FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 6, .igoo. 
The Horn of the Hunter. 
Oa the Banks of the Yazoo. 
"You fellers from tlie country. 
Just keep away from town 
If you don't want to unsettle 
Things and get us upside down; 
For you always leave a memory 
Of your meaders and your streams, 
An' I straightway get t& 
Wishin' and a-fishin' in my dreams." 
When the General Manager's letter found me at my 
d£sk in New York, I scented game in the postmark, Yazoo 
City, Miss. It told of plenty of deer, bear, turkeys, gccse 
and diicks Avaiting for us,- and the pressing invitation to 
join- him and the Major, accompanied by transportation, 
was a temptation not to be resisted, and Nov. 6 found me 
speeding toward St. Louis, our rendezvous. 
When the G. M. met me with the news that the Major 
could not join us until later, my face fell at once to 
that length that suggests the possibility of eating from 
the bottom of a chum, for the Major, besides being a 
good friend, a generous companion and a crack shot, al- 
ways manages to furnish us some divertisement by his 
happy and unusual accidents, and a hunt without the Major 
is like apple pie without cheese. We kept on, however, 
reaching Yazoo in the evening of the second day, having 
been soaked full of original and fetching "b'ar" stories 
l>y Judge Niles and other Mississippians bent on tempering 
reality with fiction. 
At Yazoo we met Sam Berry, the chief conspirator m 
the hunt, and incidentally president of the Commercial 
State Bank, who assured me that all that was his was 
mine, and that Monday would see us camped "where every 
prospect pleases and where only man is vile," and wlier'e 
game was to be found in abundance. 
The game in abundance had a pleasant sound, but the 
thought of loafing at the Magnolia Inn for three days 
when so near "game in abundance" did not appeal to .my 
pleasure, and nvith usual Northern restlessness I 
skirmished for means of getting into the woods, even if 
alone, and by dint of tiring even the placid Berry with 
my suggestions and plans, I arranged to go by boat with 
our colored cook, brought by the G. M. from Illinois. The 
G. M. being detained by business, I left on Thursday 
aftemoqp on the steamer Elk, for a ttip of seventy-five 
miles up the Yazoo iver. The long-continued drought 
made navigation almost impossible on a stream crooked 
enough to break a snake's back, and the acrobatic per- 
formance of the pilot, Robert Portwood, when he ne- 
gotiated the curves and elbows, was a constant wonder- 
ment. Portwood, besides being a fine performer on the 
wheel, was filled with music, which he attempted to let 
go of through the mediiun of song and various more or 
less attuned instruments, which I immediately charged to 
profit and loss. Portwood is a good fellow, and we 
managed to pass the twenty-four hours necessary to the 
sevent3^-five-mile trip by singing, and I will endeavor to 
persuade Ernest Hogan, Pete Daly, Robyne, Shelley or 
some other well qualified composer to dedicate a song to 
Portwood to be entitled "The Pilot of the Yazoo" or "Life 
on the River Death." 
The towns ( ?) along the river consist of a plantation 
store and perhaps a cotton gin, and the suggestive names 
of Hard Cash and Silver City indicate the smothered 
humor of the Mississippian, who is a democrat by environ- 
ment. The lazy industry and tireless self-centered occu- 
pation of the negroes on the bank makes the sleeping 
turtles on the logs seem bursting with concealed activity 
hy comparison. 
So narrow was the stream that Captain Pat made tew 
landings, as the negroes could deliver or receive the jug 
of whisky or slab of pork without any noticeable diminu- 
tion in speed, and as the engineer was accustomed to hear 
the medley of the "Ahead slow," "Stop," "Back," "Back 
fast" bells all at once, the various duties of his post were 
performed mechanically, and it is quite possible to devise 
an automatic engineer on the lines of a profiler. 
Belzoni was reached at 2 o'clock Friday, and after ne- 
gotiationg with a cotton picker to haul Tom and our stuff 
to the Stave camp, three miles beyond Jaketown, Mr. 
Hanna, the proprietor of Jaketown, met us and drove me 
out tkrough the cotton fields to their old Stave camp on 
Sky Lake, ten miles from Belzoni. The hospitality of 
the camp offered me by Maxwell and his dog Phelickpr 
which IS the Swedish for bear dog giveh it by Frank Nan- 
sen, Maxwell's assistant, was generou.s, so far as the con- 
ditions permitted, but unfortunately for a sharpened ap- 
petite, the supplies expected were delayed, and there was 
no food in camp until my cotton picker arrived with Tom 
mixed in with bedding, hay, some bacon, onions and a 
cook stove. 
