FOREST AND STREAM. 
423 
they howled as they rushed from the far-off grottoes and 
caverns of the West and swept over this flat country. 
Weill we were almost paralyzed. Our only day, and 
just look at the weather. We decided that we would 
go anyway, even if we got wet, and Messrs. Irby and 
Hart were good natured enough to humor us. So about 
7 A. M. we got on the road. 
We had five good dogs, three Llewellyn setters and two 
pointers. Two of the setters belonged to Mr. Irby, and 
one pointer to Mr. Hart, and we had brought one setter 
and one pointer from Memphis with us. We were well 
equipped in horses, dogs, guns, lunch and everything 
that went to make a pleasant and successful day, all we 
lacked was propitious weather. 
We traveled about three miles down the road, when 
one of the dogs jumped a fence, and as he landed on the 
other side flushed a covey of quail. .We all started afoot 
after them, and soon one of the setters, Fanny, belonging 
to Mr. Swind, had them. Then the other dogs came up 
one by one and supported her, until all five dogs were 
circled around that covey of quail. Gracious, what a 
picture! Five dogs rigid as death, four men standing 
with guns at rest admiring the beautiful scene. That 
picture was worth our trouble, and all expressed the 
thought that if we did not see another bird that day 
we had been amply repaid. Finally Cap, Mr. Hart's 
pointer, seemed to think it was time for action, and dived 
- into the covey. Birds went in every direction. Three 
guns fired and two birds fell; Hart got one, Irby one, 
and I missed: or feathered my bird, which is worse. 
We concluded that there were too many men and 
dogs to, hunt well all in one bunch, so we would separate 
in pairs. 
Irby and Wester and Wester's little boy Sam, whom I 
forgot to mention was with us, went one way and took 
Dick, the negro, to hold their horses. Hart and I went 
in a different direction. Irby and Wester had Mr. Irby's 
two setters, Prince and Cleveland, with them. We had 
Mr. Swind's setter Fanny, his pointer Chess, and Mr. 
Hart's pointer Cap with us. It was awfully hot and 
dry, and the wind kept the dust blowing in a regular 
gale over the cotton and stubble fields. Hart said we 
would hunt this covey out and then go to the swamp 
along the creek bottom, as all the birds would be in the 
thickets on such a day as this. 
We had not gone iooyds. when Fanny came down on 
a single. She is a regular jewel, and has a magnificent 
nose, besides a very quaint habit of dropping flat when 
she points. We walked up the bird, and I took the first 
shot and feathered it, and Hart killed it. I was shooting 
a light load ofsmokeless powder and No. 8 shot, which 
was not effective enough in the strong wind that was 
blowing. I never will believe that smokeless powder is 
as strong as a good quality of black powder. I know 
many experts pronounce it stronger, but when I want 
to kill birds at long range, , and kill them dead, and not 
feather them, I will take black powder. I borrowed a 
box of black powder shells from Mr. Hart, giving him 
all my smokeless shells to use at some future day when 
there was no wind. We proceeded, and soon Fanny had 
birds again, and Chess and Cap came up and backstood 
or supported her in fine style. Hart insisted on my shoot- 
ing first. That is the way all West Tennesseeans treat 
strangers, he said. We sent Cap into the brush to score 
out what we thought was a single bird, and were sur- 
prised when he flushed a new covey. " I killed my bird, 
and Hart said: "I hit one very hard, and think we 
will find it out yonder." I sent old Chess after my bird, 
and soon heard him in the briers scratching and gnawing 
at something. I went in to see what he was up to, and 
found him rolling a rabbit trap over and over, and ex- 
erting all his talents and strength to tear one of the 
boards from the side of it. It seems that Chess must have 
gotten after the wounded bird and it had run into this 
rabbit trap to get away from him, and the door of the 
trap had snapped on the bird; thus shutting it in com- 
pletely. Old Chess was determined to have that bird, 
so he* had set to work very industriously to tear the 
trap to pieces. I patted him on the head, and then took 
the bird out of the trap. Hart had a good laugh at me. 
He said I was determined not to go home empty handed, 
as I not only shot birds, but afterward caught them in 
traps. 
