\ T ov. ).', J -Sr. r- | 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
3 S 9 
[An open row boat does not contravene to the law. Mr. 
[Hotchkiss sends me two handsome photographs of his 
[Chesapeake retriever, with whose aid, he informs mc, he 
[bagged eighty-six ducks (to three guns) one day, 
From Little Rock. Ark., my friend, Joe Trwin, writes 
[encouragingly about ducks, etc.. in that country : 
"I have not written you for some time, but have just, 
[returned from a clay or two's tri- on the prairie, where 
[last Monday there were reported thousands of ducks, but 
[as we did not get away until Thursday evening, we were 
[late on the grounds. We, Pemberton and myself, landed 
[two and a half dozen mallards. Friday turned off warm 
[and they quit the prairie lakes and went to the timber to 
[feed. We expect some good quail shooting this fall. 
[In spite of several heavy frosts, the cover is very heavy 
yet. 
"At Scott's Bayou, only ten miles out by rail, the boys 
[are having fine fishing on crappie and black and rock 
|bass ("bar fish"). Their catch is very heavy. Strange as 
it seems, there has been but little fall fishing done here 
until the past year. A new club house has just been 
erected at the mouth of Scott's Bayou, where it goes into 
Old River. Old River is where Pemberton and I took 
the big lot of bass with the bucktail flies, which I wrote 
about two years ago. It is literally alive with game fish, 
and the members of this club are having grand sport 
with live bait. 
"There was a heavy flight of mallards last week, and 
1 killed a few and saw large numbers feeding in Fouche, 
a small stream one-half mile from the city limits. Come 
and see us when you can." 
Personal. 
Mr. William Schmedtgen, artist of the Chicago 
Record, has this week gone down to Spring Lake, 
111,, for some duck shooting and for a rest. Mr. 
Schmedtgen, as perhaps I have earlier mentioned, was 
one of the newspaper artists in the Santiago campaign. 
Hp came back somewhat hurt in health, but he is one of 
the few correspondents and artists who do not claim to 
have saved the country by their unaided personal ef- 
forts. 
,,Mr. W. H. Mullins, of Salem, Ohio, maker of Xh: 
fejjiotts featherweight metal duck boats, was in Cnicago 
again this week, and paid the Forest and Stream office 
>a little visit. 
Mr. Harvey McMurchy, of the Hunter Arms Company, 
spent a couple of days in the city this week. He re- 
ports good sales, and looks as though he might make 
them. 
Mr. C. W. Budd, the celebrated trap shooter, who has 
done so much for the Hazard powder this season, was 
in Chicago this week, and left for Cincinnati. 
Mr. Richard Merrill" and his friend, Mr. Hunt, an old 
Florida acquaintance, were in the city Monday, planning 
for a winter trip South. Mr. Merrill and his brother, 
Mr. Fred F. Merrill, will take a launch and a house boat 
down the Mississippi this winter, perhaps going by 
rail as far as Memphis. They will shoot in Louisiana, 
and may get over as far as High Island. Texas, which 
point I believe is a coming one among wildfowl resorts. 
I had thought Mr. Leon Reynolds, of Augusta, Mich., 
was perhaps the oldest deer hunter of record this fall, 
but now I notice that in Berrien county, Mich., licenses 
have been taken out by George Elston, who is seventy- 
five years of age, and by Major Pearl, who is eighty- 
three years old. The sportsman's life is a healthful one. 
At Chippewa Falls. Wis., there had been issued up to 
Nov. i 850 deer licenses. Last year over 1,300 licenses 
were issued in all at this point. 
Mr. L. H. Hascall, Grand Rapids. Mich., paid the 
Forest and Stream office a little visit this week. Mr. 
Hascall is an old-time shooter, and knew all the sports- 
men of this vicinity in the days- of Turrill, Bogardus and 
the Kleinman boys. He tells me of trap shoots of 237 
entries in the wild pigeon days, and says that in those 
days things were shot to a finish. Therefore he feels 
rather a contempt for a Grand American Handicap where 
one man does not take all the money at the end of the 
shooting. Times have changed very much since Mr. 
Hascall first began to shoot, but he still goes out with 
all of his accustomed zeal in the field. He tells me that 
this is a great game year in Michigan, though he is not 
hunting deer this fall himself. He says that deer hunting 
has fallen off from what it was in the old times. He 
says that in his day dogs and everything else used to go 
in the hunting methods, and he gives me the interesting 
news, which he says was well authenticated at the time, 
that in one year 30,000 deer were shipped out of the 
lower peninsula of Michigan. I fancy that the old- 
timers of the future will never be able to speak of any 
such record as that. 
