182 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 5, 1898. 
Down in the Sac and Fox. 
I HAVE noticed that when a man tells a story that is 
rather of a joke on himself, and that the aver- 
age man would not tell because he would be a little 
ashamed of rt, that "if is more generally read than a very 
decorous Sunday-school tale about a good little boy 
who went to a picnic, and when he found a potato bug 
in his pie immediately ate it so as not to offend his 
dear teacher who made the pie. No, I was not the good 
little boy. and I didn't eat bugs., but I had quite a time 
down at the Sac and Fox opening. 
The opening of the land that belonged to the Sac and 
Fox tribe occurred, I believe, in the fall of 189T, T 
got word on the 7th that it was to open on the lOth, 
and went at once to Guthrie, Okla. Ter., Avith $25, an 
' overcoat, a blanket, a .45 six-shooter and a plug of 
tobacco. I bad long before exhausted all my rights to 
take up any of Uncle Sam's land, and the onlj^ chance 
I had to take up anything legally was to get a city lot 
or two in the town to be of Chandler. Ten thousand 
of us rushed in at the hour of 12 noon on the loth, 
at a breakneck pace, on horses, mules, road carts, bug- 
gies and old wagons. Away we: streamed, a mad mob. 
through jack oaks and over gullies where many a bold 
rider came to grief; and at last my party of four landed 
at the edge of the town site, to be told that the opening 
was to be postponed ten days, as the survey was not 
finished. We saw that we were in for it. and at once 
made a camp near water; surrounded a piece of ground 
about Soft, in diameter with a ball of white cotton 
string drove inside and unhitched our old buggy, which 
we had hired in Guthrie at $to a day, and unpacking our 
rather scant}^ cooking kit, proceeded to settle down and 
keep house under the greenwood tree. That night, and 
for the next ten days. 10,000 men and a few women 
camped there; and what times we did have, to be sure. 
One of our party wrote: 
Fifth Avenue Hotel, 
Dodge City Headquarters, 
on a piece of dirt^r white cloth, and in two days our 
acquaintances had foiind us, and came and camped in- 
side the white cotton string — about twenty in all. And 
it was funny. Short of cooking utensils, short of grub, 
few blankets, no tents, and lovely weather, T ran out 
of money. It was forty-two miles from Guthrie, and 
SO T borrowed $5 from a friend. Two years before this 
we had been in a county seat fight on opposite sides. 
One day the two towns had a heated discussion with 
guns, in which we were both engaged, and exchanged 
half a dozen shots at 200yds. with Winchesters. Very 
fortunatelv we didn't hit each other. There was a slight 
coolness between us for six months, and then we met 
and made friends, concluding that the war was over; and 
we have been all right ever since. 
My priA^ate party sent back the old carriage the sec- 
ond day. to save expenses; and there we were. There 
were several horses left in the headquarters, however, 
and we could get a moimt when we wanted it. T took 
care of an old pony for a friend who had gone to 
Guthrie with our living team: so I was all right. 
The camping ground was a broad valley, dotted with 
trees between two low hills. It was a beautiful sight at 
night to see the camp-fires. There were generally one 
or two evening meetings going on. and the air is so 
heavy down there that we could hear everything as dis- 
tinctly in our camp, 400yds. from the nearest meeting, 
as if we were close to the preacher. 
One morning T went down to a pool of water in the 
bed of CoAVskin Creek to water my oony. The pool Avas 
right in the center of the camp of to.ooo peonle. who 
had been there at least a week. I noticed a dimple on 
the water, as if a fish had risen for a fly. It didn't look 
like very fishy Avater, but T concluded to try it. J 
got a hook after hunting around among the camps a 
little for it; made a line out of black thread, doubled 
tAvice, got a grasshooper and tried it; and. oh! the fish — 
cats that weighed abottt a pound,' black bass from half 
a pound to a pound or two. and great big sunfish that 
came out flopping and glistenin.g Avith all the colors 
of the rainbow. I had fished perhaps fifteen minutes 
Avhen another man came to Avater his horse. When he 
saw me flipping out the fish he looked stirprised, and 
said: "T didn't know that there Avere any fish here." 
T told him how I had found it out. and he immediately 
asked the loan of hook and line. I onlv had one, and 
told him so; so he bolted off to get fishing tackle. Be- 
fore he got back at least five other men had seen me, 
and within half an hour there Avere 100 men fishing 
at the pool. The pool was 50yds. long and to wide, 
but T think every man got a fair mess of fish. That 
day I got as much as I could conveniently carry, say 
6ofbs„ and that nieht the Fifth Avenue Hotel had fried 
fish and some for breakfast. But the nond was skinned. 