_ Tom and Henry, Maxwell's cook, soon turned emptiness 
info plenty, and after my first camp meal in Missis'-ippi 
we sat by a generous fire, while Maxwell and Frank told 
rne how easy it was to kill a bear, and when bear was 
the subject of conversation an occasional low growl from 
the dog Phehcker convinced me that after travelino- over 
2.000 miles and spending five days and some dollars ''l was 
at last about to find vent to the savagery which makes hunt- 
ing a sport to civilized man. 
,. The weather and situation were charming; the moon- 
light filtered through grand trees of oak, gum and cypress • 
the air was motionless. ' ji y 
"All formed a scene where musing solitude might love ' 
^ To come and lift its soul above this sphere 
_ Of earthiness 
So calm, so bright, so still." 
From Sky Lake came the frequent call of duck^ and 
geese, mingled with the scratchy croak of the crane and 
I lay down to dream of the morroiv's hunt. To-mor 
row came, but no hunt; having no dogs to run the deer 
and still-hunting being out of question on account of the ' 
dryness of the leaver. T had to content myself with a ' 
study of the forest and lake. ■ wun a 
Sky Lake had dwindled to a muck. A thin sheet of water ' 
- M 
not reaching to cover was occupied by thousands of mal- 
lard. There was no boat at hand, and tlie question of 
how to get at the dticks is yet unsolved. 
Upon my return to camp Saturday I was rejoiced to find 
the Major, the G. M., Sam Berry and his brother Mose, 
who was shortly dubbed Moses the Amorite on accoynt 
of his acknowledged fondness for the lovely maidens of 
his hill country. Berry brought two hounds. Rattler and 
Frank; with Berry came also "Cousin Joe" Redding, a 
retired planter from Yazoo, who with his bicycle mule 
(so called because of the necessity of keeping him mov- 
ing in order to prevent his lying" down), his two dogs. 
Preacher and Lula, formed the groundwork of every suc- 
cessful camp hunt either on the Yazoo or Panther Creek, 
the latter his most favored ground. Cousin Joe was busy 
entertaining the Major with the performances of his 
dogs, . and when I appeared and interrupted the tale. 
Major's interest in the chase had been spurred to the 
limit. 
Hunting on Sunday being tabooed, it was decided to 
devote the day to making a new camp, exploring the 
country and drumming for more dogs and hunters. The 
G. M. and myself exhausted the forenoon and ourselves 
by walldng around Sky Lake, some twelve miles. On 
our trip we met two well-known hunters at their homes on 
the banks of the lake, Simmons and Huff Stickler, who 
promised to be on hand with their hounds. Dash and the 
rest, for Monday morning breakfast. On our arrival at 
camp we found two native hunters, Colston and his son 
Fletcher. Colston had two hounds, Joe and Charlie. The 
boy Fletcher, a youth of thirteen, was mounted on an 
active mule and armed with an ancient, double-barreled, 
muzzle-loading, brass-hooped shotgun; auburn hair 
curled from under a slouch hat, and dark eyes shaded by 
curling lashes expressed a bright mind and enthusiastic 
interest in the sport, and as he dismounted and stacked 
the ancient and treasured gun among the hammerkss 
Parkers, Winchesters and Colts, Cousin Joe good- 
naturedly remarked, "Them fellers what's got s'many 
guns and fixin's, don't get no game no how." 
Our new camp, called "The Four Oaks." was by this 
time a busy scene : Berry's negro, Levi, and our Tom had 
called in other negroes to assist, the horses scattered 
through the nearby cane munching their corn, and the 
hounds tied in various parts of the camp mingled their 
voices with the camp liars as we sat grouped by the 
rousing fire built under the Major's supervision. Plans 
were made for the morning's hunt, former hunts de- 
tailed, and not the least of the advice was offered by 
Moses the Amorite, who had never shot a deer, but was 
quite competent to advise and' plan the hunt because he 
was a crack shot in the hills. Poor, dear Mose ! we fear 
your faculty of _ sleeping on the stand and keeping the 
camp awake against their will must unfit you for success- 
ful deer hunting, but we will always keep in grateful 
memory your artless tales of cat hunting on Panther 
Creek. 
^ Early Monday morning found the camp astir, the 
"Elderberry" having dissipated the snoring by the con- 
stant and efficient grinding of his teeth to the delectation 
of tbose who did not want to sleep. I was accused of 
Wall Street talk in my sleep and forecasted the advance 
in E. & O. pref., Consolidated Gas and U. S. Leather, pref. 
The first light of day had not lifted the darkness when 
we heard the winding, swelling note of the hunter's horn, 
which cau.sed the dogs to tune their voices and drew 
from CoLston the information that "That must be Simmons 
and Huff Stickler comin' down by Sky acrost the bayou." 
