364 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
be traced, and as 1 stood on the brink 1 pointed out tol 
the new comers where we had first camped in 1884, and||^ 
where we had camped last year, and the year before; and'' 
we concluded that the last camping place was the best 
of all and we would go there again. 
Paddock rather shook his head, and said things did not 
looJt right to him. The hillsides were one mass of mud, 
and he was afraid we would find water on the Bottom 
Lands. 'The wheels wei^e lashed, some of the tender 
ones getting ui\tandfo!lowingintherear,andothers assist- 
ing in getting the cavalcade down the mountain side, for 
it is a veritable mountain here. Lashing the wheels in 
place did very little good, for the slippery mud made an 
excellent toboggan slide, and it took good steering to 
.prevent going over the edges around sharp turns; but 
at last we were all down, and the head wagon came back 
to meet us in the sage brush plain, with the unwelcome 
aiews that our old camping ground was one mass of slip- 
pery slime, with pools of water standing around it, and 
also with the information that there were no deer tracks 
worth mentioning in the mud. This of course would be 
true, for if the bottom lands were wet the deer had 
moved higher up into the draws. However, it was then 
3 o'clock, and we must find some drp spot to camp. 
Going further down the river near the place where we 
had camped years ago, we found it dry, and all right, 
but it was without the protection of the cottonwood 
grove and quite exposed to the wind; besides, we must 
clear away some of the sage brush. The gale was howl- 
ing by this time, and the little fire that Avery unthinking- 
ly started pretty nearly proved serious. In an instant 
our canvas coats and slickers were in use by all the party 
beating out the flames. How they roared! The sage 
brush seemed to be like tinder, and the flames mounted 
2oft. in the air. Fortunately, however, the wind was 
right away from our tents, toward the blufif of the 
river, and on one side was a little run or giilly, so that 
after all it only burned a small three-cornored piece, for. 
we had it well threshed out and prevented it from spread- 
ing. After the cinders had blown away — and it took but 
a puf? of the sharp wind to accomplish that task — it really 
made us a very good, clean frontage for our camping 
ground. The tents were pitched in the usual semi-circle 
toward the fire, with the army cook stove in front. 
From the ridge poles of one to another and to a tree 
that was over the dining table a clothes line was tightly 
stretched, on which we hung gasoline torches or lamps. 
Those make the finest outdoors light for camp of any- 
thing, and with a little care are very easily and safely 
transported and taken care of. 
The river was muddy, and how to provide drinking 
water was going to be a conundiaim. We brought along 
a barrel and sunk it in the edge of the muddy water, 
which before long filtered through and settled, and that 
portion of the programme was not one to worry us. 
"We went to bed early; rain again to-night," my 
pocket diaiy says. 
On Saturda.r, Oct. 15, the deer hunting season opened 
in North Dakota in i8g8, and my memorandum states 
that we saw three or four deer that day. Avery and I 
each had a snap shot at one in the brush, but it was 
only a snap shot. Cold and blowing a gale, rain, mud 
and water everywhere. By night flurries of snow were 
in the air, and we were certainly in a very disagreeable situ- 
ation, and had seen enough to know that the -deer had 
moved out of that country; they could not stand the 
flood. 
The next day, the i6tli, my memorandum says, "Cold, 
very windy." Avery and I hunted three bottoms, started 
two deer, only a snap shot in the distance. Avery also 
had a snap at one, and saw another. We waded the river 
twice, were cold and wet. The Judge had taken a long 
trip in the other direction, going down the river, whereas 
we went up stream. He had not appeared when we got 
back to camp. The guide reported he had left him some 
miles below, apparently all right and headed for the 
camp. We began to worry about him, but along about 
an hour after dark he came in, seemingly happy and 
all right. He had seen one deer, and that was all; had 
not even had a shot at a grouse. 
On the 17th my pocket memorandum book contains 
the following brief history of the day: "Skunked; out 
of meat; no grouse; looks like snow; break camp, and 
have a desperate time getting up the hill; the HAH 
Ranch at dark; Avery and 1 hunted the draws on our 
way out; we got a shot at a bunch of three deer running 
about 300yds. away, and missed." Indeed this is a regu- 
lar bad luck trip all the way through. As Jake puts it, 
"It is booliful skenery, dis country, must be more den 
a dousand years old." and we agree with him. 
