at ease, or thifsty, Of hungry— always as gentle and 
tender as a woman. "Matilde send me," he explained, 
"lie ma couslii. Ma nem Pierre." 
"Matiidy never come anigh tu bid me good-by," Said 
the sick man, with a peevish tone in his voice. ''It's 
kinder cur'ous she didn't, for she's nussed me mighty 
keerful. I guess I'd ha' kicked th' bucket if it hedn't b'en 
for her. She's a good little gal," The head of the litter 
shook perceptibly. 
"What was dat, keck de bucket?" Pierre asked. 
"Oh, that's Yankee for dyin'," said Dick Wheeler, the 
sick man. 
"Oh, you mus' n-ever keek to die. Matilde, ma cousin, 
not want you." 
"Sho!" Josiah exclaimed, contemptuously. "Your Ma- 
tildy's a-makin' love tu some new pea-souper by naow. 
Come, boy, gi' me a-holt o' them handles; you're a-gittin' 
tuckered." 
"No, no! It is not so wid de Canadieune," said Pierre, 
hotly. "It may be wid de woman of de Bostonais, but de 
Canadieune never forgot hees frien'. No. Yas, you may 
took de hoi', an' Ah will go for de lait for M'sieu' Dick," 
and so he ran to a house to beg milk in a little pail he had 
brought. 
"A cur'ous leetle cuss, tu be a-lookin' aout so for you, 
Dick," said Josiah. "Was he a-carin' for you much 
whilst you was with them folks?" 
"Never see him afore," said Dick. 
"Dey was hoi' hugly," said Pierre, returning with a 
brimming and foaming pail. "W'en Ah ask, dey will not 
gif de lait, an' Ah ask de vache — cow, you call it, dat gif 
de lait? He was not riffuse." 
"So you hooked it?" Josiah asked. 
"It was for de cow to hook, mais he did not, he haf 
pity for M'sieu' Dick," said Pierre. "And shall he not sleep 
in the houses this night?" Whether they would or not, 
Pierre would hear to nothing but that the sick man should 
have the shelter of a roof, and found it«for .him in the 
cabin of a friendly habitant. 
Next day they fell in with a detachment of the retreat- 
ing army, and with more help made more rapid progress, 
Josiah insisted that the boy should now go back to his 
people, but Pierre was determined to go on, saying that 
Matilde' s instructions were that he should accompany 
the sick man until he was safely embarked on the lalce. 
When this was accomplished he did not go back, but 
took his place in the batteau beside the sick man, minister- 
ing to his slightest want, and holding a bough over his 
face to shade it from the glaring sun, which shone down 
fiercely from the cloudless June sky upon the unprotected 
invalid, whom the cool, green shores and the sparkling 
water seemed to mock as they Voyaged wearily around 
toward Crown Point. 
One evening as they landed on an island for the night's 
encampment there arose a sudden alarm of "A man over- 
board !" and Josiah being near at hand plunged in to 
rescue him. He seized him by the hair and swam to the 
shore, which being gained he discovered that it was the 
boy Pierre whom he had rescued, lying now insensible 
across his knees. He unbuttoned the rough woolen jacket 
and stripped open the coarse tow shirt, and to his amaze- 
ment uncovered the rounded breast of a girl. He covered 
it as quickly, and pouring a spoonful of rum into the 
pale, set lips, soon saw the closed lids quiver and the black 
eyes open in questioning wonder. 
"I wish't I could send ye baek, you little fool," he said 
in keen vexation. 
"Ah, do not, ma frien'," the other wliispered. "Ah 
shall keek de bucket if I haf not heeme !" 
Next day in the boat, Dick lying with closed eyes, heard 
a voice over him in accents of love, "Ah, ma pauvre ami !" 
"Why !" he cried, staring wildly into the face of Pierre 
bent close to his own, "I'd hev' swore I heard Matiidy 
speakin' tu me!" 
"Ouie, mon cher, it is Matilde. Do not be hangry of 
me. Do not tell de peop'— dey will shame me. Ah can't 
lif if I haf not you always." 