Well, we went on, and soon Cap had birds. The 
dog was standing stiff, and was pointing right down 
between his two front paws. Hart called my attention 
to the position of the dog, and after looking carefully 
for a moment we saw the bird within ioin. of the dog's 
nose, crouched low under a tuft of grass. I never in 
all my life saw a dog get so close to a bird without 
flushing it. I really believe he could have caught the 
bird had he jumped upon it. Hart insisted on my taking 
the shot, and I walked up and missed beautifully, and 
Hart smashed it down. I was beginning to get rattled 
or something. At first I thought it was the light loads 
and the white powder; Now I was missing with heavy 
loads and black powder. Well, I grit my teeth and re- 
solved to do better. Hart "let me down easy" by saying, 
"We all miss sometimes." 
We had gone only a few rods when Chess pointed, and 
when sent in he sprang upon a dead bird, the one Hart 
had hit in the flush of the covey. We started again, and 
soon Fanny found birds, and dropped flat on her 
stomach, the prettiest point I ever saw made by any dog. 
She would not go in. so Hart stepped up and put up 
the bird, which flew directly over his head and behind 
him. He could not shoot, as I was in his range; but I 
turned in time to knock it down. This gave me con- 
fidence in myself, and I did not miss another shot that 
day, but I did not have very many more chances. The 
wind was blowing a perfect gale, and the wonder to 
me is that we killed at all. 
We now went down to the creek, and it was not long 
until Fanny had birds again. She pointed in the thick 
switch cane, and I got one as the birds flushed. We 
hunted out this covey as thoroughly as the ground and 
circumstances would permit, and got several more birds. 
I sort of had it on Hart in the woods and brush, as I 
always could kill a bird with greater ease to snap shoot 
it in a thicket than I could to take deliberate aim out in 
an open field. 
We now started to find the other party, as we were 
getting pretty hungry, and they had the lunch basket 
with them. In a short time we came up with them 
seated at a well, near a farmhouse that belonged to Mr. 
Irby. They had just finished eating their lunch, but the 
basket was brought out again and the menu, simple as it 
was, should have satisfied a king. 
We found that Wester and Irby had eleven birds and 
we ten, and that each had killed about his quota. The 
wind was so high that no birds could be found, excepting 
along the creek in the brush and cane, so we agreed 
to hunt toward town and not go any further. We started 
as soon as all were rested and refreshed, and Hart and 
I rode away, leaving Wester and Irby banging away at 
birds down in the bottom. We got back to town without 
starting any more birds, as we left the bottom and rode 
through the open cotton fields. After a while Wester 
and Irby came in and reported that they had bagged 
four more birds, making a total of twenty-five birds 
to the four guns, an extremely light bag for this section 
of the country. One hundred or 150 birds to four guns 
would have been a good day's hunt if the weather had 
been suitable. Mr. Hart told me that twelve miles from 
Collierville on his brother-in-law's plantation he had 
often started twenty-five coveys in one day's hunt. Wc 
counted twelve coveys that we had found on a very dry 
and extremely windy day. Several of the coveys were 
not fired at, owing to the extreme thickness of the cover 
where they were found. Wester and Irby had got into 
a regular nest of birds after lunch, and soon after we 
had left them. Wester said they found four large coveys 
in a patch of cane less than an acre in size, but the 
wind was blowing so hard, and the cane and bushes were 
so thick, they could scarcely shoot at all. They managed 
to bag four birds, however, and then gave it up as a bad 
job. 
Neither Mr. Hart nor Mr. Irby would have a single 
bird, but just compelled W'ester and me to take them 
all, so we had a dozen large, fat quail each to take home 
to our families, and best of all we had had a day of 
unalloyed, un equaled pleasure. And last, but by no 
means least, we met 'and enjoyed the kindness and hos- 
pitality of three of the biggest-hearted, most whole- 
souled gentlemen that ever trod mother earth, namely, 
Mr. Hart and the Irby brothers. To form the acquaint- 
ance of three such men would be worth a dozen trips 
if not a feather had been seen. 
Now, kind reader, if ever you have a chance to come 
to West Tennessee or Mississippi you just come. It 
don't make a whit's difference from where or whence you 
come, if you are a sportsman and a gentleman, you will 
receive treatment that will always make you glad you are 
both. If you are a gentleman only, you will receive a 
cordial welcome. 
We boarded our train for home at 6 P. M., and were 
at our respective firesides an hour later. Now I know 
what Thanksgiving Day means to the busy man, and I 
thank God for having given it to me. as well as others. 