Nearly 500 Utes are reported on Sulphur and Cathedral 
creeks, Colo., not far from where the Ute killings took 
place last fall. The}' have killed a great many deer, and 
have not been troubled by any wardens. Their hunt is 
now nearly over, and they are expected soon to go home.- 
The State of Oregon, a great one, and of great game 
resources, is at present without any fish or game pro- 
tector, the law covering that office having been re- 
pealed. The legislators of that State seem to be a 
gaudily intelligent body of men. 
Last winter was a mild one in Indiana and Illinois, and 
the quail did very well. The breeding season has also 
been fortunate, and the shooting this fall will be the 
best we have had for very many years. 
I have recently mentioned two or three side-hunts 
which have this fall been perpetrated in Western dis- 
tricts, but I feel after all that the West is by contrast not 
so bad. but that it might be worse. This week forty 
members of a Baltimore shooting club not only went out 
on a side-hunt for count, but put up a silver medal for 
the man making the highest score. 
Buffalo Jones in the Arctic Circle. 
Chicago, 111., Oct. 21. — Yesterday I sat in my office 
Imsily engaged with something which at the time seemed 
important. I heard a light step on the floor behind me 
and turned as a hand fell on my shoulder. I looked at 
the man who had come in, looked twice, indeed. It was 
Buffalo Jones that stood before me; my old friend Jones, 
hearty and brown as ever, and though more wrinkled 
about the forehead and eyes, apparently as young as 
ever, with his fifty-four years. 
"Well," said I, "where have you been?" 
"Everywhere," said he. "To the arctic circle last. I 
have only been home about two weeks." 
"What have you been doing?" I asked. 
"Everything," he said, "T have been busy out West." 
"Did you get your irrigation ditch in Nebraska built?" 
T said. 
"Yes,, long ago," he replied. "That was after I sold 
ftiy herd of buffalo. Then I concluded to go North." 
"Where in the world do you get all this money for 
these trips?" I said. 
"Why, I sold my railroad," said Buffalo Jones. 
"Oh, I didn't know you had a railroad." 
"\ r es, I built a railroad down in Texas, seventy miles 
long. T had some money, and I never had built a rail- 
road, so I thought I would. I sold it out and made 
plenty of money, then I thought I would go North after 
musk oxen. I wanted to get some live musk ox calves." 
"Yes, I know you started on that trip," said I. "The 
last I heard of you was a couple of years ago, when you 
were fast on a rock in the Athabasca Rapids. Did you 
get off that rock?" 
"I did," said Jones, "and I got a good deal further 
North than that rock. I have been not only to the 
musk ox range in the Barren Grounds, but beyond it. 
I have been all over the ground covered by Warburtou 
Pike, and far to the east of that. I was away east of the 
Coppermine River, and far beyond the Great Fish River. 
I didn't travel in a sledge, but walked it. On the furthest 
parts of my trip I did not have any guide whatever. 
With one white man, John Rea by name, who was also 
a stranger in that country, I was out for over a month 
on the musk ox range without any guide. I think I have 
been where no white man has been before. This I did 
not by the help of the Indians, but in spite of them." 
"Jones," said L looking at him. "it is barely possible 
that under these circumstances there is a story in you." 
"I shouldn't wonder," said he. 
'T suppose it is not worth while to ask you whether 
you got any musk ox calves, because, of course, you 
did." 
"Yes, I got five calves," 'said he. 
"What did you do with them?" 
Jones unwound a long roll of newspaper he carried in 
his hand, and pulled out the strangest looking weapon f 
have ever seen. It was a piece of steel butcher knife 
blade, perhaps 3M1, long, worn and ground until the 
word "Sheffield" was barely visible upon its face, ft 
was sharpened with the bevel all on one side, as savage 
people sharpen their knives. This trivial bit of steel 
was rudely riveted to a long, slender, recurving piece of 
hard bone, apparently the rib of some animal. In the 
edge of the bone, close up to the tiny blade, were cut 
notches for finger holds. Jones took the long bone 
handle in his hand, its end lying back to the right and 
resting on his arm above the elbow, his right hand 
grasping the lower end of the handle at the notches. 
