March i8, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
213 
too ttiuch for nie, and I laughed for the Iwenty-five miles 
of our drive home, 
We kept the secret of our pet stream, fest assUfed. and 
made many subsequent trips that spring, until oui" Ftencll- 
tnan, having had nis i'est, tttlii-ntd lb reSiuiie his labors, 
presumably at his old quarters. We did in one instance 
impart our good thing to a couple of friends, true spoi^ts- 
men — Jim Riddle and Ward Eaton, whom old Cahfor- 
nians will recollect as . prominent business men. They 
always hunted and fished in pairs. We gave them the 
directions and they set out one Saturday for the loca- 
tion, kiddle had iinpoi-ted fi-otti Boston n, light express 
wagon, with the gear painted bright red. Tliey got aioiig 
very well until, having to cross a part of the route which 
was a pasturage for a drove of wild cattle.. It is well 
known that such have a bitter enmity for anything red, 
and it was exemplified in this case. 
The first intimation our friends had was ih^ bearing 
down ufibri them df the Whole hefd, hejlded by an old 
btiii, paWing the gi'ound and btilloWing, Jiili said: 
"Ward, I believe that old cuss means mischief; we mtist 
run for it." Whipping up the horse they essayed to es- 
cape, but it was useless; dowm came the drove. The old 
bull, with fire in his eye, charged the wagon, capsizing 
it bottom up and throwing them with all their belongings 
to the ground, For protection they crawled under the 
wagon, while the bull was bdttgfing: away at the red 
wheels. It so happened that Riddle's gun had landed 
within his reach, and crawling out from under the wagon 
he slipped in a couple of cartridges, and at the next 
charge of the bull it was a very much surprised animal at 
the reception of a couple of charges of No. 6 shot in the 
face'; At the report of thfe gUn the dfove stam.peded, fol- 
lowed by the bull, shaking his head, apparently With a 
loss of interest in the proceedings, but greatly pUziled to 
account for the tendency of red wagons to go off iii that 
disagreeable way. 
Once in safety, the two fishermen compared notes on 
damages. The horse had bf-okeh looSe, but.was caught. 
The broken harness was patched up and a. btokeh Shaft 
was lashed with the halter. Several battered spokes did 
not count, and loading their traps they started back 
home in disgust. Monday morning Eaton turned up at 
his place of business with his arm in a sling, and Riddle 
with a nose Under the shadow. of a large patch of court 
plaster. It Was noticed tliat the next tinle the pail* set 
out in that wagon it had lost all its pristine beaul:y anvl 
was painted a sober green as a concession to the preju- 
dices of belligerent bovines. Ah old Californians have an 
affectionate rememberance of the two sportsn'ien, Avho 
have now gone over the great divide, presumably to 
happier hunting grounds, where fed wagons and infu- 
riated bulls do not exist. PotidT5RS. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
Gfa^iiy 8;un. 
The law establishing the territorial area of the t)i.strict 
of Columbia, defines it as covering that part of Maryland 
ceded for the permanent seat of government of the United 
States, "including the River Potomac in its course 
through the District, and the islands therein." - 
This has always been held to intilude Alexander's Is- 
land at the south end of Long Bridge, but the jurisdiction 
Iras been claimed by the State of Virginia, and it leaves 
the disputed territory -a neutral ground, that has been a 
great convenience for the sporting fraternity, and an 
eyesore to the moral element of both State and District. 
The settlement on the island was at one time expected to 
be a twin chy to Washington, and was dedicated to 
Jackson at its ch.ristening with considerable defenloily, 
but the primitive bridge on one side, brick yards on the 
other, and too much liberty between has prevented its 
growth, The Railroad bridge, a long, low. antiquated 
wooden structure, an antebellum relic, is a monument to 
railroad jealousies and power. On the single track, which 
runs across this, a few feet above the water, run the 
trains of the Seaboard Air Line, the Atlantic Coast Line, 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- 
road, the Southern Railway and the Washington & Mount 
Vernon Electric Road, and that they can run at all, with- 
out daily disaster, is a standing object lesson and adver- 
tisement for the block system. 
The original bridge was built on piles, and the oldest 
inhabitant tells of a storm exactly like the one just 
past, which carried away the Chain Bridge above George- 
town, brought it down on a raging ilood against the 
Aqueduct Bridge, which- had a narrow escape, but just 
let it through with comparatively little damage, brought 
up against the low-lying Long Bridge, and only got 
through at the toll of a pier or two. 