The day following my outing the air was sweeter, the 
flowers brighter, everyone seemed to wear a smile instead 
of the frown of yesterday. The very rattle of the drays 
upon the stony streets chimed music instead of discord. 
A. B. Wtngfielp. 
Yukon Indians. 
The Indians on the Yukon are good-natured and 
harmless. In many ways they remind one of the South- 
ern negro. They sing "My Girl's a High Born Lady" 
and all the latest Bowery airs. It is said that the British 
drum beat sounds around the world, but nowadays 
popular songs do the same thing, and in a very much 
more thorough way. At Guam, our new possession in 
the Ladrones, the newspapers tell us the natives sing 
"Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-aye," and this air is often heard 
along the Yukon. No doubt it has penetrated to Tim- 
buctoo, and the sacred city of Thibet. Judging from 
the Yukon, native music seems to be dying out. The 
catchy airs of the music hall are supplying a world 
music. 
The Indians have very keen ears, though their voices 
can hardly be called melodious. Some of them will 
catch an air after hearing it once, and reproduce it cor- 
rectly by humming or on the mouth organ. I never 
heard 'an Indian whistle or sing at the full extent of 
his lungs, though very likely they do both. 
Give an Indian a mouth organ, "juice harp." as 
Huckleberry Finn's negro had it, or an accordion, and 
you will insure his happiness, no matter if he is cold or 
starving. The Indian is as yet ignorant of the banjo, 
but when he is once introduced to it I think it will be 
his favorite instrument, as it is with his sable brother. 
It must be borne in mind that I am speaking of the 
interior Indians. The coast Indians are a very different 
breed. They are fighters and quarrelsome, robbing the 
white man by exorbitant packing charges now that they 
have learned it isn't wise to do the thing by force of 
arms. It was these Indians who, by right of their pos- 
session of the passes, made the interior an unknown 
country for so long to the white man. Up to a very 
recent date they effectually monopolized the trade of the 
Yukon. They even checkmated the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany when it attempted to gain an entrance into the 
country from the east, capturing and burning the post 
established at Fort Selkirk in 1852. These Indians are 
powerfully built, and a twelve-year-old girl will trudge 
along with as heavy a pack as the average white man 
can carry, while their skookum packers carry as much 
as a horse. 
About 300 Indians make their headquarters at Fort 
Selkirk. They call themselves Yukon Indians, and con- 
sider the name Stick Indians (which Dr. Dawson applies 
to them) an insult. "Me no Stick," they say with dis- 
gust, "me Yukon Indian." Instead, they apply the name 
Stick to the Tagish Indians, whose headquarters are on 
Lake Marsh, and who, while they resemble the other 
interior Indians in manners and customs, are undoubted- 
ly a branch of the coast Indians. 
The Indian in Camp. 
The Fort Selkirk Indians are the Gens des Bois, or 
Wood Indians, of the fur traders. They are poor boat- 
men as a rule, but have a Wonderful knowledge of wood- 
craft, and particularly of the twin arts of keeping warm 
with very little protection from the weather, and keeping 
alive on next to no food in periods of scarcity. Re- 
cently they have to a certain extent taken to living in 
houses, and are suffering seriously as a consequence 
from pulmonary diseases. They are seen to best ad- 
vantage under natural conditions, living in their brush 
lean-tos and _ subsisting on the game. While on the 
hunting trail in winter their camps are designed chiefly 
for the purpose of breaking the wind. Two or more 
families commonly travel together, and the camps are 
built facing each other. The sides and back are built 
up to a height of 2 or 3ft. with spruce boughs, and over 
the pole rafters, which rise to the height of a man's 
head in front, a piece of drilling or other light ma- 
terial is thrown for a roof. The roof keeps out the 
snow, and serves to reflect and utilize a portion of the 
heat. Between the two camps is a passageway, which 
also serves for the fireplace. The camps are located 
sideways to the direction of the wind, which passes 
directly down the passageway and carries off the smoke. 
The fire itself is maintained in the hollow which it 
melts in the snow. Green logs are laid at either siae, 
and across these split pieces of green wood are placed, 
which are renewed as they burn out. It is a combination 
of Nessmuk's outdoor fireplace and the Buzzacott idea. 
Indians make camp early — say at 2 in the afternoon 
when it grows dark at 4— and they are very careful 
not to be caught out late on a cold night without fire- 
wood. 