The retreating army had been a week at Crown Point 
m the stricken camp where Col. Trumbull said he did not 
enter a tent or poor shelter of boughs that he did not find 
one wherein there wa? not a dead or dying soldier, when 
one morning at roll call Private Richard Wheeler was re- 
ported missing. 
"Dick Wheeler's deserted," said a soldier to Josiah an 
hour later. "An' that 'ere Canuck boy 'at's alius a-hangin' 
raound him, he's gone tew." 
"Nat'ralty," said Josiah, laconically, .and musing to him- 
self. "All women hain't jest alike, for all Kenelm says so. 
If Dick don't merry that gal, I'll shoot him, by the Lord 
Harry ! though as a general rule I 'm ag'in mixin' breeds." 
The First Outing with -the Boy. 
Washington, D. C, July 13.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Under the head of "Types of Sportsmen.— III.." 
W. W. Hastings writes in a vein that is calculated to move 
the hearts of many of your readers. Mine it has touched 
deeply, and I sympathize with his love for the little boy 
who lives now no more on earth, but whose image and 
memory remain enshrined in the father's heart. 
My experience is parallel with that of Mr. Hastings' 
up to the point of separation. That grief has hitherto 
been spared me, and my writing to you at this time is 
prompted by a perusal of Mr. Hastings' letter, and by my 
having recently returned from the first fishing excursion 
my bojr— now ten years old— and I have taken together. 
About the middle of June we set ouit together for the 
Alleghanies after trout. The locality is one familiar to 
me, through having visited it again and. again in the same 
quest; and it had for years of late fositered the yearning 
to visit it accompanied by the little son coming up from 
babyhood. This year the foliage shown as of never so 
rich a green, the sky smiled serene overhead, and the 
brooks murmured sweet music of welcome on every hand. 
The eyes of my little companion looked out up'on the 
sweet face of nature in joyous surprise and trustfulness, 
that lent to me for her a new charm. The trees and sky 
were sights famiUar to his eyes, but the grand mountains, 
the crystal streams and the rocky cliffs and stones seemed 
to call to him as to a brother and to wMsper their secrets 
to him._ He never tired of riding and climbing over the 
mountains, of exercising his little unpracticed hand in 
casting the fly, and in wading andl bathing' in the clear 
cold streams. Joseph U. Atkins. 
FOREST AND STHEAM, 
Yukon Notes* 
Jack Barton's Hard Luck. 
We waited over at Fort Selkirk several daysj making 
preparations for the trip out to the coast. The evening of 
Dec. 30 we made the acquaintance of Mr. Jack Barton. 
There was nothing formal or conventional about the in- 
troduction. We were just getting supper when he opened 
the door, and making a bee line for the stove, said : "Give 
me something hot, quick, boys. I'm half froze." To look 
at him one would have said that he stated the proposition 
mildly, for he was covered with ice from head to foot. 
We were short on whisky, but we had a bottle of pain 
killer, and Mac mixed a good stiff dose of that in a tin cup, 
and the stranger swallowed it without ever winking. "My 
name's Barton," he said when he had finished — "Jack 
Barton, and as I was getting ready to start from the noon 
camp to-day I got over a warm spring and went through 
into the wet. I knew we were somewhere near the 
pos't, so I left the boys and footed it up the river. I didn't 
stop to parlez vous any on the way, I can tell you. That 
ice on my clothes was like the tin armor the old fighters 
used to wear, and if I'd stood still a minute it 'd of froze 
up in the joints so 's I couldn't 'a' moved hand or foot 
and held me there till kingdom come. Tell you I wasn't 
so much afraid of freezing myself as of having the 
clothes freeze and boxing me up in cold storage." Mr. 
Barton laughed at the idea, and dismissed the affair as a 
matter of no further importance. While he was waiting 
for his party, who were following more .slowly, he told us 
of conditions in Dawson, and of his unfortunate connec- 
tion with the Kansas City Cyclone. He apparently felt 
that he had a duty to perform in righting himself with 
the public. 