Daylight found us mounted and ready for the hunt; in- 
structions were issued by Cousin Joe that "each hunter 
upon killing a deer should at once sound four long blasts 
on his horn to announce meat, and upon hearing this call 
all ban's mus' go to the meat." 
Headed by Simmons we started on the trail to our 
several stands, while Cousin Joe, Colston and • Huff 
Stickler remained in camp ready to loosen the dogs. 
Shortly after each hunter had been stationed at a point 
where it was likely that a deer might pass before the 
hounds, we heard Colston's big-mouthed Charlie bay as 
he struck a hot trail, followed shortly by the mellow voice 
of Preacher coursing on another trail. For an ho^r or 
more all was expectancy ; the course would approach and 
recede, and it was certain that the deer had run we.st 
instead of north, as' expected. The hope of meat was 
fast dying when a shot sounded to the west, and shortly 
after four faint notes sounded the welcome meat. 
■ The G. M,. Moses the Amorite and myself being i^ear 
together, held a council, and the G. M. at once declared 
that Elderberry" and deer slayer Fletcher had made a 
sneak on us and got the meat. We decided to return to 
camp, as the dogs were run down. For some time after 
getting to camp nothing was seen of the other hunter- 
and tiie first to appear was Fletcher, the auburn haired', 
and behind his saddle was the meat, our first game, a 
fat doe. The G. M,, Major and I thought at once of the 
remark made the evening before about guns and fixin's 
and when Fletcher told us that Huff Stickler had killed 
a fine buck we began to wonder if our genial Elder- 
berry and his fellow conspirators had not been playing 
the snipe game on us Yanks. It seems, however that 
Fletcher's deer was jumped; and Huff Stickler worked 
on to his whde following the hounds, and that in.stead of 
running north, the quarry had taken a course straight 
west, leaving all the hunters to the right. A distant shot 
and the bloody appearance of two of the dogs confirmed 
m tHte opinion that some outside hunter had our game 
The leaves being dry as tinder and not a drop of water 
for the hounds, we did not attempt to work in the after- 
noon, being content with the fat buck and doe hangine: in 
our camp. 
Tuesday was a hlank— the game finding a passage through 
the cane to the west on Jackson's Bayou. As it seemed 
likely that I would not get a shot at a deer, I determined 
to scheme on getting at the ducks, the question being to 
find some means of walking on the bottomless mud and if 
possible to build a blind out in the lake. I thought if T 
could rig up a device similar to the ski or snowshoe it 
niight sustam me, so T got a darky to split two thin boards 
about K feet long, turning un one end and fastening in 
the middle a strong skew. With this equipment Major 
and I rode up to a favorable point and made our way 
through a dense thicket to the shore, where the thin 
water tame within about 30 feet of the brush. I tried mv 
mount, but found the suction too great, as I had feared 
and this failure destroyed our last hope of getting duck. 
Wednesday was the banner day for Major and me. We^ 
had left Major on his stand about sunrise, and the G. M. 
decided to hunt the pass taken by the game the day 
before. I decided to assist him in finding the pass, and 
we had gone but a few hundred yards beyond my stand 
when the G. M., who was leading, jumped a fine doe and 
fired without bringing it down. I returned to my position. I 
as the hounds were loose, and I fancied their course would 
bring the chase near me or the Major, stationed about I 
300 yards east. A few moments after reaching my 1 
position I heard Preacher open and my nerves commenced 
to tingle in anticipation, and presently a crash in the 
cane to my left quickened my attention. All that I 
could see of the game was his flag, and rather than spoil 
a possible fair shot for the Major, I waited. After passing 
me he stopped, and in a moment, much to my surprise . 
and joy, I saw him coming toward me and to the north. 
The spectre to me was splendid— the largest buck I had 
ever seen in the woods, with nose up and antlers well 
down on his shoulders, parting the .cane and thicket. I 
fired, and he fell as if stricken to death. Realizing his 
great vitality, I at once made ready for a second shot, if 
necessary, and approached to within a few feet of the 
monarch of the wood. As I was not equipped with a 
horn, I substituted my voice, ringing four loud notes on 
the quiet air, and the Major quickly appeared to con- 
gratulate me. By this time Preacher appeared and tackled 
his fallen quarry, who with one last efforf .sprang to his 
teet and dashed toward the Major, missing him bnd 
striking a tree with such force as to break off a con- 
siderable part of his fine antlers. By this time the whole 
pack appeared, and in his frantic efforts to get away he 
dashed about, striking trees and making the situation 
threatening to the Major and me. The excitement was 
intense, and as he made a blind charge at me 1 fired 
again, striking him in the eye and silencing him forever. 
