la 6 0 
We entered, and were received in a hospitable way by 
the miner who sat smoking at one side of the fire. His 
partners, he said, were visiting at the poHce post, quarter 
of a mile further on. He offered us accommodation for 
the night, but Mac and I had a letter for Governor Walsh, 
and as the miner said travelers were accustomed to stop 
^vith the police, we decided to push on. 
First, however, we thawed out a little by the fire. In 
the first stages of heat, we felt colder than ever, but be- 
fore long the circulation was restored, and aside from the 
soles of our feet and tips of our fingers, which were 
slightly frosted, we were soon all right again. 
Quarter of an hour later we were at the collection of 
tents that marked the site of the headquarters of the first 
Governor of the Klondike. We presented our letter, and 
listened to Governor Walsh's brother discoursing with 
Captain Bliss the vagaries of the Yukon weather. "At 
8 o'clock to-night," he was saying, "the thermometer stood 
at IS below, and now it's 40 below. To-morrow we may 
have a Chinook wind and a thaw." Mr. Walsh was jok- 
ing, however, for afterward, in conversation with us, he 
said that he and every one else at the post was delighted 
with the climate, and that sudden changes like the one 
recorded were fortunatel}^ very uncommon. Governor 
Walsh called for Fiddler, one of the Indian scouts, and we 
were .shown a tent, and by midnight we had cooked and 
eaten our supper and were ready ior a well-earned rest. 
Some Advice and a Banquet. 
The following morning, afteff -We liad breakfasted and 
were ready to start, we were informed that Governor 
Walsh wanted to see us. We went to his tent, and the 
Governor said, rather briskly, "You fellows are going to 
have some rough traveling along the Thirty-Mile River, 
and will have to climb over hills several hundred feet 
high. I would advise you to throw away one of your sleds 
and ctat down on your outfit as far as possible. It will 
pay you in the end." Neither Mac nor I disputed the 
point, and the Governor continued: "It is nearly 250 
miles from here to the coast, but at the foot of Lake Le- 
barge and at Tagish Post, on the way, we have abundant 
supplies. We have not as much here as we want. Now 
I propose that you leave with me all your supplies over 
and above an amount sufficient to carry you to Lake Le- 
barge, and in return I will give you an order on that post, 
or the one at White Horse Rapids, or at Tagish, for an 
equivalent amount. This will give yoit depots of supplies 
along the way, and save you drawing the coast end of 
your grub over this part of your journey. Do you see 
the point?" The language was certainly plain enough, and 
Mac and I jumped at the opportunity of lightening our 
loads. When we had told the Governor we would take 
him at his word, he said : 
"It will probably take you the best part of the morn- 
ing to make your arrangements and have your papers 
attested. We have dinner at 12 ; I should be glad to have 
you dine with us." We accepted the invitation, and in 
company with Captain Bliss set out to make our in- 
ventory and separate our stores. 
Later we sat down to a bountiful repast, which included 
besides pork, beans, dried fruits and the other stables, a 
large platter of fried eggs. The most sumptuous enter- 
tainer bent on dazzling his guests could not have pro- 
vided anything more wonderful. Cleopatra's dissolved 
pearls were nothing very remarkable compared with those 
eggs, from our point of view. At Dawson two eggs and a 
slice of ham brought ?s in the restaurants, and elsewhere 
their weight in gold could not have procured them._ 
When the Governor came to help us a second time to 
the eggs, and we protested, he told us the story of the 
eggs, how the speculator who was conveying them 
through to Dawson was wrecked in the Thirty-Mile, and 
how, after having rescued a part of his cargo, he had 
persisted in trying to get on to Dawson over the ice. The 
man had no supplies to carry him through, and the order 
prohibiting any one from going down river with less than 
6oolbs. of food had already been promulgated, and ac- 
cordingly he was stopped at the Big Salmon. The police 
had already spent hundreds of dollars providing for starv- 
ing men in the interior, and they could not afford to care 
for more. It ended by the egg man persuading the officers 
at the post to buy him out. He received a fair valuation 
for his eggs, difficulties of transportation considered, and 
afterward he left for the coast to invest in a new cargo. 
Governor "Walsh. 
The Governor of the Klondike was at that time fifty- 
five years of age. He was an erect, military looking man, 
without a superfluous ounce of flesh on his person. He 
had never known what it was to be very sick. In his boy- 
hood he had been an athlete, and since then a good part 
of his life had been passed in the open air or under can- 
vas, and physically he was sound as a two-year-old and fit 
for hardships of any kind. 