There is lots of "skenery," but no deer standing for 
us to take a pot shot at them, and when it comes to a 
200 or 300yds. snap shot we do not seem to be in it thi.-s 
time. Yet Ave have all been out when things went luckily 
and many of these hard shots have proved lucky ones 
fL^tcr 3,11 
We ail went to bed at the HAH Ranch and had a 
jolly time of it. The floor was hard, but we made the 
best of it. Mr. Converse, one of the owners of the 
ranch, came in some time during the night, but we did 
not see him, for we got away in the morning before he 
was up. The cowboys were good to us. We used their 
cook stove, lamps and cooking utensils. The nightly 
concert of "snorers" did not keep the rest of us awake 
very long. 
On the i8th my memorandum says we started at 7; 
would have gotten away at 6 if the horses had been found. 
We lunched under a cut bank near Indian Springs, but 
there the Judge saved our lives by producing the last 
bottle; he had stolen it from honest Jim Meek and put 
M'ater in Jim's bottle instead, and even a little of it was 
left until we reached Green River. It was snowing by 
that time, had been very cold all along the way, and we 
were stiff and'sore and numb when we arrived at the car 
at 7:7,0 that night. How good the car looked! The train 
was late; we do not know how much, and do not care 
how much. The music box was started up, Paddock and 
our friends came in to say good-by to us, and as we had 
by this time all had a chance at the bath tub and had a 
shave we were feeling quite respectable and at peace 
with the world. 
The Last Day's Shoot. 
We pulled into Dawson at noon; we should haive been 
j Ithere at 3 o'clock in the morning. It had been snowing 
■ 'jand blowing as hard as could be all forenoon, and I 
should say on a level the snow was fully 4in. deep. Of 
course, we thought this would be a good goose day, but 
Devore came in with his fur cap on as our car was left on 
the side track, and his face had such a hopeless expres- 
sion that we knew the shooting was pretty slim. He said 
he did not know what had become of the geese. Some 
of the white ones were flying in all directions, but had 
no regular feeding place, and in fact there were not 
many of them anyhow, but that the boys had been having 
big canvasback shooting the last day or two on Isabelle. 
We hustled him around for a team and a load of decoys, 
and Avery and I donned our . wading pants, put on our 
heaviest sweaters, dogskin jackets and leather mittens, 
and asked for volunteers willing to go with us. First 
one and then the other backed out; but our old standby 
Joe, allowed that it was no worse a blizzard than they 
had in New Vork a year ago, and he stood that until 
2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and he thought it would be 
no more of a hardship, and he would enjoy it more 
than he did the late dinner at Delmonico's that night 
of the New York blizzard. He did not look as much 
like Klondikers as we did, but he certainly was donned 
becomingly, and we had not been out of the car many 
minutes before he shivered as audibly as a pointer dog. 
Harry's team slashed through the snow at a good rate, 
and we were soon at the pass, but the slough seemed to 
be empty. A flock of Canadian geese occupied the 
middle of it, but there were no ducks in sight, so we 
pulled across the prairie to Isabelle, only a short dis- 
tance. The snow cut your face if you turned toward it. 
The report of a gun could not be heard very far, but we 
did hear them plugging away, and could count several 
teams and could see the shooters' blinds; in fact, we esti- 
mated before the afternoon was over there must have 
been at least forty guns around the shores of Lake Isa- 
belle. 
The canvsbacks were stirring, and as we drove along 
the bluff past where Leo and Patterson had out a big 
bunch of decoys \ve saw them neatly turn over three 
from a flock that swirled by them. We went on to the 
northwest corner of the lake, as it seemed the only vacant 
spot that looked at all promising. In attempting to 
get down the bank we struck snowdrifts loft. deep. Think 
of that for Oct. 19! We found an old blind, and straight- 
ened up the brttsh and fixed it up the best we could, atid 
got our bunch of decoys bobbing and ttirning on the 
water in front of us. The shore of the lake was piled 
with windrows of slush, snow and ice, so that when a 
duck struck he sometimes completely disappeared in the 
mush. We spread out a blanket and then a jnackintosh 
to kneel on, and a tin box with a revolving top gave us 
a pretty decent position. 