He swept the blade, thus stiffened by a strong leverage, 
back and forth in the air. It could be seen that much 
damage could be done with a weapon so strengthened 
by the purchase of the arm. "They whittle this way." 
said he, drawing the blade toward him. 
"Who?" said I. 
"I don't know," said he. "but either Yellow Rib In- 
dians or Esquimaux. Anyhow, that is what became of 
my musk ox calves." He threw the knife down upon 
the table. "That is what killed them." he said. "We 
found this knife lying by the bodies where they were 
killed. We never knew who did the killing, but we 
found all the calves with their throats cut." Jones 
showed more emotion than 1 ever knew him to do be- 
fore in my long acquaintance with him. 
"Jones," said I, "I am more than ever convinced that 
there is a story in you this morning." 
A Daring Trip. 
And there is a story, I think, without doubt one of 
the greatest stories of personal adventure and daring 
enterprise that has come up in this part of the. century. 
It is a story too long for giving in any detail in these 
columns, so that I am glad to say that it will soon ap- 
pear in book form, being given as a climax in the story 
of a life spent in similar adventure, and intimately con- 
cerned in the capture and handling of large wild animals. 
I shall try to give some little idea of this remarkable 
journey in such space as may be allowed. The trip was 
made without the aid of any corporation or individual. 
It was made under the espionage of all the 
white men along the route, and against the op- 
position of all the native tribes encountered. It 
required the overcoming of the superstition of 
the Indians and of the fears of the white men. 
We read about the Klondike and the Yukon trails, and 
about the Mackenzie River roitte to the Klondike gold 
fields. Buffalo Jones undertook a trip a hundredfold 
more dangerous and trying, going where there were no 
trails, where there were no charts, and where there was 
no definite destination, Somewhere out in the land of 
ice there were musk ox calves. Jones started from his 
home, his last home at Perry, Okla., to find these calves. 
He found them and came back, striking the old Hudson 
Bay water trail far up toward the arctic circle. He 
went within the arctic circle, reaching the mouth of the 
Mackenzie. Fie passed two thousand winter-bound re- 
fugees caught in that awful region in the middle of their 
journey to the land of gold. He reached the Yukon, and 
the Klondike seeming too tame, he went on to the mouth 
of the Yukon and took ship for home. Here also there 
was vicissitude. On the Dutch Harbor coast the vessel 
was nearly wrecked. Two weeks ago Buffalo Jones ar- 
rived at Seattle. When he got home he learned that 
he had been twice reported dead. His daughter fell 
in a faint at a sight of him. Instead of being gone 
six months, he had been gone seventeen months. And 
he had, I submit, carried the flag of Yankee daring as 
far and as well as any man has done. 
Jones told me that he had in all seen about forty musk 
oxen. He had killed in all about a dozen, securing 
some of the rarest and most valuable trophies that can 
come to the sportsman of any clime. He brings a 
bad report for the future of the musk ox. He says thart 
all over their range the arctic wolves have become very 
numerous. Jones is not a timid man, but he speaks with 
fear of these great wolves, which he says followed them 
day and night, and gave them continual anxiety. They 
came into the very camp, so close that Jones struck at 
one with the axe one night. They bit one of the large 
sledge dogs, which soon thereafter developed accute hy- 
drophobia. This dog bit three of the others, one of the 
dog train and two of the shepherd dogs, which Jones 
had taken along for assistance in baying up the musk 
oxen when he was capturing the calves. All four of 
these dogs died of hydrophobia. They shot these great 
snow white wolves in scores, indeed shot too many of 
them. 
Buffalo Jones' Last Shot. 
Coming in from their last musk ox hunt, they were 
still fifty miles from camp when they found that their 
stock of ammunition was reduced to a single cartridge. 
They came upon some caribou, and Jones made the 
stalk. It was a long-range shot, and upon it rested all 
their hopes. 
"I took a knee rest." said Jones, "and drew up until 
I was holding about 4m. above the top of the caribou's 
shoulder." 
"It must have taken a good deal of nerve to go up 
in the air that way, with your last shot," said I. 
"I don't know," said Jones. "I knew I was holding 
right. I never raise my rear sights, but I knew I would 
kill that caribou, and so I did. We lived seventeen days 
on caribou meat alone. At another time we lived eleven 
days on a biscuit and a half apiece per day. You should 
see me eat now." 