Having been denied my morning smoke by the necessity 
of avoiding giving the game notice of my presence bv -^b 
strong a scent, I filled ray pipe and seated myself on a 
fallen tree to contemplate my splendid kill. Presently 
came Elderberry, Moses the Amorite. Colston, the G M 
and Simmons, and as they straggled in thev would in- 
quire who did it; I laconically replied, "Oh! that Sucker* 
from New \ ork, Svith s'many guns and fixin's, who can't 
kill no game no way.' " Elderberry having a canteen of 
water, we poured it into my hat crown for the dogs, and 
then the G. M. and Simmons took them to the point 
where we jumped the deer in the morning, and again the 
pack was in full cry. Colston told Major to hurry back ta 
his stand as the game would likely pass south near that 
point, stumbling through vines and cane thicket and 
none too soon, for presently we- heard a shot. We listened 
for the dogs to stop, but as they continued in full cry we 
concluded that the Major's shot had missed and paid no 
attention to his cry of "Hello, hello," until Colston sug- 
gested. Maybe Major did hit him," and Simmons went 
to see, and reported blood. Major and the G. M followed 
the dogs, while the rest got my kill on horse, wliich was 
no easy matter, the estimated weight being 250 pounds the 
game being unusually fat from the abundant mast. Upon 
my triumphant return to camp, we found the Major seated 
m great pomp m Iront of our tent with one foot planted on 
a fine doe We fell mto each other's arms with pitying 
glances at the G M., but our triumph was not to last 
Cousin Joe and Mose the Amorite were too much broken 
by our success to remain longer, and at noon they left 
us, amid the blowing of horns and howling of doss We 
may meet them again on Panther Creek. ' 
The next day witnessed the triumph of the G M We 
took our usual stands, the G. M. being given a rovin- 
commission. I expected of course, to kill another buck 
immediately. The dogs kept me guessing for an hour or 
more and finally worked off to the west, where a shot and 
four blasts announced meat. The morning was love iy 
"tI, ^^^'^.^'"S"^ hiinter's coat a volume of Balzac' 
. The Deputy from Aras," passed an hour or so with 
good company listening at times to the gentle voices of 
the woods, and. as it m encore the echoeing horns ar- 
riving in camp at noon. My first picture was the G M 
seated on a stump, a great palmetto leaf behind' his 
head, and held m front the splendid head of a buck, e 
argest antlers of the shoot, and my only consolation wa' 
m finding that mine was the biggest deer 
As we were satisfied with our kill of five deer and 
being unable to get the pack of bear dogs, we decided o 
break camp, and it fell to the lot of the G M and me to 
dnye to lazoo, fifty-four miles, with Cousin Joe's bkycle 
mule. A glance at the outfit satisfied us that Cousin ^'oe 
held a strong antipathy to harness, and a predilection fo5 
string ; our hopes of getting to Yazoo were centered mSS 
upon the extra rope and straps we put into the road ujlon 
than upon any confidence in the fantastic gear which 
was .suppo.sed to attach our mule to the wagon 
When withm four mUes of Yazoo at midnight our beast 
suddenly decided to lie down-we looked ar each other 
the rnule included, and I murmured softly, "When shall 
wWlfthe M^^t ' °f tS way' 
wmie the G. M.,. after persuading our comnanion fn (-r, 
again, gently belabored him to yIzoo ^° 
After a bath and hearty breakfast, we decided that we 
had a good time, and when we bade good-bv to ElderberTy 
and Cousin Joe, we boarded the train for the Norfh and 
as we took a last look, fancied we could hear the ho-n of 
thejiunter on the banks of the Yazoo C H 
* The euphonious name given to natives of Illinois. 
M^e T-^- 1 ■ Wilson and daughter, and his sister-in-kw 
Mi.s Tucker came m, from Pesleesolokee last Saturday' 
Mr Wilson brought m forty otter skins, and says tS; 
IS the beginning ot the otter skin shipments which wdl 
be larger than ever this season. These skinrare nmv 
commanding $5 each. Mr. Wilson took out $So worth of 
provisions on his trip previous to this and sold cm to 
he Indians in a day and was compelled to come slr"U^ 
back for another oad. He says white huntersTre 'vv 
ine over the Indian hunting grounds, and as the India ; 
will not hunt Avhere the wh tes rnmp fh^.r^t .'""'ans 
further south toward ChX oskee rScTvW 
of land for the Indians by X State S M .^ P 
ment, will not benefit ^t^^ir^I^^^^^^^'Z 
white hunters are prohibited from runniL m'L 
tory.-TTort Myers, Fla., Press, Dec 21? ^ 
