Feb, i8, 1899.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
12B 
occupants of the bed from rolling together. When com- 
pleted it was more o£ a double cot affair than a double 
bed, but it enabled us to sleep in the same sleeping bag, 
which was much vvarnier than if wc had slept singly. 
This was the only bed Mac and I had while in the 
Yukon, and no one CA'cr appreciated a luxury more. We 
wondered how we had ever managed to sleep on frozen 
ground, and for several weeks the bed furnished a stock 
topic of conversation. 
Our stovepipe was too short to reach up tlirough the 
roof of the cabin, and to get connection with the outer air 
we set the stove up on a wooden stand and added a 
copper can to the top of the pipe, 
The table was made of 2in. sapHngs, Holes were 
bored with an inch auger and the pieces fitted in and 
joined, Tlie top was covered with canvas tightly 
stretched and tacked. We would have made chairs on the 
same principle if we had needed them, but we had some 
boat stools along and other articles which served for 
seats and did not bother to make any. The door was 
made of three planks 5ft. long nailed together with cross 
pieces. Mac made a wooden latch and woqden hinges, 
which proved strong and serviceable. 
Film for Windows. 
We had no window, but could easily have- made one 
by cleaning up some. Off tlie photographic plates or film we 
had with us. 
In two instances we had the pteeasure of adding to the 
comfort of ladies by giving them fdm for glazing cabin 
windows. Four miles up the valley was a little 8x10 log 
cabin hi which were living a newspaper correspondent 
and his wife, who was not yet out of her teens. This 
young lady, who was a New Orleans girl, had frozen her 
feet early in the winter, but a little incident like that 
didn't spoil her good spirits, and she was bright and 
jolly and the best of company. Fortunately amputation 
was not required, but at the time we left she still was 
obliged to depend upon crutches for getting around. 
At Five Finger Rapids we found a Mr. and Mrs. Craft, 
who had left a prosperous restaurant in Chicago to go 
through to Dawson and cater for the gold magnates. 
The jammed river stopped them 300 miles from their 
destination, and Mrs. Craft was heartily sick of the 
enterprise and cursed the day she ever left her dear 
Chicago. The couple were living in a hole in the ground 
which was roofed over with a tent. Admittance was 
gained by a rude ladder. It was too cold for the woman 
to go out for any length of time and she ha,d no diversion 
whatever. Her nearest woman neighbor" was at the Little 
Salmon, forty miles away. Mr. Craft had just completed 
a cabin, and they expected to move in in a few days. If 
she only had a window there so that she could look out 
and see what was going on in the outside world Mrs. 
Craft thought she could manage to exist till spring. We 
gave her a strip of film 5ft. long, and there never was a 
more delighted woman. 
Some ingenious persons made windows from old 
bottles, setting every other one upside down and chink- 
ing between with mosSi 
Specalation at Dawson, 
Speaking of windows recalls the high prices paid at 
Dawson for glazed sashes. Ordinary 2 cent candles for 
use in the mines brought $1.25 apiece, and kerosene oil 
was $25 a gallon and only to be had at that price as a 
favor. The saloons had a practical monopoly of it, and 
toward springtime they ran out of oil and had to burn 
candles. As a result of the high prices for artificial light 
the price for glass went up. If a man had no window in 
his cabin he would have to burn some kind of a light 
part of the time during the day. A window was a real 
economy at almost any price. 
Frank Slavin, the ex-pugilist, told me that early in the 
season he paid $70 for an eight light sash, and before he 
reached his cabin he was ofYered $100 for it. At Sheep 
Camp, on the way out, we met a Brooklyn man by the 
name of Behrens, who had just come out from Dawson. 
He had bought three building lots in Sheep Camp and 
was putting up a hotel. He said that he landed in Daw- 
son late in the summer with 2 cents in his pocket, which 
was worse than nothing in a country where two bits, or a 
quarter, is the smallest change, and within three weeks 
he had cleared $1,700 speculating in supplies. 
Here is a sample of his method of doing business. He 
found a man who had just come down river with three 
small sashes of window glass in his boat. Each sash had 
four panes of 7x9 glass. He asked the man what he 
would take for them. The man said that he did not care 
to sell, that he wanted the windows for his own use. 
Behrens jollied him a little and ended by ofYering $50 in 
gold for the sashes. The man did not know prevailing" 
conditions in DaAvson and thought that he could afford 
to do without them at that price. A day or two after- 
wards Behrens sold the sashes for $300. 
There was a good demand for vinegar, lime juice and 
other anti-scorbutics prompted by the danger of scurvy. 