There were always two or three men fishing in it when- 
CA'er I AA'ent down to Avater the pony, and they seldom 
had anything. 
Then grub got very seldom at the Fifth Avenue, and 
I had only $i..^o, and most of the boys Avere broke or s'aid 
they Avere. My sleeping mate Avas very blue one morn- 
ing at breakfast, Avhich Avas quite light, and reviled the 
country, the United States Government, and in fact ev- 
erything; and declared his intention of stealing a horse 
that night, of riding into Guthrie and going home from 
there on the cars as blind ba.egage, reserved seat. T 
told him that if be Avould not be rash he should have 
a good breakfast the next morning and some money to 
go home Avith. if he wanted to quit. He asked where 
the money Avas to come from, and T told him I would 
make it ^mehow, though I didn't haA^e the slightest 
idea liow. It took m.e about two hours to figure out 
the situation, and then T went to Buff and unfolded my 
plan and declared him in and my partner. He promptlv 
declared himself out again, and said I'd get killed. I 
told him that I would take all the risk, and that I only 
wanted hira for tent doorkeeper. But he wasn't game 
enough, and I had to get two men. My plan was to 
shave off my miJitaclie, black up, p«t or m c»J4 esUcQ 
dress, and having a tetit for a night to tell fortunes as 
the Witch of Cow Creek, 192 years of age, and the four- 
teenth daughter of a fourteenth daughter, who still ex- 
ists and has an equal knowledge of the future and the 
past. I have no particular mode of telling fortunes, but 
when I went to the Gunnery School in Washington, Conn., 
I fortunately had a good deal of experience in 
acting in what were called impromptu charades — made 
and acted while you wait — and I concluded to take 
chances. My boy, if you had seen those people — ^^rough, 
dirty and many ignorant. It was a good field for a fake, 
but it would have been death to be caught. I had seen 
a very good-looking girl camped near the East Spring, 
with her sister and her sister's husband. Their names 
were Cooley, and they. were from Guthrie. The young 
lady was tall and finely developed, and as pretty as she 
was big. So I went and made a talk to her, and told 
her I wanted to buy an old wrapper. I told her, under 
promise of secrecy, what I wanted it for. She called 
her married sister, and I had to rehearse my tale to Mrs. 
Cooley, who, by the way, still lives in Guthrie, and does 
not know my name. She looked at me a moment, and 
then said: "The man is all right, Clara; sell him an 
old dress." She sold me a pink Mother Hubbard for $1, 
and then rather timidly asked me Avhat I was going to 
do with my mustache. "Shave it off. of course," I said. 
And she said, "Oh!" 
I tore open the cushion of a buggy and got some 
curled hair and made a wig; bought a pair of women's 
stockings, and hired a tent from a man for the night 
for $1, to be paid in the morning, and got an old pack 
of cards, a saddle blanket and a candle. Then I wrote 
a sign on cotton cloth: "Cow Creek Witch. Reads Past, 
Present and Future. Your fortune told for $1." And 
noAV, with a doorkeeper and a booster, I was ready for 
action. Off came the mustache. I blacked up; rolled 
up my pants and put on the stockings; slipped on the 
dress and wig, surmounted by a red handl<erchief, turban 
fashion; lit the candle and squatted on the blanket, 
aAvaiting callers. And they came. I satisfied most of 
them; and there were 107. But at last in burst the 
booster with: "Run, Dick! here come a lot of those 
.\rkansawyers, full of whisky, to hang the witch." I 
stayed not on the order of my going, but went at once, 
out under the back of the tent, first putting out the 
light. I rolled my Mother Hubbard under my arm as I 
imagine the patriarchs of ancient times did when they 
got caught stealing melons from the Gentiles, and flew 
up the road for the Fifth Avenue. When I got there 
my doorkeeper and booster were both in bed. They 
must have flown, for I ran. 
I sent two other men doAvn to rescue the tent. The 
mob had it torn down, and my friends claimed it and 
put it into a drug store. In about an hour Hall, from 
Beaver City, and I went down and got it. The night 
was so dark that I lost my Avay, got in among a com- 
pany of soldiers and was arrested for a horsethief. I 
talked out of it and at last got to camp. It commenced 
to rain soon after I got there, so we put up the tent, 
and all slept in it. The man Avho owned the tent came 
around in the morning in an awful stew; he thought 
his tent was torn up. I bought it, paid my boosters, 
gave Buff $15, sent him home; and when we ran into 
toAvn got a lot that was not Avorth over $5. I saw the 
young lady with her brother-in-law and his wife, riding 
past next day, and she recognized me and pointed me 
out; but I dodged, and Mr. Cooley has never seen me. 