We were still discussing the cyclone when Barton's 
companions arrived. We could hear them shouting to 
THE FIRST OUTING. 
Photo by Mr. Joseph L. Atkins. 
the dogs as the weary animals strained their utmost to 
drag the sleds up the 40ft. bank of the river. Mac and I 
went out to meet them and found that an accident had 
befallen one of the sleds. This was a gee-pole sled, and 
the man who took Barton's place behind the dogs was 
inexperienced at the work and had run it into an ice 
obstruction and wrecked the whole front of the sled. 
Barton heard the news philosophically, remarking that 
he never liked the old sled anyhow, and that it was a 
good chance to substitute for it a new basket sled which 
Mac told him could be bought of Pitts. I don't know 
what the new sled cost, but it probably was not far from 
the Dawson price, which was 8oz., or $128. 
Barton's friends made a fire in one of the other cabins, 
which Mr. Pitts had generously placed at the disposal 
of travelers, and soon the place was festooned with wet 
blankets and various articles which had been on Bar- 
ton's sled when it went through the ice. 
Later in the evening Mac and I went over to call on 
Mr. Pitts, and while there were joined by Barton, who 
had changed his wet clothes for a dry suit. Barton shook 
hands with the agent, whom he had known for several 
years, and asked if he might have the' key of the store- 
house to get his cache of salmon, as he wanted some to 
feed his dogs. 
"Salmon?" said Mr. Pitts, in a surprised way; "there's 
none left in your cache. I gave them up to Nigger Jim 
on an order." 
"The blank you did," said Barton, profanely. "I didn't 
give him any order and never met the man in my life. 
What would I be giving an order for when I need them 
so badly myself and there ain't a fish to be had this side 
of Chilcoot?" 
"The private marks on the cache were described per- 
fectly by the lady," said Mr. Pitts, "and" 
"The lady," IJarton groaned; "say nothing more." 
He paused a moment and then added', dramatically: 
"First she took my reputation, and now she steals my 
dog feed; the viper." 
"They assured me," said Mr. Pitts, in an apologetic 
tone, "that Nigger Jim was a responsible gentleman and 
a mine owner; but I must say I hated to let him have the 
goods, though everything seemed straight enough." 
"Partner," said Barton, with something more than the 
necessary emphasis, "you did me a good turn, I'm glad 
you gave up those salmon. I'm only getting what I de- 
serve, and the more kicks I get the better I'll reahze what 
an almighty fool I've been and the less likely I'll be to 
burn my fingers again." 
And with that he pulled up his coat collar over his 
ears and left the room. 
One of Barton's companions told me the following day 
that it cost them $140 for do'g feed for the next stage of 
their journey, and instead of the light and nutricious sal- 
mon were obliged to take beef beads and offal, becausfe 
there was nothing else to be had. 
As if that wasn't enough misfortune for any man, an 
Indian, accidentally or intentionally, it is hard to. say 
which, shot one of his dogs in the hinder part, amputat- 
ing its tail and injuring it to such an extent that the dog 
had to be thrown out of the team, and, Barton's start was 
still further delayed. The incidents of his stay at Fort Sel- 
kirk in December, 1897, will not be marked with a red 
letter in Jack Barton's diary. The poisonpiis purple of 
the deadly nightshade would make a most fitting illurhi- 
nation, grown in that malarious countiry wherfe Childe 
Roland's dark tower stobd. 
Flashlighting the Indian:^. 
Before leaving Selkirk I took a few photographs as 
mementoes of the place. One, was a flashlight of the in- 
terior of an Indian cabin. 
Sam, who was an enterprising young fellow, with two 
wives, gave me permission to take the interior of his abode. 
His old mother was seated cross-legged on the floor, and 
he hustled her to one side out of the way and gave me 
to understand that the place was mine to do with as I 
wished. 
