2 04 
The first to come along traded the Indians out of every- 
thing edible, and subsequent parties who were short 
of food had to go hungry. Bnt that's another story. 
At the Tahkeena River, fifteen miles below the rapids, 
we encountered our first mush ice. At first we thought 
we had run into an ice jam, for on rounding a bend the 
Lewes seemed filled with ice from shore to shore. 
As we drew closer we perceived a narrow strip of black 
open water at the foot of the bluff on the east side, where 
incidentally miners got prospects of 10 cents'to the pan, 
and we realized that the ice came from a tributary river. 
The Tahkeena was bank full of the slushy stream. 
We entered the ice rather gingerly. Mac was afraid 
it would cut the canvas on our boats. A little experience, 
however, satisfied us that we had nothing to fear from 
this source. The ice was soft and easily broken, and 
aside from reducing our rate of progress caused us no 
inconvenience. It was harmless enough compared to 
the ice we were destined to encounter before long. 
I have told of the grizzly that Henning and Campbell 
killed below the Tahkeena this same day, and also of the 
black fox and the great bear tracks we saw just before 
reaching Lake Lebarge. 
Trading with Indians. 
That night we put ashore in a storm near the Indian 
village, two miles below the head of the lake. The In- 
dians at once discovered our camp and brought some 
fish with them to trade. They wanted white flour, and 
offered both money and fish for it. Silver dollars were 
produced, which was understood to be the price of a 
cup full. We had no white flour to spare, but remember- 
ing some spoiled figs resolved to try them on the Sticks, 
which is the name of the tribe. 
"Here, John," Mac said, addressing the biggest In- 
dian, who looked like a Chinaman, "try a few of these." 
The" other Indians laughed. They are a good-natured 
and harmless people, and, like Southern negroes, are 
always ready to laugh. It happened that the man was 
called Jonathan, and they were amused at Mac's version. 
Jonathan ate one of the figs, and passed the others 
around. The Indians were pleased with the to us un- 
palatable fruit, and we secured what fish they had in ex- 
change. Then they tried to buy various articles that 
took their fancy, from the clothing on our backs to the 
dishes we cooked with, touching the article and asking 
"how much?" — words which have become a part of every 
Yukon Indian's vocabulary. 
When supper was ready we turned the Indians out of 
the bough' lodge, where we had made camp, and ate 
the meal in peace. Just as we were preparing for bed, 
however, two bouncing young squaws, with ruddy 
cheeks and olive skins, entered unannounced, bringing 
in their train half a dozen children and dogs, 
They wanted white flour in the worst kind of a way. 
We refused this, but eventually compromised by giving 
them a few biscuit that had been knocking around in the 
bottom of one of the boats for a week. They were the 
last of the batch baked by Billy Baskerville, and were 
so full of sand that we could not eat them. I put them 
in an pld towel and gave 'them to one of the women. She 
immediately took them out, and breaking off a few 
pieces gave to the children, who ate the hard chunks as 
if they' had been candy, while the dogs looked on in 
hungry-eyed envy. x\fterward she put the other scraps 
away somewhere in her clothing and asked how much 
for the towel. I gave her the towel again, but she seemed 
to think it required an equivalent, and handed me a pair 
of buckskin mitts, 
It was snowing and blowing from the north the next 
morning, when we made our preparations to start. Jon- 
athan was on hand with a marmot skin coa't with hood 
attached— a sort of fur parky — which he wanted to let 
us have for $10. 
He tried to create interest much as a Baxter street 
clothier would drum up a trade. He strutted around 
with the coat on his own back and gave utterance to 
various expressions of pride at his gorgeous appear- 
ance.. He stroked the fur admiringly, and turned tin- 
coat inside out to show the lining. Finding at last that 
all his eulogiums fall upon cold ears, he tried another 
tack. 
Waving his arm to the snowy north and simulating a 
shudder he said: "Too much Yukon wind. Bimeby cold. 
W-h-e-w!" 
The last word was drawn out to exasperating length 
and ended with an expressive shrug that nearly lost 
Jonathan's head in his shoulders. "Buy coat. Good!" 
He had worked up to a climax beyond which language 
could go no further, and stood smiling in anticipation. 
Jonathan's coat was a bargain. Parkies are valuable ad- 
juncts to winter travel. 
Hardtack and Bacon, 
That night we camped west of Richtofen Island, on 
a tributary stream of fair size, and had a glorious sup- 
per of fish and gravy, bacon and fried hardtack, fruit 
and tea. 
Representative John Allen, who has "had much ex- 
perience with army rations and the want ofi them," said 
during his speech on cheese before the House the other 
day that good soldiers should not be coddled too much; 
that he "had not been real hungry since die war without 
craving hardtack and bacon." Mr. Allen's words are 
truthful and apt, as any man who has gone through 
severe physical exertion on coarse diet will agree. I 
never could abide beans before I went to the Yukon. 