I am not going to take off my gun and do myself 
up in an old red dress to act again for such an unap- 
preciative audience without a better bodyguard. 
I told every man who consulted the witch that night 
that there Avas a woman he had promised to write to, 
and that because he had not done it she was feeling 
badly. I knew that was so, for I had promised to write 
to my Avife and had neglected it. Every one slapped his 
leg and said: "By gum, that's so." And the postmaster 
said that the mail Avas twice as large as usual the next 
morning; but he Avould not divide the cancellation with 
me, though I asked him politely. W. J. D. 
Just About a Boy — VL 
The sky was gray and dull, hanging like a sheet of lead 
over the world, and there was a "snowy feel" to the 
air that seemed the forerunner of a storm. Sounds were 
muffled and subdued, and there was a waiting air over 
eA'erything. 
The boj'^ came SAvinging around the corner, his coat 
wide open and hands deep in the inner recesses of his 
cavernous pockets, as he strode along whistling merrily 
and glancing upward occasionally. 
"Say," he said, as he saAV me, "goin' to have a trackin' 
snow to-night. Less go huntin' to-morrow, will yeh? 
I know where they's a lot of quails 'n' cottontails 'n' 
jacks 'n' — maj'be a few chickens. Can't tell for sure 
'bout the chickens 'cause they don't stay much in one 
place in the winter, nen they're pretty cute too 'n' hard 
to get up to. ■ But the quails 'n' the rest are all right, 
'n' we can get all Ave want. Will yeh go?" 
"Yes, if it snoAvs I'm with you," I answered, for I felt 
like taking a trip with the gun, and was glad of any ex- 
cuse that offered. 
'Where'U we sret a dog?" 
"Huh! don't want no dog," the boy said, disdain- 
fully. 
"Dogs is a nuisance. They run around sost yeh can't 
git a thing 'less yeh juss happen to, I'll show you more 
game 'n you can shoot, all right, an' I don't want .a 
dog neither. Take lots o' shells 'n' be ready for all day 
'n' we'll go over among the brakes by Stoll's place. 
Some good ground over there 'n' we can have a bushel 
o' fun. I'll be ready 'bout half past seven 'n' come this 
Avay." 
"All right, I'll be ready," I answered, and the boy 
said, "So long," as he- disappeared in the fast-gathering 
darkness. 
When morning came there was a fine tracking snow 
on the ground, and the boy and sunrise came together. 
We shouldered our guns and plunder and hurried ' 
through the half-awake town, across the river and into 
the corn-clad hiU5, where tlie brakes bacV to the 
divide, 
"We'll go over along that hedge first," said the boy. 
"You take one side 'n' I'll take the other, 'n' we ought 
to get a cottontail er two. Yeh see, they ain't went to the 
brush, 'n' they're kind o' hangin' 'round their summet 
stamping grounds yet. When the snow gets a little 
deeper they go to the brush and weed patches 'n' corn- 
fields, nen you got to hunt different. Look out now 
which way yeh shoot, 'n' don't shoot at all unless yeh 
know where I amj 'n' I'll do the same." 
We walked along for a few hundred yards before the 
boy said, "Woap, I see one!" I stopped, and his gun 
boomed, tearing up the snow at the foot of the hedge 
where a lot of "tumble weed" had blown up and lodged 
against it. 
The rabbit was killed sitting in his form, and as the 
boy went to pick him up a bunch of quail whirred up 
a little further ahead and Avent on down the hedge, pitch- 
ing to the ground again within a couple of hundred 
yards. 
"Gee!" said the boy. "Now we're goin' to have a 
picnic, sure! They lit in the hedge an' they'll get up 
scatterin', so we can have wing shots at 'em one at a 
time. That's the way I like 'em. Now you take the 
ones that get up on your side an' I'll take care o' the 
ones on this side, 'n' we'll have some fun. Look out for 
tracks too, 'cause some of 'em may run out in the grass. 
Ready?" 
"Yes, c^o ahead," I answered, "I'm with you." 
Slowly we went to the place where the birds had 
pitched down, and suddenly "Whir-r" went one of them 
on my side, and so startled me that I forgot to shoot. 
"Why didn't yeh git him?" asked the boy, laughingly. 
"Whir-r-r— bang!" on the boy's side. "Got him," 
he said, laconically, as he broke his gun and threw in a 
fresh shell. 