To strengthen the piers, rip-rap ha,s been placed above 
them, until it is said the riA-er is partially dammed, and 
the bridge so easily gorges with ice floods, that the struc- 
ture is not only threatened, but is itself a menace to the 
city of Washington, and responsible for damaging floods 
in the past. 
This danger may secure new or other bridges in time, 
but the present condition is little credit to the railroad 
and legislative situation, that makes of a single track, the 
only link between the North and South, across the 
Potomac. 
Between this island and the mainland is a tide water 
marsh, once good reedbird and rail shooting, but too pub- 
lic now. 
Gravelly Run, or Roach's Run. as it is sometimes called, 
empties out of this into a broad shallow cove, which 
abounds with perch, minnows, catfish, eels, carp and bass. 
In pleasant Weather, at almost any hour, men, women 
and boys, may be seen fishing from the trestles with 
primitive tackle; the latter sometimes wading in the pools 
for crayfish, or blood-an-ouns, for bait to tise off the Long 
Bridge, where many fine bass" are caught every season. 
Further down, past Fort Runyon Llill, much of which 
has been cut away for brick materials, the wide shallow 
edges of the cove, bar approach, except for boats, and 
the ducks still find comparatively safe harbor out of gun- 
shot from shore. 
In the deeper water, and about the decaying piles of an 
abandoned wharf or two, when the tide is up, the perch 
and sunfish are plenty, and the big-mouthed bass has 
planted himself in the last year or two, and promises 
good sport for the future. 
The ring perch or yellow perch comes out of the mud. 
or \vherever he may spend his winters, a sickly bleached 
color, his stripes hardly showing, flild hardly life enough 
to run with a bait after he has swallowed it, until the 
iniddle of April, when he begins to regain both color and 
life. 
They do not grow nearly so large in this country as on 
the other side. Astley H. Baldwin iil 1862 in an article 
in Once a Week; p. 431, declared the perch of the Danube 
not only the best, but the largest, running as high as 6 
or 7lbs. But more than a score of years before, Yarrell, in 
his "Sritish Pishes," told of instances of 8 and gib. perch 
being caught in British watef s ; .while a yellow perch 
here weighing a full pound is a mattef of wonder. 
Houghton's "Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain." 
with first-rate illustrations, gives this perch with much 
brighter colors than ours, the red of his fins rivalUng that 
of the Jap^tiese goldfish, and described as a bright ver- 
rhilibn. 
They, are voracio'us little fellows, and Cholmondeley- 
Pennell relates catching one fotil iti the eye, and the eye 
remaining on the hook. The fish being too sftiall for the 
basket, was thrown over, and the eye left on the hook fdt 
bait. A moment later he landed a fish, which to his wonder 
was the one he had just released. Ghastly enough, but 
ptesUmptive evidence that that fish did not suffer great 
pain, or possess vety deligflte nerves, but Gay thought man 
as stupid, when he wrote: 
What gudgeons are we, men. 
Every woman's easy prey; 
Though we've felt the hook, again 
We bite, and they betray. 
Kit North, sisty-odd yeftfs ago. reviewing in Black- 
wood (Vol. 38, p. 1.22), Stoddart's "Art of Angling in 
Scotland," exhausted his wonderful poWefs of derision 
on Stoddart's account of sundry experiences, 111 hooking 
with, a fly. accidentally or otherwise, other objects than 
the fish it Was intended to invite. 
North said, amoiig bthets things : "We suspect the art 
of angling, as practiced in Scotland, by Thomas Tod 
Stoddart and his friends, is not generally uridetstood by 
our subscribers in the south. Besides snipe, bats, wild 
ducks, flappers, swallows, seagulls, etc., which an accom- 
plished angler would scarcely cotidcscend to capture if he 
could help it, the atithof of the 'lunacy' sometimes chances 
to hook other creatures of various sorts, and a brother 
of the rod, when trjdng for a famous salmoii cast, hooked 
an ox." 
Christopher North was funny, entertaining, and of all 
the old writers on the subject (while simply awful at ex- 
aggetatiott), was one of the few whose writings would 
be missed, but he Was rtot atl angler. This may sound like 
heresy, bilt itl his latest confidences with his readers, he ad- 
mits spending his holidays near famous waters without 
touching a rod. Boasting of retaining the recjtilsite 
strength, he confessed the spirit had departed. He never 
had it. Thel-e is not on record a name among the .elect 
ever guilty of sUch apostasy, and there is but one 
charitable construction to be placed on his denial of the 
faith; he deceived himself when he thought he belonged 
to the fraternity. 
