kingfisher Club. The photo was taken 
at the Kingfishers' Camp, on Presque Isle Lake, Wis., 
xA.ugust, 1897. Kingfisher is the one on the right of the 
picture, full face toward the camera." Dr. Elliott's note 
runs: "Mr. Hickman writes me that his letter will soon 
appear'in Forest and Stream. I thought possibly you 
might like to surprise him by adding his picture to the 
letter. The photo shows him just in the act of telling a 
fish lie. I consider Old Hickory the prince of good fel- 
lows — a thorough angler and gentleman."] 
[to be conclxtded.] 
A Fighting Tarpon. 
Rio Hach.'\, Colombia, Dec. 7, 1897. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: On the morning of Dec. 3 I was making my 
way along the north coast of Colombia, South America, 
in a great canoe made out of a single log. 
We had been traveling all night, and were a little to the 
eastward of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains. 
I had four men with me, and as the sea was very smooth 
they hitched a long rope to the canoe and three of them 
went on shore to tow it along the beach, while one sat in 
the stern to steer, keeping the canoe just outside the low 
breakers. 
The coast was flat, and the water very shallow. Just 
inside a sandbar there was an extensive lagoon, similar 
to those along the south shore of Long Island beyond was 
a stretch of low arid country, and then the mountains 
rising almost directly from the plains — a great impressive 
barrier when the higher elevations were covered with 
snow that was glistening in the sun. 
It had been a tiresome night, and I sat languidly 
watching the men work, or looking at the massive moun- 
tain ridges. Presently we reached a small inlet, and the 
men came clambering into the canoe to pole it across the 
deeper water. 
They had just settled down to work when there was a 
splashing in front of the canoe, as if a wave had broken 
Under the bow, and the next instant a shining silvery 
form came headlong out of the water toward the boat. I 
saw it was a great fish of some kind, and started back , 
in astonishment. The men got out of the way as best' 
they could, and then by a clever use of their poles the ' 