"Now look out^n' when yeh see one shoot, whether 
you get him or not, 'n' watch 'im down," he added, 
musingly. In a few moments I rather enjoyed the unex- 
pected rattle of wings and swift flight of the birds, and 
was blazing away as though I had shot that way all my 
life. 
The boy's gun was busy too, and when we counted 
heads at the end of the fence we had nine fine quail be- 
tween us. I had missed as many as I had shot, and the 
boy gaA^e me advice in this manner: "Yeh got to shoot 
snapshot; this way, see? Noav the way I do is to go 
'long with my gun down in both hands, my thumb on the 
hammer 'n' my finger on the trigger, 'n' when a bird gets 
up I juss Avatch the bird 'n' jerk up the old gun n blaze 
away juss as soon as she touches my shoulder. As I 
pull up, I cock it 'n' touch the trigger as she touches 
my shoulder. That way you can't hardly miss n its 
easy Avhen you get the hang of it. Your gun jumps to 
your shoulder juss right on a level with your eye^^ So 
all you got to do is to shoot 'n' down goes Mr. Quail. 
Juss as easy as eatin' pie." , 
"All right, I'll try and remember what youve told 
me," I answered, "though I expect to score a whole lot 
of misses before I get the hang of it." 
We wandered along through several cornhelds, and 
at last came to the edge of a piece of AVild hay land. 
A jack rabbit track struck out of the com into the 
grass just where we came to the edge of it. 
"Now we'll trail this feller up 'n' git him, said the 
boy "Reckon he's strikin' for home when he made 
these tracks." The boy took the trail, telling me to be 
ready "'cause he might git up a-runnm any time. 
Winding about through the knee-deep tangle of wild 
crrass, we followed the trail, sometimes so broken by 
the snow that had fallen in it as to be nearly lost to any 
one but the boy, Avho followed it swiftly and walked with 
' feSy he's^opped short and said: "Now this feller 
was a-huntin' a place to sleep when he come out here, 
'n' he's fooled around this way 'cause th snoAV hangs 
on th' grass too much 'n' he knows ltd come dnbDlin 
down all over him if he holed up under a bunch in here. 
Now I reckon he'll git disgusted purty soon n light out 
right 'crost toward that pasture over there n set doAvn 
'n' under a wad o' bunch grass in there. Yeh see, the 
bunch grass don't hold th' snow like this blue stem does, 
'n' Mr Rabbit knows it, 'n' he'll be mighty apt to be 
in that pasture, 'n' not far in either. C m on, less go 
^^Agaki we followed the winding of the trail, and soon 
it struck a straight line, with long distances between the 
tracks, showing that the jack had fu filled the boy s pre- 
dictions, based on his intimate knowledge of jack rabbits 
and what he read in the trail of this one's doings. 
We had just crawled through the barbed-wire fence 
that surrounded the pasture when a flurry of snow made 
a halo around a bunch of grass, and out of it came the 
rabbit under full sail. , , «i, 
"Shoot!" said the boy, and my gun sounded a hurry- 
up" call that had the effect of lengthening the distance 
the fleeing game made between his footprints. Like an 
echo the boy's gun cracked, and the jack did a combina- 
tion handspring running fall, mixed indiscriminately with 
a dozen or so first-class somersaults, bringing up on 
his back with a thump, quite dead. That snap shot ot 
his did it quickly and effectively. ' 
We were now on top of the divide, and our tramp had 
so roused the inner man tliat lunch was decidedly the 
thing and it was forthwith produced. We could see 
miles 'of country spread out in gentle rolling hills, Avhite 
with the mantle of new snow, against Avhich the dark 
lines of timber along the creeks and river Avound in con- 
trast. The winter sun shone with the prairie brilliancy 
and the air was just cold enough to be bracing. It was 
a day to tramp abroad and enjoy shooting — one of 
those rare winter days that are as bracing as good Avine. 
Lunch disposed of, we struck out again through the 
withered fields of corn, across the tangle of Avild grasses 
and through the Aveed patches that filled the bottoms 
of the brakes or draws. Cottontails scurried out and 
turned handsprings as the guns cracked, quail Avhirred 
up into the air and came doAvn dead as the smoke curled 
from the muzzles, until the sun hung low and our hunt- 
ing coats were stuffed with game. 
"Less go home," said the boy at last, and then we 
pulled the shells out and slung our guns with straps 
over our shoulders so we could "hit the trail" without 
hindrance. 
"Gee, I'm tired!" said the boy. "Never seem to git 
tired till I strike for home, nm ever' step seems like 