This does not alYect his strictures of fly-casting for 
birds, but a wide acquaintance among fly-fishermen, if 
lie enjoyed their confidence, would hardly have left him 
shocked or stirprised to hear that the fly in its backward 
flight engages sometimes, strange things, besides trees 
and haystacks. Trout fishermen in good waters have 
frequently told of catching fish on the backward cast, 
where the fly had inadvertently struck the water behind 
them. A friend who was in charge of a reservoir station 
saw soUie bass feeding in the late evening, aitd at dark 
when he closed the station, he went down below the dam 
to try a cast. At altriost the first reach behind him he 
heard a howl of fright and something on the dam behind 
him ran ot¥ with his tackle. His favorite setter had 
followed him. and running along the top of the bank got 
in the way of the fly, and it was with some difficulty he 
succeeded iti saving both fly and dog. .Another friend 
has at one tinle and another in a long experience, caught 
on his hook nearly everything mentioned with such sur- 
prise by North except the flapper, atrd he may have had 
one of these, but in the absence of .any definite iitforma- 
tion as to the identity of the animal, this is not insisted 
upon. 
Once this was done deliberately. Coasting along the 
south end of Gravelly Rl'H cove, a wild duck flew out of 
the grass and lit a few rods away. It had evidently been 
hurt the winter before, and unable to joili his Comrades 
in their migration, but had since recovered. Here Was a 
chance to secure an interesting pet, and the two boats 
started after him. By circling far out he was flanked 
and started toward shallow water, but as the skiff's ap- 
proached, he flew out between ; again he was surrounded 
as well as two boats could perform that operation, and 
as he flew past a fly was thrown at him, but he went faster 
than the light tackle, and was out of reach. The next 
time he varied the performance by diving, and the long 
grass in the rivet prevented his getting far enough be- 
low the surface to hide his wake; a sharp spurt with the 
paddle for a hundred yards, and as he came up the fly 
settled over him : a twitch of the rod and the No. 10 hook 
was fastened in the web of his foot. He flew up and the 
little rod pulled him down; he dived and the little rod 
pulled him up, but half-swimming, half-flying, he emptied 
the reel, and when the other boat approached to pick 
him up he circled round and round, and with the pursti- 
ing boat made a first-rate imitation of a corousel, until 
boat and duck were exhausted, and the latter was brought 
to the side of the boat and landed unhurt. It seemed 
impossible then, that perch tackle and a 4^02. rod should 
have held him. He was in beautiful plumage, his snowy 
topknot and pied body making him the prettiest of our 
wild ducks, save one. the wood duck. 
Kit North's strictures were recalled, about self-respect - 
ing anglers, and it was decided that if he had ever had 
just such an experience, he would be proud of the feat. 
^Another instance recalled is a Western lake, where fisher- 
men set trammel nets and drive the native carp or buft'alo 
into them. One morning on our way to the moss beds, 
for bass we passed over the muddy bufYalo grounds, and 
the boatman rattled his oars in rowlocks, wheB the buffalo 
in fright, coming to the surface, scurried in every direc- 
tion away from the boat, with their shoulders out of the 
water. The line was cast across the course of a big fel- 
low, and as he passed a strike fastened the bass hook into 
his dorsal fin. Then there was a battle royal, with the 
odds m favor of the fish. Of course, there was no guid- 
ing him, but the water was open, and he performed some 
wonderful evolutions, for they are a strong fish. He 
worked all the way up to the moss beds, and when finally 
netted, was standing on his head in the moss with 6irt- 
of his tail feebly waving in the air like a flag of truce. 
Il is needless to say he was immediately released, but 
his memory is honored. Henry Talwt. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Preserving Flies. 
Chicago, III... March 11.— Mr. Norman Fletcher, of 
this city, is good enough to send me some nicely tied 
specimens of the black gnat and the Ronald Stone fly< 
He tells me that he has been very successful sometimes 
with the black gnat with lead colored wings, on dry, hot 
summer days. Mr. Fletcher also adds to our angling lore 
by the following tip on keeping angling gear. He says: 
"I have kept my flv-books and flies in small bags made of 
light cotton duck "for a term of years, and have never 
had any trouble with moths that so many complain of. 
When my fly-books are not in use they are always in 
these bags, tightly tied at the mouth with strong twine. 