Behrens found a man who had a half pint bottle of con- 
centrated vinegar. It was put up on the principle of root 
beer extracts and guaranteed to make twenty gallons of 
.vinegar when mixed with water. Behrens bought in the 
concentrated form and paid 50 cents, and he sold on the 
diluted basis at a dollar a gallon and received $20. This 
transaction netted him 4,000 per cent, profit. There are 
few gold mines that can beat that. Unfortunately for 
Behrens, his season of speculation soon came to an end 
with the closing of the riv^r. J. B. Burnham. 
How to Skm an Eel. 
In endeavoring to do my turn, in giving a little in- 
formation here and there, that may come handy some 
lime, I beg you to publish this: 
The eel is a creature not very pleasant to handle, and 
not "everj'body" knows how to skin him. The first 
thing to do is to catch your eel, then lay him on his back 
and cut half-way through the neck, say lyiin. below 
the tip of the mouth. Then rip open the belly and clean 
it out. Then bend the head toward the back and get 
\old of the "backbone" and flesh together, with a knife 
.nd with the other hand pull on the head, and the skin 
f*'y CQUie ofl' ea<!lv as pulling off your glove. 
1 W. T. 
Flying Squirrels as Pets. 
In May, 1897, while walking in the woods with a 
friend, we found a hollow birch stub, which we pushed 
against, more in ciu^iosity than in expectation of finding 
anything in' it. Out flew a female flying squirrel, and 
four baby ones, which I thought must be about a month 
old, tumbled after her and started in all directions. We 
vverc fortunate enough to catch all the little ones, and put- 
ting them in a handkcrcliief we secured the ends with an 
clastic band, and I put the little parcel in my pocket. 
■It was a good while before we reached home, and I ex- 
pected to find all the squirrels ready for a taxidermist, 
but on opening the handkerchief they were apparently 
all right. Then came the problem of how to feed them. 
We took a glass fountain-pen tiller and fed them warm 
milk, and by their third meal they had learned to stretch 
out their little paws, clutch the glass and hold on until 
their hunger was satisfied. 
They grew very fast, but did not get their full growth 
until we had had them about eight months. We fed themon 
acorns, nuts and yellow corn, and they always drank 
milk, refusing water on all but very rare occasions, when 
they let their desire for it be known by chirping loudly 
and persistently until we gave it to them. 
We tried all sorts of foods on them, and found them 
very fastidious. They would eat a little sweet apple with 
great relish, but always refused any sour ones. They 
were fond of parsley, but that was about the only green 
thing they cared for, with the exception of pansy flowers 
and apple-tree twigs. The latter they would devour with 
great avidity, bark, leaves and everything but the inside 
wood, which they left as clean and white as a toothpick. 
In their wild state they must consume a great deal of 
animal food. This is a fact which the natural histories tell 
us. We tried various things, and found that they had a 
distinct choice in meats as well as in vegetables. They 
liked nearly all moths, although the few which are unfor- 
tunate enough to emit an unpleasant odor they sniffed 
at and left. They would make a lightning-like spring at 
a moth, seize him so the dust from the wings would_ not 
trouble their breathing apparatus, and then bite off the 
head; then the body followed, and soon only the wings 
and a few legs remained. 
They refused crickets, but delighted in grasshoppers, 
preferring the kind "with a plentiful supply of molasses/' 
as Mr. Gibson speaks of them. They were very careful 
to hold these dainties so that the long legs would not 
kick, and the head was eaten first, as in the case of moths. 
Occasionally they would catch and decapitate a fly, but 
it never seemed that they wanted to eat it. Flies simply 
exasperated them, and they killed them as we would— to 
get rid of them. They like sugar, and crunch it like chil- 
dren. Chestnuts they only cat when starved to it, and 
while they eat a few walnuts, they like better than any- 
thing else besides acorns, filberts and pecans. 
There were three males and one female. The latter was 
the largest and best developed of the four, and by far the 
handsomest 
As it neared sprmg, wc wondered if the little lady 
would reward us by adding to our stock of squirrels, 
but everybody said it was unheard of for flying squirrels 
to breed in captivity, so my surprise can be imagmed 
when, on March 25, 1898, I found in the cage the little 
lady cuddling three little pink things, for all the world 
like baby mice. We did not dare leave them in the cage 
at the mercy of the other three, so she and her family 
were moved into a large box and placed in the house. 
We tried to coax her to eat, trying all sorts of delicacies 
on her, which had never before failed to please; btit her 
pride in those red mites was funny. 