As an instance of the ghastly blood-thirstiness of the 
arctic wolves, Jones tells the following story, which he 
admits his partner begged him not to repeat, since no 
one would believe it. He shot at one big wolf, break- 
ing its foreleg. It went away and he followed it. firing 
at it again at long range, and breaking a hindleg, so 
that it finally fell in the snow. When he went up to it he 
saw a gruesome sight. The blood from the wound in 
the broken foreleg had run down and frozen, covering 
the lower portion of the leg. Tasting this blood, the 
ravenous wolf, as it lay there, helpless in the snow, had 
actually eaten off and devoured its own forefoot! I think 
this is the most savage story I ever heard, and gives 
the best idea of that savage country. It was no won- 
der that, followed by scores of these great beasts, the 
march with the musk ox calves was a slow and always 
dangerous one. 
How the Calves were Caught. 
Buffalo Jones had, of course, never seen a musk ox 
before he made this trip, yet he made his plans in ad- 
vance, figuring out exactly how he would capture them, 
and he said that the plans worked perfectly. They ap- 
parently involved one imperative but cruel necessity* 
namely, the crippling of the cows. Jones took along 
six shepherd dogs. When the musk ox were sighted, a 
band in which were some calves, these dogs were loos- 
ened. The musk ox, on seeing the men, would nearly 
invariably come directly toward them, sometimes within 
a hundred yards. When the dogs were slipped the musk 
oxen stood and fought them, depending on their horns. 
This is the way in which they fight the wolves, circling 
up with heads outside, knowing that they dare not run, 
Approaching close, the hunters shot down the old ani- 
mals. The cows with calves were shot down, one or 
two being left alive and being shot through the hindlegs, 
so that they were crippled and broken down. As they 
lay there still fighting the dogs, the calves ran aboul 
them, afraid to go away from their protection. Then 
Jones roped the calves, one by one. and they were pulled 
out of the heap of dead and dying. The calves were 
taken in April, and were then about ten months old. In 
size they were about that of a Jersey calf of equal age, 
though not so tall. They were of the size of a five or six 
mouths' buffalo calf, and looked something like the 
buffalo with half the legs cut off, being very short and 
stumpy in appearance. 
Arctic Itinerary of Buffalo Jones. 
I shall attempt to give briefly the itinerary of Buffalo 
Jones, without attempting to cover any of the hundreds 
of delays, dangers and adventures of which he told me. 
He left home in June, 1897, and arrived at Edmonton, 
Alberta, in early July. He built a boat and started down 
the Athabasca River alone, being unable to hire an 
Indian guide. In the Grand Rapids he was hung up on 
a rock, as I have said, this story having come back a 
year and a half ago. through the Hudson Bay people, to 
Edmonton, whence I got track of it and mentioned it in 
the Forest and Stream. Rescued by the Northwestern 
Mounted Police, the latter forbade him to go on with- 
out a guide. He finally hired an Indian. He reached 
Athabasca Lake the middle of July, and arrived at 
South Landing about the middle of August. He made 
the sixteen miles portage at the Great Rapids, half-way 
between Athabasca Lake and Great Slave Lake. On 
the 20th of August he arrived at Fort Resolution 
and built a boat. He sailed to the east end of Great 
Slave Lake, to Fort Reliance, where Captain Back win- 
tered in his search for Captain Ross in the winter of 1833 
and 1834. He went into winter quarters here on the 
22d of September, this being about the limit of good 
timber. He built a log cabin, using one of the four 
chimneys left standing by Captain Back. At Fort 
Resolution it was that he met his companion, J. R. Rea, 
a Canadian, whom Jones calls a hero, and of whom he 
cannot speak with sufficient admiration. Rea was a 
trader whose partner had left him and gone to the 
Klondike. Rea and Jones wintered together. In 
November Rea made a little trip to see if he could 
locate any musk oxen, and to try to do a little trading 
with the Indians. He found no musk oxen, and the 
two wintered in their cabin. In March they started out 
with two dog trains' and one Indian. They had to take 
with them their lodge poles and all the wood which 
they would have to burn. They went west over Artil- 
lery Lake, and went up the river to Clinton Golden 
Lake, this being about two hundred miles from camp. 
They crossed Clinton Golden Lake and struck out E. by 
N. E., traveling about sixty miles, as near as they could 
tell, They found six bulls and killed them all. They 
