126 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. t 
898. 
the rift with high hopes and in the best ef spirits, 111 
spite of the drenching rain. 
' Nor were their expectations doomed to disappoint- 
ment, for they had not gone 20yds. before Ready, who 
was beating the cat-tails between them and the willows, 
flushed a bird, which flew out toward the Colonel with 
that most thrilling whistle that makes one's blood rush 
through his veins with renewed vigor; and now as the 
bird turns up the rift the report of the Colonel's gun 
announces his death, and a bunch of brown feathers 
floating in the air shows where the noble bird lies. 
Bill now takes a turn toward the willows, thinking 
perhaps another bird may be skulking beneath their 
shade, and sure enough as he stoops to get under a low- 
hanging limb a bird rises from under his foot almost, 
but poor Bill just now is on his hands and knees, and 
before he can get his gun up the bird is out of sight 
behind another tree, so our young hunter talks to him- 
self in a most emphatic way about the hard luck ot 
a woodcock getting up when he is crawling under a 
limb, etc., and makes up for his misfortunte by cutting 
down another soon afterward which offered a fairer 
shot. , , -u . u 
Soon, however, daylight began to leave them, but be- 
fore thev stopped shooting they had picked up eight 
good birds and missed several more m the gathering 
darkness, until they knew Carmen would have a good sup- 
per waiting for them. 
With a change of dry clothes on, an hour later they 
were very comfortable in the snug little cabin, with the 
table full of good things in front of them, and the ram 
falling on the roof above, making it seem all the more 
cheerful inside. ' • . . , 
Two woodcock apiece, with a dish full of fresh sweet 
corn on the ear. and some fried sweet potatoes, com- 
posed the bulk of the meal, which was added to by a big 
bowl of claret punch, brewed by the Colonel. While 
for dessert thev each reveled in a heaping saucer of 
peaches and cream, and last, but by no means least, the 
Colonel handed around his cigars he had brought from 
New Orleans, and which were simply superb, and with 
these to smoke the evening indeed passed swiftly and 
pleasantly until some one noticed that the hour was 
late, and they remembered they were to rise with the 
sun' the next day, and so retired to dream of the wily 
plover. 
When the alarm went off at 4:30 o clock it seemed to 
Bill a terrible hardship to leave the comfortable bunk, 
but finally with many yawns and stretches he dressed 
himself and went on deck, where he found the Colonel 
and Carmen discussing the best way to hunt. 
The upland or grass plover are among the most shy 
of birds, and at the same time most stupid, for while 
they will often rise before the sportsman can come within 
200yds., provided they see him, on the other hand they 
will allow him if concealed from their sight to shoot 
many times in succession before they will fly away, and 
will also come readily to the whistle of the hidden 
or even motionless hunter, provided he is expert in im- 
itating their peculiar and plaintive note, which can be 
heard on a quiet morning or a calm night several miles 
away. 
Even as our sportsmen were arguing the best course to 
take they were startled by a shrill familiar whistle, 
which made them rush for their guns, but by the time 
they could load it was too late to shoot at a bunch of 
seven that had darted over the creek within 60yds. 
of the yacht and lit in the meadow a quarter of a mile 
beyond. 
This, however, decided their plan of attack, for they 
concluded to try to get a shot at those birds first, and 
then go on up through the pasture fields. 
"And now for breakfast," remarked Bill, who always 
•was ready to eat, as he led the way to the cabin and 
pitched into some ham and eggs and a big cup of good' 
strong coffee Carmen had all ready for them. 
This time Ready was the only one to be left behind, 
as Carmen was too valuable an aid in the field to leave 
on the yacht, while the dog would have been in the 
way and of -no use anyhow. 
Putting the skiff in a little sluice in the bank of the 
creek, and tying her there, our sportsmen crawled care- 
fully up the bank and looked over, knowing that if 
r 1 ov<=r wer" there they would at once fly off if they 
saw them; and well it was they had taken this care, 
n.r about 100yds. out in the field w r ere not less than a dozen 
birds running around and feeding, but occasionally lift- 
ing their heads high above the grass, looking for 
danger, for all the world like diminutive wild turkeys 
except in color. 