On the side of experience, he had seen service in the 
three military departments — artillery, cavalry and infantry. 
His cavalry training was received in the Thirteenth Hus- 
sars, under Colonel Jennings, one of the heroes of Bala- 
klava, who was afterward Deputy Adjutant General 01 the 
English Army. 
The experience stood him in good stead, for when the 
Northwest Mounted Police, which is in reality a cavalry 
regiment, came into being in 1S73, Major Walsh was its 
virtual organizer. During the years he was at the head 
of the Mounted Police, the fame of the organization spread 
over the world. With a mere handful of rnen he policed 
a country half as large as the United States, and policed it 
so well that the turbulent and savage element of the popu- 
lation never caused any very serious trouble. 
Major Walsh turned back Sitting Bull and his brave? 
into tlie United States when they had crossed the line aftei 
tiie Custer massacre, solely by the power of moral persua- 
sion, and though a keen fighter, he has never used force 
when other means would avail. 
This is one reason of his great power over the In- 
dians. Some of the first Indian murderers captured by 
the police were taken by Major Walsh alone and un- 
armed. 
Constable Barnes, at Lake Lebarge, tells of the day 
years ago when the young officer with half a dozen men 
passed out from the shelter of the cottonwoods on an In- 
dian camp within whose confines were two desperate homi- 
cides, A council was held as to the best plan of action. 
The man with more discretion than valor advised a re- 
treat, arguing that their force was too small, and sajnng 
that -if they attempted the capture of the Indians none of 
them would leave the place alive. 
"You are not in favor of going?" asked the young 
officer. The men nodded. "Then by the powers you shall 
not go," he said. "One mail's etiough for the job 
anyhow." 
And with that he unbuckled his cartridge belt and re- 
volver and threw them on the ground and started alone 
for the Indian camp. The men wanted to follow him, but 
he sent tltem all back to the cottonwoods, and half an 
hour later they saw him retxu-ning Avith the raui'derers, 
though how he persuaded them to come has never been 
explained. 
Like the immortal hero, he "seen" his duty and he 
"done" it. and the modus operandi is immaterial. 
Shooting Rapids in a Hurry. 
"Major Walsh is a hustler and no mistake," said the 
constable at White Horse. " 'E worked us twenty hours 
at a stretch crossing the lakes, and when we come to the 
canon, 'e didn't Avaste as much wind as would start a 
cigar drawing, talking up the situation. 'E just jumped 
out of his boat and took a squint at the channel and then 
"e come back and said, 'Are you ready, boys?' We says 
'Yes,' though we didn't know at all what 'e was up to. 
'Well, then, follow me,' says 'e, and with that 'e jumped 
into 'is boat and took the steering oar 'imself and shoved 
oft', and three minutes later hy my watch we w^as out in the 
open air again below that well hole, having shot the canon 
as easy as falling off a log. 
"Instead of running ashore and spending half a day 
figuring it out, 'e just kept right on below the canon, till 'e 
came to the point with all the blooming flags on above 
White Horse, and then 'e run 'is boat inshore and Ave 
done the same. 
"■ 'Now, boys,' 'e says, 'biif-with the cargoes^' Well, sir, 
we had them boats unloaded in n0 titiife afttl the .stuff tip 
on the bank. 
" 'Cut 'em loose,' says 'e, and we cut and let 'em go. 
though we never expected to see 'eiu again. But blame if 
'e 'adn't made 'is arrangements before, and Avhen we got 
to the foot of the rapids there AvaS men that 'ad been 
there and picked 'em up. and the boats Avas all drawed 
up on the bank ready for their cargoes." 
In 1883 Major Walsh retired from the police and 
entered on a business career. He became interested in 
coal mining in Pennsylvania, and also at Roche Perce, in 
NorthAvest Territorj^ six miles from the Dakota border. 
Here on a great sandstone rock are written the names of 
Custer's scouts of 1871-72. Like Judge McGuire, iVIajor 
Walsh had sacrificed personal interests at the call of his 
countrj'. His great poAver as an organizer and long ex- 
perience on the frontier made him the man best fitted in 
all Canada to bring order out of chaos in the Klondike. 