Joe had looked at these preparations, and we could see 
that his courage was beginning to ooze a little bit. He 
finally asked whether we would stay long enough for 
Harry to drive him to the car and come back after us, 
and as we told him we were going to see it out and stay 
until dark he concluded the car was good enough for 
him, and we did not blam-e him a bit, for it was colder 
than the mischief. 1 told Harry to bring back a couple 
of boxes oi 4s, for I did not think the 6s would make 
much of an impression on the canvasbacks; but the little 
i6-gauge did curl them over. We had mighty nice shoot- 
ing for a time, sitting back to back with our feet in the 
ice and water. They would come up and then swirl past ia 
ones, twos, threes, and sometimes a bunch of half a 
dozen or more. Most of it was long shooting and hard 
shooting, as canvasback shooting is always hard; but we 
had great fun, and we would take the numbness out of 
our toes by running along the shore to pick up a duck 
that the wind would drive in. After missing one or two, 
one fellow was seen coming into the decoys, and I told 
A. to watch me mash him. I would show him how to 
do it, for, said I, "with this stiff' wind the shot will drift, 
and yott have got to make allowances for the bird as 
well.'' The old drake was plowing the air, and as he 
came up within nice shooting distance I gave him both 
barrels and never touched a feather. Neither of us said 
a word; but I turned round to my companion and said, 
"If there is anvthmg in my flask that will warm your 
spirits take it, but don't tell the boys at the car." An- 
other bunch came up and we each got our rignt and left. 
A pair came up and we got them both; in fact, we did 
some mighty good shooting. We got our mittens full 
of water, but our spirits still kept up, for we were having 
big fun. At 5 o'clock we pulled out and went back home 
and we had thirty-five ducks, twenty of them great big 
nice canvasbacks, as heavy, plump, well-feathered birds 
as you ever saw. Passing round the lake, there on the 
bluff stood the rest of our party. They had come out 
expecting an evening flight, but as there were nothing 
but canvasbacks, and they had been flying all day, there 
Vv-as no evening flight, and the boys were all disappointed. 
Either the mixture of Avery's Canada whisky with 
my rye or the wind and snow cutting me in the face made 
me see double, for as f passed round the hillside I swore 
that Bob Schultz was there twice; and there must have 
been something in it, for when I got home a letter was 
returned to me from Dawson, wherein my little boy had 
said, "Father, there is a screw loose somewhere, for we 
received two postal cards from you to-day, each saying 
exactly the same thing." Now the proposition is, if 
there were two postal cards, I believe there must have 
two Bobs. . 
The boys were disgusted with the outlook; Dawson 
was simplv shot to death. The only water on which there 
were ducks was Isabelle, and all the hunters had con- 
gregated there. Now, what was the prospect for the 
future? If it still stormed we might get a little shooting 
by hard work and sitting in the cold, as two of us had 
that day; if it came off warm and pleasant and no wind 
there were no ducks and there would be no shooting. 
Let's go home. It was put to a vote and carried unani- 
mously, so we sent for the train order, and long before 
daylight the old car was rumbling eastward. 
■ . W. B. Mershon. 
A Wild Garden. 
The Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 
for 1898 have just been received from the State printer, 
and present interesting evidence of the growing im- 
portance of Indianapolis as a scientific center and of the 
excellence of the work done there. 
The volume in hand is one of 300 pages, containing, 
ninety articles, which cover a great variety of subjects.. 
Some of these are on mathematical, physical and chemical 
subjects, but quite a number have to do with other mat-' 
ters which have more or less bearing on natural history. 
One of these is a brief but very interesting description 
of a Garden of Birds and Botany which has been in-, 
stituted by Mr. W. W. Woollen. This is a tract of 
forty-four acres northeast of the city of Indianapolis on 
the south bank of Fall Creek. Xwenty-nine acres of the 
garden are woodland and the remaining fifteen are under 
cultivation. In the forest the native wild plants have 
never been disturbed, but everything grows in a state of 
nature. Mr. Woollen's idea is to preserve these natural 
growths and he hopes also that there may be brought to 
this garden, and there planted and preserved, every tree, 
shrub, vine and plant not now represented there, which 
grows or has heretofore grown in Indiana. In other 
words, that the garden shall represent the botany of 
Indiana. It is intended also that the birds and wild ani- 
mals in general shall be protected and shall here find a 
safe home for all time. The idea is a delightful one, and 
might well be imitated near other American cities. 