The field in which they Were was a large one, with 
ditches on three sides, and the bank on the fourth, while 
the birds were just about in the middle. The only way 
to 'get at them was for one to crawl along the ground 
after the others had taken positions surrounding the 
birds as much as possible. Consequently Bill ran down 
behind the creek bank until he had reached the other 
side of f he ditch dividing the field from the next one, and 
sneaked along behind the cover of the reeds growing in 
the ditch, and so around the field until he reached the 
opposite side froim. where he had started, and where the 
Colonel had remained hidden behind the bank. 
In the meantime Carmen had gone around to the 
other side of the field, and when he saw the others had 
taken their positions he started to crawl slowly toward 
the birds, keeping as low down as possible and dragging 
his gun behind him. Finally he managed to get within 
60yds. of the nearest bird, and taking aim he knocked 
him over with his first barrel. At once the other birds 
saw him in his raised position, and up they jumped, but 
before they could get away his second barrel crippled 
another. 
The rest of the flock fortunately flew in Bill's direction, 
and came near enough for him to kill two with his first 
barrel and another with his second. 
Carmen, not seeing any more birds in the field, 
jumped up to get his crippled bird, Which was fluttering 
around and likely to get away, when to his surprise he- 
flushed another pair nearer the bank, which flew past, 
the Colonel at full 70yds. distance. By good fortune,, 
however, at the report of his gun one was wing-tipped, 
and fell in the creek, where he had little trouble in get- 
ting him. Quite encouraged, our friends now walked 
on up the meadows, keeping about 300yds. apart, and: 
the one in the middle about 1 ooyds. behind. In this 
way any bird getting up was likely to give one of them 
a shot for as soon as the well-known whistle was 
heard which is often the case before the bird is seen they 
knew a plover had got up, and each would get down 
as low as possible and try to whistle the game m his 
direction. By so doing they had picked up several 
birds one at a time, but were not finding any large 
flocks, and they were becoming tired and discouraged. 
Therefore after a consultation it was decided to turn 
back toward the yacht, now some four miles distant, 
and try the meadows further back in the country. 
After walking a mile without seeing a plover, Bill, 
who was on the end of the line, saw a bunch of fifteen or 
twenty light in a field where there were ten or twelve 
small hay mows, left there by the farmer probably to 
be gathered in his wagon. This was very fortunate, for 
they afforded good hiding for our sportsmen, and there- 
fore provided a good chance of securing several birds. 
The Colonel and Carmen each took a side of the field, 
and succeeded in crawling in and hiding themselves each 
in a pile of hay, while to Bill was left the task of crawling 
on the flock. The birds were not within shooting dis- 
tance of any of the hay stacks, so it was no easy matter; 
but there was one chance, which, if practicable, was like- 
ly to prove successful. . 
The birds were feeding within 20yds. of the ditch di- 
viding the field, but as the water was high and there 
happened to be no reeds in this particular ditch there 
was nothing left to do but get in the ditch and keep 
well down in the water. This Bill decided to do, but it 
was slow work. The bottom was very muddy and ot 
uneven depths. Occasionally he would tread 111 a musk- 
rat hole that would nearly cause him to swim, but by 
careful, hard and cold work, just keeping his head and 
his gun above the water, he at last came opposite the 
birds, which were entirely unaware of his presence. 
Picking out a small bush on the bank, he carefully 
crawled to it, and slowly pushed his gun barrel through 
The plover were feeding not 30yds. away, and he counted 
sixteen birds, nearly all within range. Getting two m 
line he let one barrel go and remained perfectly still. 
Two of them fell dead and the others stopped feeding, 
but didn't get up, not seeing anything to alarm them. 
Carefully slipping in another cartridge, he killed two 
more without changing his position. 
The birds were getting uneasy, some running around 
and flapping their wings. Again the fatal shot killed a 
pair of the closest birds, and the rest could not stand 
it any longer, and up they got, badly scared, but not 
before Bill cut down another — his seventh bird: The 
other nine flew straight for the Colonel's blind and 
not over 10yds. high. He waited until they passed all 
bunched up and then killed four with his two barrels. 
This ended the shooting for that day. Birds enough 
had been killed, for there were twenty-one plover 
brought back to the yacht. Six were cooked for din- 
ner and fifteen plover— a pair of cocks— were taken 
] lome . Norman Prentice. 
Pennsylvania. 
A Winter Trip in the Rockies. 