The Last of the Btiffalo* 
"As late as 1877," says Major Walsh, "I traveled on 
horseback three days through a solid herd of buffalo, and 
never saAv the outside. They just cleared our trail as we 
moA'ed along, and every rise as far as the eye could see 
was black Avith their bodies. I had some half-breeds make 
a calculation of the number in the area between the Mis- 
souri River and a line fifty miles north of the international 
boundary, and betAveen Fort Walsh on the Avest in the Cy- 
press Mountains and a police post in the Wood Mountains 
on the east — a distance of 200 miles east and Avest. They 
estimated the number to the acre at various points in this 
territory, and from their figures I calculated that in the 
whole region there Avere over 350,000 head of buffalo. In- 
side of seven years they Avere all gone. 
"Of course, they Avere pursued mercilessly and 
slaughtered, but from my obsers'ation I should say that the 
sudden annihilation AA^as due in part to natural death, and 
that its first causes dated back before 1877. In other 
words, I do not believe all those 350.000 buffalo I had 
counted were killed hy the hunters. 
"As near as we could estimate, in 1877 only 30 per cent, 
of the herd were cows. The remainder were males. Bulls 
Avere never killed for meat if coavs could be had, and the 
skin hunters had little use for them, as their robe after tAvo 
years of age becomes coarse. The cow was furred all over, 
but the bull was shaggy on the neck, and consequently it 
was the robe from the female animal that was in demand. 
Of course the bull skins Avere used to a certain extent, but 
chiefly stripped of their fur for parchment, moccasin 
soles and the like. 
"The demand of commerce was for the cow buffalo. 
The males in many instances wandered off and died. It 
Avas the coavs that AA'ere exterminated by the hunters." 
J. B. BURNHAM. 
Octobei? Docks, 
O! the wind is fierce as it seeks to pierce 
This old frayed coat in vain; 
And it cuts and stings as the drops it flings 
Of the first autumnal rain. 
: Though the plover tries, yet he cannot ri«e 
To breast so strong a gale, 
For its slight form tossed in the clouds l»» los* 
And naught comes back but its Avail 
^nd the whitecaps chase in a mad, mad rw.. 
O'er a stretch of Avind-whipped lake; 
As a flock, of teal with a graceful ^^'hee] 
Decoy with a mallard drake. 
It "is royal game and it's, all the same, 
If a teal or drake should drop; ^ 
For it's as you will — for they both take skill 
Or a teal, -or drake to . stop. 
CUIPEPPEK. 
C\i.iFORNi.'V, Ci-UB, Los Angeles, Cal. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday, 
Correspondence intended for publication, should feacfi us at the ■ 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
Ida, f> 2§i 
Keyser* 
It has always been a wonder to me why Mauritius has 
never been given credit with a visit from St. Patrick, as it 
is a well-known zoological fact that a snake has never 
been found on the island. This was very forcibly brought 
under my notice drtring my residence in Durban, Natai, 
South Africa, Avhere I made my headquarters while en- 
gaged in collecting living specimens of the fauna of that 
country. I sold some pythons to the captain of a small 
trading vessel bound for Port Louis, and on his return 
Avas compelled to take them back, as fae informed me that 
the customs authorities refused to allow them to be land- 
ed, as there Avas a special law enacted many years ago for^ 
bidding the importation of serpents of any description 
whatever. 
Some years subsequently I determined to go to 
Ai:stralia for Avild animals for the Zoological Society of 
Philadelphia. Of course I took some Cape specimens 
Avjth me for exchange with the zoological collections in 
Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Very natu- 
rally, there were some pythons among them, and as the. 
vessel in which I engaged passage was to touch at Port 
Louis to take in a cargo of sugar I got my agents to write 
to their correspondents at that port to see the collector 
and inform him that I was coming wiih the snakes, k'now- 
ing that it was contrary to law, but that it Avas a scientific 
A^enture, not a commercial one. and if possible I did not 
wish to land the serpents, but would try to arrange to 
keep them on board Avhile the cargo was being shipped, 
If this could not be done I Avould take them outside the 
harbor and sink them, sooner than cause any trouble. 
On the voyage I found out from the captain that he had 
been a blockade runner during our Civil War, and his. 
vessel had been destroyed hy the United States cruisers 
off the port of Wilmington; consequently Yankees did 
not stand very high in his estimation. 