They carry their food and outfit on toboggans drawn by 
the dogs and female members of the party. The dogs, like 
their masters, can get along on very little food, and One 
of the chief articles of diet of the true Indian dog is 
ordure. They are perfect scavengers in this respect, and 
no filth is ever left around an Indian camp where dogs 
are, unless by chance it becomes so frozen that it -cannot 
be eaten. 
Moose and Caribou. 
The mainstay of the Indians in the way of game is 
the caribou. Oddly enough they often' call caribou 
moose, and when talking with the Indians one has to 
question closely to make sure which animal is meant. 
When they have meat to sell it is generally "moose meat," 
though in nine cases out of ten it was cut from a cari- 
bou. 
The reason of this interchange of names is due. I think, 
to the confusion in the terminology of the white men 
when alluding to caribou. The Hudson Bay men and Can- 
adians, who come from a country having no Virginia 
•deer, call the caribou a deer. Mr. Harper, the founder 
of the existing trading store at Fort Selkirk, tells new- 
comers that there are no caribou in the country, and 
that the correct name for the animal is deer. The men 
from the States, who are in the vast majority as regards 
numbers, are unfamiliar with caribou, but they all inow 
the common deer, and know that the caribou of the 
Yukon is a different animal. Some of them call it a 
reindeer, but many others saddle the name of moose on 
it. Moose and caribou are a good deal the same thing, 
they fallaciously argue, and anyhow by calling the cari- 
bou a moose they won't get into an argument with a red- 
headed Scotchman as to whether or not it's a deer. 
The Indians kill both the woodland and barren ground 
caribou. The horns and skins of some killed early in the 
winter near Fort Selkirk were those of the familiar 
woodland caribou. I believe, however, that their main 
dependence is the barren ground caribou, which pene- 
trates the country at the sources of the Yukon in mid- 
winter. 
I mentioned elsewhere the herd of barren ground 
caribou, estimated to number io.eco, which crossed 
Twelve-Mile Creek late in December, and out of which 
Quin Taylor, of Seattle, killed- forty-five, which he. 
packed into Dawson and sold. This herd was on the 
wrong side of the Yukon, according to precedent, and 
many of the Tanana Indians who expected to intercept 
it on the other side starved as a consequence. They 
had such implicit confidence that it would turn up on 
its accustomed route of migration that they waited long 
after prudence dictated going elsewhere, and not 
till they had eaten their dogs and moccasins did thev 
lose faith in the integrity of the caribou. 
Food Economics. 
When the Indians find such a herd they follow along 
in the rear with the wolves and foxes, in very much 
the same way that our Western Indians used to follow 
the buffalo. They kill all they can, and what meat they 
are unable to dispose of on the spot they cache in 
trees. In this way they accumulate depots of supplies 
over a large extent of country, and as the air is pure and 
very dry, the meat remains edible for considerable 
periods even in warm weather. 
Indians are not very particular about the condition of 
their food, and will dispose of some pretty rank messes, 
but one thing they will not eat is wolf. More surprising 
still, if true, is the reported fact that Indian dogs will 
not eat wolf. These dogs rob white men's caches, tearing 
open sacks and gorging on raw flour and oatmeal, and 
nothing from soap to sulphur matches is safe from their 
depredations. Wanting to dispose of the carcasses of 
the wolves we killed below Selkirk, I asked the Indians 
if they could use them. They said no. I suggested feed- 
ing to the dogs, and they shook their heads again. "Dog 
no muck muck wolf," they said. "Todder way, wolf 
muck muck dog." 
When the time comes for starving, the Indian takes it 
as a matter of fact, and contentedly. Only once in a 
while is there a weak-livered one who cries and says: 
"Muck muck all gone. 'Fraid poor Indian die." They peel 
the bark from pine and even popple trees and eat the softer 
inner portion. The pine bark is full of resin and nasty 
stuff, and there is certainly no nutriment' in it. It 
serves, however, to fill the stomach and lessen the gnaw- 
ing at the inwards. One can travel for miles along the 
Yukon and never be out of sight of peeled trees, marked 
with the characteristic arrow-shaped blaze. The fact 
signifies the frequency of periods of starvation, for there 
are only a few hundred Indians in all on the whole length 
of the upper river. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Pitts, we occupied a 
cabin at Fort Selkirk for two weeks, while searching 
for our lost beats, and this cabin was a great center of 
attraction with the Indians. They came there at all 
hours of the day and night, men, women and children, 