The other day, during a ten minutes for refreshments 
seance at the railroad restaurant in Saratoga. I walked 
down the long lunch counter and found nothing to sat- 
isfy the craving of my appetite till I spied a dish of pork 
nud beans. I knew then that I had what I wanted. 
While living outdoois eating was a real and sub- 
stantial pleasure. The keen edge was never taken from 
our appetites, and on more than one occasion we ate 
two full meals at an hour's interval. 
Coming up the Yukon in January without tent or 
, stove, we ate double the army ration, including some- 
times 2lbs. of bacon a day. 
A friend to whom I told this said: "When I was con- 
valescing from a severe illness the doctor put me on a 
milk diet, and I got so sick of milk that I have never 
seen a cow since without feeling like going over and 
POMSSt AND STftEAM. 
'--ii u-niirmi Ti ■ n ' --^"'•■""•wm'Ii n 
kicking it. I should think you would hate the' sight 
° f a or , J , t i 1 ixl 
"On the contrary, I replied, T have learned to love 
and reverence the animal that furnishes bacon. My 
nature craved fat, and I would have eaten tallow candles 
or blubber if I could have gotten them." 
J. B. Bt.irnitam. 
The Ascent of the Grand Teton. 
St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 20. — Editor forest and Stream: 
The Forest and Stream of Aug. 27 and Sept. 10 con- 
tain notices of the successful ascent of the Grand Teton. 
Wyoming, in which the claim is erroneously made that 
this is the first time the summit has been reached. 
Your issue of Sept. 17 contains a letter from Luther 
B. Yaple, of Chillicothe, Ohio, stating the facts relating 
to the first known ascent, which are that James Steven- 
son and I reached the summit on the 29th day of July, 
1872. Stevenson was the first to reach the summit, and 
I was but a few yards behind him. An account of our 
ascent was published in the Scribner's (now Century.) 
Magazine for June, 1873. The aneroid barometer of Mr. 
Owen gives the elevation as 13,800ft. My aneroid (see 
page 148, line 13, Scribner article) gave it as 13,762. This 
is about as near as aneroid registrations usually approxi- 
mate. N. P. La NO FORD. 
Humming Birds as Pets. 
St. Augustine, Florida, Sept. 15. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have no fancy for 'gators, bears, or coons. 
In fact, I do -not care for any pets but birds, and the 
smaller they are the better they please my fancy. 
My special pet is the humming bird, and I never 
weary of feeding and fussing with that lovely little crea- 
ture. I tame them every year, and my interest in them 
never flags. 
Last spring my wife and I were standing on the piazza 
and a pair of male ruby-throats— the first arrivals — came 
hovering 'round our heads, chasing each other in seem- 
ing plav. and then lighting side by side on a star jessa- 
mine vine within a foot or two of our faces, without the 
slightest fear of us, which meant, of course, that they 
knew their ground, and when I brought out the little 
bottle that they always feed from, one of them came 
directly to it as if he had fed from it all his life. It's 
delightful to be remembered by the tiny creatures in 
this way, and nearly every season I have proof of their 
wonderful memory. This season at least two or three 
of my old pets have visited me. and all seem to be as 
tame as on the previous year, but the early birds that 
A HUMMING BIRD PET. 
are on the migratory move I cannot induce to stay. 
They nearly all go further north to set up housekeeping. 
I never expect to keep one for any length of time until 
the young birds appear in the early part of June. 
During the month of June this j r ear I had two or three 
quite tame, but one in particular never saw me anywhere 
round the place but he would come hovering round me, 
and I never failed to take his little bottle from my 
pocket and give him a sip or two. I have discovered 
that it is best to give them but little at a time, as they are 
apt to overfeed themselves. I often sit on the piazza 
to read my paper, and when I have a tame bird I hold 
the bottle — with the bow attachment — so that he can 
set and help himself without interfering with my read- 
ing; and this summer as I was reading I heard my 
pet, as I supposed, fly up ana take his seat, and I paid no 
attention to him for some time. 
I then looked up to see what he was doing, and to my 
surprise and delight there sat an old full-plumaged male 
bird — a friend of a previous year. But he never repeated 
the visit. Their movements in this latitude are a puzzle 
to me. Very few of them remain here to nest, and they 
all leave in a few months after the song birds appear, but 
where they go or why they go I can't imagine,, for they 
have flowers without limit. Didymus. 
[Years ago there was printed in the Forest and 
Stream a story of wild birds — mockingbirds, thrushes and 
others — whose confidence had been gained by a Mrs. Hil- 
dreth, of St, Augustine, so that they would fly from the 
trees to alight upon her and feed from her hand. It is 
interesting too, to note that the orange and oleander 
and jasmine embowered home of Didymus is in the near 
neighborhood of Mrs. Hildreth's place, Avhere the birds 
were petted a quarter-century ago. We reorint from a 
former sketch of these humming bird pets the illustration 
of one of them from a photograph.] 
Muskrats Do Eat Fish. 