Suddenly she got up and came to us as usual, and let 
us pet her, and then began a funny sight. All the four 
had shown a great fondness for a closet in which hung 
some of my old clothes, and she took up the little things, 
one at a time, patting them and folding them tip into little 
parcels, and moved them into the pocket of a pair of 
trousers. We gave her cotton, of which she made a bed, 
and she seemed quite coiitented there. The little fellows 
did not get their eyes open until they were twenty-live 
days old, and were not fully covered with fur until even 
later. When the weather became warmer we made her 
a small cage, and placed it on the piazza beside the large 
cage. She had shown uneasiness for some time, and 
seemed to crave something she cou-ld not get, and one 
morning we discovered that she had gnawed a small hole 
in her cage and was gone. She had stopped on the piazza 
to eat half a nut and to pick and partly eat some pansy 
flowers, of which she was always fond. We waited a.<5. 
long as we dared for her to come, for we thought she 
would return to her babies, and then we began to feed 
them as we had the older ones. 
In several days we found her remains some distance 
from the house, where a neighbor's cat had killed her. 
The little ones grew very fast, and did not seem to miss 
the mother. 
We had considered the others tame, but these were as 
tame as little kittens would have been under the circum- 
stances. In early June we took the older ones into the 
woods and left them where we had found them the year 
before, thinking the younger ones all we could manage. 
We had neglected to pet the big ones in our care of the 
httlc ones, and expected they would be glad of their lib- 
erty, but found that, on the contrary, they were quite loath 
to go. The little ones we took with us to the .seashore in 
June and kept them there until October, and they seemed 
mine the worse for their summer outing. They were not 
quite as large as the older ones were, but perfectly de- 
veloped and much handsomer. They arc also better tem- 
pered, and while we keep them generally in their cage, 
we occasionally give them the run of the house. Of 
course, they have, comparatively little opportunity to use 
their so-called wings in the house, the highest jump they 
can manage being from the top of a door. They sail 
out into the middle of the room and light with a little 
thud. Their persistence when once an idea gets into their 
little heads is funny, and their bump of locality is won- 
derful. I have seen them try to go through a curtained 
doorway, and finding the curtain carefully pinned, jump 
down and run around through three rooms to reach the 
oppositie side of that curtain. If they see anything they 
want, no matter how many times we take them down, 
they climb up again and again until they reach the de- 
sired article. A vase of carnations furnishes them un- 
ending delight, and unless we shut the vase away from 
them they pick the flowers from the stem as neatly as 
if cut with a pair of scissors, and pull them in pieces 
to get the honey at the base of the petals. 
I have repeatedly seen them jump perpendicularly from 
the floor to a door knob, and sit there with hardly an 
effort to keep their balance. No article of furniture is 
too smooth for their feet. They can climb anything that 
IS round, no matter how highly polished. They show 
their wild nature by collecting all the nuts — bits of toast 
even — and corn they can find, and hiding them in different 
places. They dig in the fringe of rugs as if in pine needles 
and tuck in their food, patting it down in a very cunning 
way. The other day I took several volumes of the En- 
cyclopedia from the bookcase, and found ranged be- 
hind the books in neat little rows abont a dozen small, 
black acorns, and a large piece of toast which one of the 
little rogues had stolen from the breakfast table. When 
we are at meals they come and taste all of our food, and 
if we have any cereal with cream they e.at quite a quan- 
tity. Their curiosity is very strong, and sometimes they 
suffer for it. 
One day one burned his paws onjhe coffee pot, and 
another singed her whiskers over a lamp, the shade of 
which she persisted in climbing. On the whole, however, 
they have l)een very free from accidents, and they have 
certainly been the most satisfactory pets we ever had. It 
is difficult to say vvhetlier they are affectionate to human 
beings or not, I have had all of them remain on my 
person just as long as I would maintain an upright 
position, either walking about or standing still, and they 
seemed fond of me; but when I sat down they would 
scatter, running back occasionally, but not stopping long, 
although they can almost surely be induced to return by 
one's "squeaking" with the lips in imitation of their 
sound, or scratching one's clothing. They never bite un- 
less very much angered, but their claws, however small 
and innocent looking, are capable of inflicting quite a 
painful scratch. However, they do not scratch intention- 
ally ; but in jumping from some object to one's person are 
not always particular whether they light in his face or on 
his clothing. I have always kept them in a wire cage 
about 3ft. long and 2ft. wide by 2ft. high, made of wire 
netting of about the Sin. mesh. This is always kept out of 
doors, regardless of the weather, although during storms 
of rain or snow it is always well covered. Sometimes they 
have taken up their abode in a long gingham bag, partly 
full of cotton batting, which they always shred up into 
small balls. We had often to clean out the bag, for in a 
few days, from being partly full, it would be so full 
that heads and tails hung out at the top and at the bot- 
tom too, where they had made an opening to serve as 
another door, for they carried nuts and acorns to bed 
FLYING SQUIRRELS. 