I will give a brief account of the winter trapping 
expedition which followed our fall expedition, as related 
in the July 23 number of Forest and Stream. It was 
entirely novel to us, and was more for experiment and 
information than for profit. It had long been a question 
in our minds whether the fur animals migrated as did the 
big game, at the arrival of the deep snows; this, along 
with other things, which we wished to learn by observa- 
tion, led us to plan the trip. 
We had always been accustomed to using the long 
Norwegian snowshoes in that locality, but we at once 
agreed that for pulling a trail sled we must have web- 
shoes. Then came the question of trail sleds. These 
we made after our own ideas: about 20in. wide, 6ft. long, 
with runners 4m. wide. We couldn't agree as to the 
kind of soles for the runners; we therefore each had our 
own way. I burnt mine over a slow fire, rubbing tal- 
low on them until they were a dark brown color, the 
same as we prepared the soles of our Norwegian snow- 
shoes. Bert tacked tin on the soles of his, as being his 
idea of the best wav, thereby giving a chance for experi- 
ment. The result was not very decided. During certain 
conditions of the snow mine would run with greater ease 
than his; while with other conditions of the snow, caused 
of course by temperature, his would run easier. Then 
we disagreed about putting tongues in our sleds. I 
put a good, strong tongue in mine; he wouldn't have 
one in his; the result was the first steep mountain side 
we undertook to go down we had to take an hour 
off and, with a limited kit of tools, put one in his to 
keep it from running over everything in sight. Not 
knowing how far we might go, or how long we would 
want to stay, we took provisions to last us six weeks, 
with what meat we would get. Bert took a rifle and I 
took a .45 cal. revolver. Our outfit consisted of about 
i6olbs. each. 
The night before we started a light snow feu to a depth 
of ioin. Any one who has traveled on snowshoes knows 
what that meant for us. At every step we would sink 
about the depth of the fresh snow. We both took our 
first lessons on web-shoes the evening before we started, 
and felt handicapped, but started out boldly on a Mon- 
day morning in January. With our disadvantages we 
•could only go a few rods at a time. Night came on, and 
after a very hard day's work we were about one and a 
Jialf miles from home. We went Back to spend the night 
at home rather than to make camp, as it was easy travel- 
ing in our beaten trail. The next morning we cached 
half of our loads at the place of starting and made bet- 
ter time, getting about three miles further. Then began 
our first experience in camping in deep snow. We 
shoveled down through 4ft. of solid, hard snow a hole 
7Xi2ft. for our 7X9 tent, allowing 3ft. in front for a 
camp-fire. 
The next day we went back and brought up the re- 
mainder of our outfit, and left it packed on our sleds, and 
the next day we took the same loads several miles fur- 
ther on, cached them and returned to camp at dark. 
The next morning we broke camp, and moved three 
miles beyond our last cache, and after shoveling down 
through "7ft. of snow we found what we were hunting 
ior— bare ground — but unfortunately we came down on 
top of some old logs, which made an inconvenient camp. 
The next day, in a continuous snowstorm, we went 
back for our cached supplies, and by night were agani 
in camp with our entire outfit, and felt ready to take. 3 
breathing spell and look around us. _ . 'L 
It harfbeen dawning upon us before this time that fur 
animak were scarce, compared with what they had 
been in the earlv fall preceding. We went out and set-^j 
few traps, but were not encouraged to put out many;* 
The first morning we took one marten, and as there 
were very few tracks, we moved camp four miles fur- 
ther, and there began hostilities against a few foxes ant 
lynx, which we found to be in the vicinity. 
" This was the nearest point to the first cache of mea 
we had made in the fall. Taking a trail sled we wen 
for a load of meat to the spot where we had cached 1 
up in the top of a hollow stump about 8ft. above ground 
thinking it would be safe from all animals not having 
"climbers" on at least. Finding the spot as nearly a 
we could tell by the lay of the ground, we found only 
smooth, white surface of snow, unbroken by any ol 
stumps or any mark of any kind as a guide. This wa 
on top of a very high mountain where the snow ha 
drifted some. 
Seeing a marten track we followed it a few yards an 
found where it went under the snow. Taking off om 
of my snowshoes to use as a shovel, I dug down abov, 
3ft and struck the top of the old stump, and m it wer 
the bare bones of the meat we had so carefully pv* 
"up" out of reach of the larger animals. 
