502 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 25, 1898. 
figures. Those who knew the Indian in his old wild 
state and who saw this statue are not likely easily to for- 
get it, for it was full of the thought and the spirit of the 
great plains, where in the old days the wild Indian hunted 
free and fought his enemies, atxd, when too hardly pressed, 
turned his horse's head and vanished into the unknown 
wastes of what we once called the Great Amer- 
ican Desert. This statue was the most complete materiali- 
zation of that spirit that we have ever seen. The Indian 
sat twisted on his horse on one thigh, looking to the 
right and shading his eyes with his hand, while his fixed 
steadfast gaze seemed to pierce bej^-ond the limits of the 
horizon. On his back was his bow, and in his left hand 
his lance, while his uneasy pony, turning his head in the 
direction of the rider's gaze, was calling to some com- 
panion near or far. No group of statuary that had about 
it anything of human interest was half so distinctively 
American as this lonely figure. After looking at it one 
Gould close his eyes and carrying back his mind twenty 
years could see again the solitary vidette on the hilltop, 
looking for buffalo or sentineling the camp. 
This group was by Mr. A. P.. Proctor, the young 
sculptor whose name for the past few years has grown 
so rapidly in public knowledge. He is a Western man, 
and he naturally seizes Western types, because, after all, 
the West is nearer nature than we of the East can ever 
be. One imagined in 1893 that Mr. Proctor would never 
do another piece of work that woiild so thrill one as his 
World's Fair statue of the Indian, but in this number we 
are permitted to reproduce another Indian group, 
modeled by him, and now on exhibition in the Paris 
Salon. Even as seen in this reproduction, it is a superb 
piece of work, and yet the photograph gives little more 
than an idea of the stattie. It is full of action, and the 
face and carriage of the man are noble and dignified, 
■ivhile his figuire is that of a true Indian. The streaming 
war bonnet, the lance and the shield are well subordinat- 
ed; the restrained action in the horse and the easy un- 
concern with which the rider sits him form a splendid 
contrast. 
This statue is more elaborate and has more action than 
the one seen in 1893, and we may imagine that in life 
size it would give the beholder the same thrill that he 
felt when looking .&n ihe incomparable lonely figure in 
Jackson's Park, which seemed so wholly apart from 
anything near at hand, and intent only on the distant rim 
of the world toward which he Avas gazing. 
To-day the highest ambition of most big-game hunt- 
ers is gratified by killing a bear, which seems to them the 
most desirable of all big game. In the old day.s»of buffa- 
lo plent}^ bears were abundant on the prairie as well as 
in the mountains. One remembers sitting in the cool of 
the summer evening on the deck of a Missouri River 
steamboat as it slowly puffed its way against the cur- 
rent over the shallow bars, and counting at a single 
view seven grizzly bears scattered over the river bottom, 
all busily engaged in digging roots. A season earlier, 
while traveling over the prairie in South Dakota and 
eastern Montana, groups of five or six bears were often 
seen. Two or three years later, along the flanks of the 
Rocky Mountains, the Che3'^enne scouts employed by 
the Government had great sport chasing the bears, which 
they found digging for camas, when the bulbs were 
ripe. 
In those days bears were common. To-day they are 
almost the scarcest of our wild game, and besides be- 
ing so scarce they have been educated up to a high 
point of cunning and wariness by a contmuous pursuit 
with the trap and with the rifle. The traits of the bear 
have been well set forth by a number of writers in the 
recently published "Trail and Camp-Fir e," yet we must 
not imagine that In these articles the half has he^ti told 
of the surpassing wisdom of these ungainly brutes. The 
day has not j-et come for writing the full history of 
Bruin or of Ephraim, but that history must be written 
soon, if at all. The contributions which we have had to 
it are of high value. 
In Europe scientific forestry had long been practiced, 
yet in this country twenty-five years ago it was no more 
than a naked name, and a name but seldom heard. A few 
persons, more farsighted than their felloAvs, talked of the 
dangers which must inevitably follow the wholesale des- 
truction of our woods, but the great public knew little 
and cared less about this subject. 
In the announcement of the purposes of Forest And 
Stream, which appeared in the first number issued, oc- 
cur the following sentences: 
"For the preservation of our rapidly diminishing for- 
ests we shall continually do battle. Our great interests 
are in jeopardy * * * from the depletion of our 
timber lands by fire and the axe." 
Since that time the public interest in forestry has 
grown; at first very slowly, 3^et with a spread that con- 
stantly became wider. Within the past year or two in 
some parts of the country it has become the burning 
question of the hour. Some of America's best scientific- 
minds have given time and thought to its investigation;; 
it has been debated to and fro in Congress and in the 
newspapers. To-day it is a live subject, and interests a, 
large number of people. 
This is neither the place nor the time to discuss the 
causes which have led to a general awakening by the 
Atnerican people to the importance of this forest preser- 
vation, nor to indicate the part which Forest ani> 
Stream has taken in bringing about this awakening. 
It is enough that the time is coming, and coming soon. 