Some years ago I soaked all of these bags in a solution 
made by dissolving paraffine wax in benzine. I treat all 
braided silk lines, that I use for minnow castin.g, in this 
same mixture. It makes bags and lines pactically water- 
proof. I have nevef yet found a braided silk line that 
would work weh all day, casting minnows without a 
sinker, unless treated in this way. Of course, it is easy 
to cast with most any line when it IS soaked with water 
if you put on a heavy sinker." 
Arkansas Vindicated. 
Mr. Toseph Irwin writes me from Little Rock, Ark., 
to vindicate the honor of that State against my char.ge 
regarding its frogless condition. 1 cheerfully apologize, 
and ani willing to admit that when it COmes to general 
portliness and solid citizenship in frogs, Arkansas leads 
the world. I really never knew, however, that qltf speck- 
led frog, sometimes known as the leopard frog, is a mm- 
ger to Arkansas. Mr. Irwin remarks: 
"I noticed in your last issue that you misunderstood my 
meanhig when I said we had no frogs in Arkansas. What 
I meant was that we did not have the little green frogs 
that are so well known by fishermen around the Nbrtf]- 
ern lakes, and so extensively used for bass bait. Speakmg 
of frogs, such as are used as a table delicacy, I will pu! 
Arkansas against the world, as I have seen them down 
here as large as it seems to me possible tor them to grow 
in any country; but with several years' experience on the 
lakes' and streams of this State, I have failed to find' the 
little green frog that I have so successfully used when 
fishing in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, where \i 
is only necessary to stretch a net around a little stagnant 
pool and make a drive, and you have bait enough to last 
a whole day's fishing, and sometimes enough for a week, 
provided your frog climbs the line, as I have often seen 
them do-^an adt caused by the swift rush of the bass 
through the water after he is hooked. 
"Our fishing season is opening up here very nicely. 
. While but few bass have been taken, except in the run- 
ning streams, the croppy fishing has been very good the 
past few days in Scott's Bayou, whefs our new Old 
River Club house is located, where is. to be bad the finest 
all-round fishing in this immediate section ol the coun- 
try." 
The Robbery of tiie Red Pipestone, 
Everybody has seen the red stone pipes of the Indian. 
You have seen these pipes in all parts of the country. No 
doubt you have heard, through Longfellow, or otherwise, 
of the great Red Pipestone quarry. Perhaps you did not 
know that there was but one such quarry of this stcme to 
be found in all the United States. Perhaps you thought 
that this main quarry was located somewhere in Dakota. 
Really, it is situated' on the Pipestone school section, in 
southwestern Minnesota, This land is the property of 
the Yankton tribe of the Sioux Indians. It lies in the bed of 
the Pipestone Creek, on one side a cut bank of granite 60ft. 
high. Once the soft red stone cropped out all along the 
lower bank of the creek, but now it has to be quarvied 
from below the level of the creek bed. 
This spot has been visited for ages by the Indian tribes 
of America. It is now the gentle wish of the Great 
Father to fob the Indians of this sacred piece of earth. 
Major McLaughlin has been given the delicate ta,sk of 
persuading the Indians that their traditions do not amount 
to anything, and that they really do not care for this 
sacred ground, which they say was "stained by the blood 
of their fathers." 
In the old times, after the mysterious way of the wild 
regions, the fame of this red pipestone quarry was known 
among nearly all of the North American tribes. It is 
said that Indians have traveled from the Rocky Moun- 
tains, from southern New Mexico, and from Ohio, in 
order to get some of the red clay for the making of their 
pipes. The St. Paul PioneerPress says that it was the 
custom to wrap the little slabs of the clay in wet blankets 
in order to keep it soft, until it could be manufactured. 
It is stated that a red pipe in central North Dakota is 
worth a pony, and that in Mexico or Arizona it is worth 
a wife. Certain it is that the spot is considered a sacred 
one by Indians of many tribes. In the Rainy Lake coun- 
try there is a deposit of black pipestone, but this seems 
not to be prized very much. It was once proposed to 
open up this quarry and divide out the products -among 
all the Indian tribes, but this proposition was vetoed. 
Curiously enough, this mission of Major McLaughlin's 
is combated not only by the Yankton Sioux, but by sev- 
eral other bands. In 1858 the Yanktons ceded their 
reservation and moved to the Missouri River, but stipu- 
lated that they should still have title in the pipestone 
quarry. The proposition to sell this land to the Govern- 
ment 'has been opposed by the Crow Creek Indians and by 
the Poncas. The Poncas have been, on one reservation in 