We anchored off the bell buoy at the entrance of Port 
Louis Harbor during the night, and the next morning, 
Avhen the pilot came on board, so soon as he caught 
sight of mj' cages stored under the longboat amidships, 
he exclaimed, "You have Mr. Thompson on board, and 
the collector wants to see him just as soon as he lands." 
I-uckily, the captain did not hear him, and I busied my- 
self looking after my live stock until the arrival of the 
port doctor, who duplicated the pilot's assertion as soon 
,a5 he saAV my animals. Unfortunately the captain Avas 
present, and immediately Avished to knoAV the reason of 
the collector's great desire to intervicAV me. I immedi- 
ately acknOAvledged that I had shipped the pythons, know- 
ing them to be contraband, but trusted that my 
notification Avould serve so as to prcA'ent any trouble, so, 
far as the A-essel was concerned; whereupon the skipper 
boiled over and read the "riot act" to me in the rough- 
est kind of language. Fortunately the doctor espoused 
my cause, and finallj^ persuaded him to wait and see 
Avhat action Avould be taken by the customs authorities. 
In the meantime the tug had made fast to xis, and we 
were quickly towed up into the harbor and made fast to 
the chain cables which serve instead of anchors for 
the purpose of securing the vessels Avhile lying in the 
harbor. Of course I accompanied the captain to 
the Custom House, and just as we were about to 
enter requested him to say nothing to the_ officials 
about the snakes, but alloAv me to bring the 
matter to their notice. He reluctantly consented, with 
the wish that I had entered Tophet before taking pas- 
sage Avith him. I kept in the background until he had 
finished making his entry, Avhen I asked permission to 
interview the collector. The clerk passed into an adjoin- 
ing room, and quickly returned and reciuested me to 
follow him. I found myself facing that official in his 
private office. On mentioning mj' name he instantly pro- 
duced a key from his desk, and handing it to me said: 
"Your case, Mr, Thompson, Avas immediately decided 
on the receipt of your notification. You did exactly 
right in acting as you did, and here is a key to a room 
in this building, Avhich I have caused to be emptied for 
your convenience, and should it be necessary to land 
the snakes while the vessel is receiving her cargo bring 
them here, and if any one finds fault Avith you for so 
doing refer them to me." Making due acknowledg- 
ments for his kindness, I turned to leave the room, Avhen 
I found myself facing the captain, AA'ho had followed and 
heard the conversation. His countenance was a study, 
and fearing the scene, I quickly passed him and succeeded 
in getting outside before he overtook me, Avhen he ex- 
claimed, "You cursed Yankees can best the world beat- 
ing against a head Avind, and I take back all that I said. 
Come along, I want to introduce you to another one of 
your breed who has managed to wander to this out-of-the- 
way port." 
Following him to the head of the quay, we passed into 
a large building, the lower floor of Avhich Avas used for 
a dining room, bar and billiard hall, and pressing through 
a throng of customers, reached the bar, in front of Avhich i 
stood a; short, thick-set individual holding forth in French 
— the lingo of the island — to a knot of his acquaintance^. 
Instantly , recognizing the captain, he greeted him cor- 
dially, and when I was introduced to Mr. Keyser as a 
felloAV countryman he immediately order the barkeeper 
to set up the champagne. Taking us into his private 
office, he opened a box of Manila cheroots and insisted 
on fining our pockets with them. So soon as he found 
out that I had resided in New York city he fairly con- 
founded me with inquiries as to the changes Avhich had 
taken place vsince his departure. 
Sauntering out among the billiard tables, he continued 
his inquiries, and on discovejing that I had formerly 
belonged to the old Volunteer Fire Department, he 
suddenly seized me and attempted to hoist me up on one, 
of the tables, shouting, "Say, you fellers wouldn't be-i 
licA-^e me when I told you 'bout hoAV Ave chaps used to I 
fight de fires in Ncav York. Now, here's a cove as Avhat' 
did the same t'ing, and I wants you to look on to him "1 
It required a strong eft'ort on my part tq avoid being' 
lifted up and put on exhibition as he wished. More 
champagne was opened, and I finally managed to get' 
away by promising to dine daily with Keyser during my 
stay in port. The next afternoon I learned that he had 
Ifeft a butcher shop in the Bowery and shipped on an East 
Indian clipper which Avas dismasted in a hurricane offi 
Mauritius, and on being tOAved into Port Louis the \'es- 