It is quite possible that the muskrat might plead an 
alibi — as old man Weller advised Mr. Pickwick to do 
when he w r as charged with breach of promise to mars- 
hy the old widow — in regard to his alleged proclivity 
to eat fish, under no better evidence than that given by- 
Mr. Mather (Forest and Stream, Aug. 27). Any law- 
yer might reasonably except to this evidence as being 
not sufficient for conviction. But I can testify to this 
depraved conduct of this disagreeable animal in addi- 
tion to much more meanness. For I have taken him 
in the very act, and got the rat and the fish both at 
one shot, the fish being at the time in the rat's 
mouth. It was in this way: When I go a-fishing I am 
apt to waste a good deal of time upon other things, in- 
vestigating whatever may happen to set me a-thinking; 
but especially when I see anything strange and curious. 
Once I had a field of corn on one bank of my pond, and 
the muskrats were — as their habit is — doing a great deal 
of mischief carrying off the ears and chewing up more 
of them which they did not carry off. Going one evening 
along the bank of the pond I saw one of these animals 
quietly plunge into the water and dive down. The fish 
were rising freely in the quiet evening, and as I was 
watching the breaks in the water I saw a good-sized 
trout leap quite out of the water, and immediately the 
back of a muskrat at the surface, evidently in pursuit 
of this fish. Instantly there was a struggle in the water 
and I saw the rat had got the fish. Getting my gun in 
hand, as the two came to the surface, I shot both the 
rat and the fish, and recovered them. The fish had been 
caught by the belly, evidently as the rat had taken it 
when it fell back into the water. This satisfied me that 
other evidence — circumstantial it is true — as that given 
by Mr. Mather is, but convincing, in the shape of bones 
of fish on the bank of the pond often seen near the rats' 
holes, was sufficient as to the fish-eating habits of the 
muskrat, as were the half-eaten ears of corn also found 
near these holes on the bank of the pond as to his 
vegetarianism. 
I have frequently seen fish pursued by some animal 
whose back appeared above the surface as the fish leaped 
from the water, evidently when swimming with great 
rapidity and covering several feet in the air before they 
fell back again. Some of this may be due to minks or 
otters, but in this case there is no question that it was a 
muskrat which chased the fish out of the water, and 
caught it as it fell back. H. Stewart. 
Highlands, N. C. 
Crows Destroy Sparrows. 
Prof. Philip R. Uhler, provost of the Peabody In- 
stitute, Baltimore, tells the Sun, of that city: "One way, 
and a very peculiar way, of putting a check on the spar- 
rows has been brought to my attention. Three years 
ago the Peabody Institute was simply swarming with 
sparrows. They built nests in the hollows of the bal- 
ustrade on the roof, in the rainpipe gutters on the exten- 
sions, and fluttered and flew all over the place. They \vere 
laying hundreds of eggs up on the roof and about, and 
had gotten so bold as to fly down the ventilators right 
into the library. They were almost as thick on the top 
and steeple of Mount Vernon Place M. E. Church, across 
the street. Besides this, our roof was already tenanted 
by about 500 or more pigeons, kept by the janitor of the 
institute and his son, who set their traps up there and 
fed them. One day I noticed a crow on the roof of our 
building. I saw him look about curiously, up, around 
and down where the sparrows' nests were. The next 
thing he did was to get to work on the eggs. A few 
days passed, and I saw him again, this time accom- 
panied by two other crows that were at the same scheme. 
The crows from that time on increased until twelve came 
to that spot. 
"Meanwhile there was trouble among the sparrows 
and pigeons. Their eggs were being eaten at an 
alarming rate, and they were obliged to go. And go 
they did, so that now there is no a sparrow to be found 
on our roof or about the institute, where before there 
were hundreds. On the Mount Vernon Place Church 
they have vanished in the same way, and the pigeons 
likewise have disappeared. These crows have been com- 
ing regularly every morning to this place — one dozen of 
them. They appear to have a beat, and work between 
the Peabody Institute and Dolphin street on the north. 
In that space they have cleaned out many sparrows. The 
pigeons were as numerous as they were about St Paul's 
in London, where people make a practice of feeding 
them. They have gone too. 
"The fact of these twelve crows working in this way 
is very singular, and goes to prove that the crow has 
more brains than he is given credit for. The big crow 
roost in Anne Arundel county, back of Spring Gar- 
dens, is the gathering spot for thousands of them, where 
they scrape for the water snails. Every morning be- 
tween four and five o'clock a big flock of them passes 
over the city. As they reach the Peabody there are 
exactly twelve, as I said before, that drop out of the 
flock and settle on our roof. The rest fly on, going 
up Jones' Falls, and even out as far as Towson, where 
they grub and dig around in the fields for worms and 
things. Whether our twelve crows are wiser than their 
brethren, who have not yet caught on to the game being 
worked, or whether the others don't care to take the 
extra trouble to get their food in this way, it is hard to 
say. Anyhow these twelve crows have a monopoly in 
the sparrow-egg eating business, and are working it 
for all it is worth. It is giving the sparrows a dose of 
their own medicine, but the number of crows is too 
small to have any appreciable effect on the millions of 
existing sparrows," 