Nobody knows how funny I felt when I discovere 
that I was walking around at least lift, above terra firm;) 
Of course we were disappointed, and the inward craving 
for elk meat became stronger as soon as we found w 
were destined to go without it; and we unanimous} 
agreed that we would have to depend upon snowshc 
rabbits and grouse for meat. We started back _ 1 
camp, and as we were on top of a very steep and tug 
mountain, the down-grade toward camp extending fuh 
a mile I suggested that we get on the sled and nc 
down, as there was only a scattered and scrubby grow* 
of timber. Bert said walking was good enough i< 
him, but I thought riding was preferable, so I tie 
my snowshoes on the sled and started. I didn t time m 
self by the watch, but am certain that in two minutes 
was at the foot of the mountain. Such a ride. I nev 
claimed that I thoroughly enjoyed it, not so much as 
it had lasted longer, but there was no disputing that 
got into camp away ahead of Bert, and of course I to 
him I had had a good ride. 
We spent a couple of days there, but found no marte 
and the foxes and lynx would not do as we planned tin 
should do. Having investigated a few miles further o 
and finding some marten tracks, we agreed to move can 
again. The morning we were to break camp, Bert we 
out a short distance to get a trap which he had set f 
lynx and soon came back with a wolverine or carcajc 
which was in his trap. (Will Forest and Stream gij 
correct name?) It was a fine specimen of this ra 
animal; not very large, but the darkest we had ev, 
seen; the prevailing color of it being seal brown a: 
black They are rarely found in that locality, and 1 
were doubly glad to get it, as a sportsman from Ilhno 
whom Bert had guided on a hunting trip the precedi 
fall, had left special orders to try to get him one. 
The next camp ground was on the bank of the Cra 
Encampment Creek three miles below its source; the 
we shoveled down through 8ft. of solid, hard snow, 
the heavy timber where there was no drifting. This v 
one of the facts we were wishing- to learn, as differ* 
persons had different information to give as to the der 
of snow in the mountains. The snowfall of that win 
we think was about an average, and at that season' 
the year it should be at its greatest depth. ( , 
It was a unique looking camp. The snow being sof 
we shoveled steps to go down into the tent; the t< 
could not be seen until one would go up to the eo 
of the hole and look down, as the snow was far above 
top of the tent. We got our wood by chopping do- 
trees cutting them into lengths, and carrying them do 
into our den, which required no small amount of lab 
as it was extremely cold. One night in particular 
trees cutting them into lengths, and carrying them do, 
into 'our den, which required no small amount of lab* 
as it was extremely cold. One night m particular 1 1, 
were obliged to keep up a fire all night to save oursek I 
from freezing. We learned, after going home, it 11 
been from 40 to 50 degrees below zero that night. II 
thermometer was scarcely ever above zero during <| 
tri, fhere was only one camping place in our trip whl 
we had to melt snow to get water. There were wa« 
holes open every few rods all along the streams, whet||. 
the streams were large or small. The snow would | t 
level on top, with scarcely any depression to indie* 
where the streams were. The open holes were genenf , 
small with the side walls of snow, perpendicular, i* ( 
o-enerally 12 to 15ft. from top of the snow to the wail, 
" Sometimes we would shovel steps down to get to 4 
water, but generally would cut a long pole, leaving, 
hook 'on the end, hang our pail on the hook and le* 
down, and 
l> Dripping with coolness it rose from the well." 
We took but one marten while in this camp, and 
agreed thereafter to uphold the idea that the marten 
least migrated to some extent in the late fall, and 1 
sumably follows the big game. 
We were able tq get all the meat we could eat by 
ing snoAvshoe rabbits and grouse, which were in 
prisingly good condition, and as palatable as one co 
wish I enjoyed it specially for the revolver practict 
shooting rabbits, which were plentiful, but quite wf 
seldom offering a shot while sitting. . j 
After all our moving about we were only about tc 
teen miles from the ranch. After spending two we 
in camp, and having no success, we broke camp 
moved four miles nearer home, camped over night 
agreed to go the remaining ten miles the next day, e 
though we had to leave our sleds on the way and 
back after them. We ate our breakfast at the first d; 
of day. and started on a trip that will be hard to for 
Most of the distance was down grade, but we w 
obliged to follow,. A a stream which led us through < 
roughest country tthat it was possible to find. By c 
tinuous hard tramping and pulling, upsetting our s 
many times, and suffering other grievances, we pu 
i 