An interesting paper treats of the blind rat of Mammoth 
Cave. Mr. Carl H. Eigenmann, who has studied this 
Neotoma in its home, and possessed one in captivity, 
found that during the daylight hours it was disposed to be 
quiet, remaining in its nest, but that at night it fre- 
quently moved about its cage. This cave rat has been 
supposed to be blind, though it possesses lustrous eyes_ of 
large size. Mr. Eigenmann found, however, that turning 
on electric light near its face caused a twitching of the 
eyelids, so there is no doubt that the light was perceived, 
but how clear its vision is has not been determined. Its 
hearing is acute. 
Mr. J. R. Slonaker has studied the eyes of this rat 
and compared it with that of the gray rat. The lens is 
found to be enormously large in proportion to the eye, and 
the pupil capable of very wide dilation, as with most noc- 
turnal animals. So far as the histological structure of 
the eye goes, Mr. Slonaker infers that the cave rat can 
see as distinctly as the common gray rat. 
If you have the Game Laws in Brief you have the 
authority on fish and game laws of the United States and 
Canada. It will tell what you want to know ; and what it 
tells you may depend on. Time, money and pains are 
expended to make tha Brief an accurate and safe guide. 
Seaboard Air Line.— III. 
Full Report to Oct. 26* 
There has been the usual heavy travel this autumn. 
The few, localities that still remain untouched by the 
march of improvement — natme's waiting rooms, one 
might call them at this season — ^liave fairly swarmed with 
feathered tourists, fluttering about with much jumble and 
twitter of small voices in the underbrush for days before 
departure. 
At this writing these sunny spots, so full ot bird lile 
but a few' weeks ago, are mostly untenanted save by a 
few darting j uncos. 
Our redhead woodpeckers have put by large store of 
nut and acorn rations for their winter campaign. All 
the old knot holes are filled, and judging by the ceaseless 
work of these birds, every crack and crevice in bark or tree 
trunk in the woods must be packed also. They have a grace- 
ful way of taking a chesnut. Hovering over a cluster of 
grinning burrs, they select one, and with a quick motion 
pick the nut from its satin-lined pocket, often without 
disturbing its fellows, though at times a trifle too much 
energy sends the two remaining nuts rattling down. 
I saw an English sparrow try the trick several times. 
He always secured a nut, but goodness, he upset four or 
five for every one he secured. Even after he had taken 
one he did not know what to do with it, sometimes carry- 
ing it to the ground and jabbing it in an aimless sort of 
way, or dropping it in flight. He followed the redheads 
bn their rounds as though trying to fathom the mystery, 
but never seemed to get beyond the initial act. Our 
mocking birds left early in September, though numbers of 
brown thrush, swamp robins, veery and their immediate. 
relations remained among the low bushes to rustle the 
dry leaves till well on in October. The flight of hawks—; 
Sept. 2=; to 28— was much below its average numbers. 
We had' an tmusual visitant all through September in the 
shape of a large gray parrot, evidently an escaped cage, 
bird. It was odd to hear him mumbling to himself in the 
tree tops, and there was something quite uncanny in his 
loud "Hello! hello! hello!" as he sailed about the Ayoods, 
in lumbering flight. I imagine he was nipped by the hard , 
frost we had about two weeks ago, for I have not heard, 
of him since. I have no doubt he must have been sur- 
prised, and can fancy him expressing his feelings by a 
reversal of his favorite exclamation. Bluejays plentiful; 
have just left. One gorgeous chap took a fancy to the 
heavy-leaved top of a sassafras and day after day ms 
rich notes welled out from his tower of rich orange col- 
ored leaves in strange contrast to his ordinary perform- 
ance. , .1 ■ 
Let me tell those who have never heard a bluejay sing- 
aye, sing— that there is a great treat in store for them. 
Bluebirds in fair numbers came late and are still with us. 
But why enumerate? All my friends were in evidence 
from the tiny midget to the big gray goose. P'ea'VY 
gangs of the latter have swung swiftly along, far overhead, 
traveling by special, as it were. 
Oct. 19, while at sea, some ten miles outside Sandy 
Hook lightship, our craft was boarded by a dainty 
white-throated sparrow, who accompanied v.J to the 
stake boat, and from his perch on the bow fender saw 
Columbia turn. He voyaged back with us as far as Navp ■ 
sink Highlands. Dusk was settling over the waters, and 
as the Highland- light flashed out, our little guest took 
his departure, rising high in air and heading for the land — 
a fitting incident to close a superb autumn day. There 
were but eight in our party^ and as several had already 