There were several gaudily decorated trunk-like boxes 
near the door containing the ashes of some of Sam's 
relatives, and I made a pyramid of these and placed the 
camera on top. Sam smiled all the while, so I suppose 
my course of action, while unconventional, conveyed no 
serious breach of etiquette. In the meanwhile, Jonathan 
and his wives and Albert and Bum and Bailey and a num- 
ber of giggling young women crowded into the place. I 
told Sam to explain to them that it was bad medicine to 
look at the camera, and then I set off a handful of flash- 
light powder, which exploded with a blinding glare of 
light and a vigorous "w-o-o-f!" that threatened to raise 
the roof. The place was filled to the_ furthest cranny with 
a suffocating smoke, and without waiting to explain what 
had happened, I picked up the camera and left. 
It would have been no easy matter throwing photo- 
graphic lingo into Siwash, and I never was good at the 
languages. I was careful to close the door behind me, 
and either the Indians did not know I had gone, or else 
they were unable to locate the latch in the dark, for as 
long as I had a view of the cabin no one appeared on 
the outside. 
I trust that the foregoing incident will not give the im- 
pression that we imposed upon the Indians or took ad- 
vantage of them in any way. I saw some of the men 
later in the day, and they seemed to think the affair of 
the flash-light a good joke. We were very careful in 
our business dealings with the Indians to treat them 
fairly, and I am sure they bore us no ill will for any- 
thing that happened while we were at Selikirk. 
J. B. BURNHAM. 
NOTICE. 
The New York Clearing House has adopted new regulations 
governing the collection of checks and drafts on banks outside of 
the city. This entails a collection expense on those who receive 
such checks. Our patrons are requested, therefore, in making 
their remittances to send postal or express money order, postage 
stamps, or check or draft on a N*"* York city banh. or other New 
York current fund*. 
The Coon*s Whicker, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Ordinarily I admire, digest and batten upon Forest and 
Stream editorials, but in the journal of June 17 I find 
some sand or other foreign matter in the sugar. In sug- 
gesting a moot-court for the trial of the cause of Raccoon 
vs. Man you have doubtless inspired considerable mental 
activity abroad, which you will doubtless hear from. 
If you will permit me to moot I will proceed. 
In the concluding paragraph of the note to which I 
venture to allude you nominate Coahoma, of Mississippi, 
judge of the case proposed, or calendared. While I would 
most heartily indorse the nomination of Coahoma, I will 
not, if "his judicial poise has been marred by the coons 
which whicker in his cornfield of nights." I will not vote 
for judicial poise that can be marred by coons which 
whicker. In fact, if coons whicker to any such result as 
suggfested, they must remain in their present status, with- 
out claim upon human jurisprudence. We cannot afford 
to expose our courts . to any further whickering. The 
cause is worthy of investigation, however, and before 
legal steps be taken I would suggest that a court of 
inquiry ascertain to what extent the coon is whickerful. 
In the business acquaintance I have enjoyed with 
coons, I have never found any which whickered, although 
I have known them to do disreputable things with my 
poultry _ and fruit. I do not think all of them are 
whickerish. Perhaps the whickerers are made so by con- 
ditions existing in some localities, and if so they mav 
be isolated from the great coon family, which should not 
be universally condemned because Mississippi or New 
York coons have got to whickering. 
The suggestion embodied in this proposition for a moot 
case is a grave one, and is most worthy of intelligent 
and serious consideration. I have been so presuming 
thus far that I will presume now to advance the opinion 
.that the cause is too grave for disposition by moot-trial. 
A moot-trial is the trial of a supposititious or imaginary 
case, while the cause of Racoon vs. Man is a real one 
indeed. It is identically the cause of all other creatures 
vs. man, and can only be permanently and forever settled 
when we can righteously settle the question of the fittest 
to survive. The raccoon must submit or subside, and 
the same holds with all living things under the sun. If 
the coon whickers, perhaps he is driven to it because some 
farmer has gathered his fruit or some Frenchman his 
frogs. 
Seriously, Forest and Stream is constantly trymg 
such causes, and I beUeve it is well for its contributors 
