186 
l^xji^Est^ AND btREAM. 
ness and came there to find out what the devil all this 
meant, and who the mischief all these fellows were. If this 
was to be a park, where and how did they come in, and 
a few other such serious questions that a white man 
might like to ask under similar circumstances. Lyon, 
who spoke English perfectly, had given me these pointers. 
Well, there we were — eight Chippewa chiefs to the 
right, Lyon, the interpreter to my left, behind me sat 
Whitney and Fitch, who bedevilled me to their utmost to 
break me up, and the rest of the car was simply pushed in 
tightly with the park cranks, each and every one full of a 
spirit of fun, and in no manner appreciating what a seri- 
ous proposition this appeared to be for the Indians. The 
boys all had their fun at my expense, and kept up an 
undercurrent of "josh" not heard or understood by the 
Indians, but only too clearly taken in by me. I cracked 
not a smile, as I outlined the park to the Indians — its 
scope and benefits; what it meant in the way of daily 
wages to the Indian, to be earned by guiding and pad- 
dling the tourists and fishermen; what it meant to his 
squaw, who had trinkets, etc., to sell; the money it would 
pour into their hands— one continuous stream of silver. 
It meant coilee and sugar and molasses and flour and 
bacon and pipes and tobacco in their houses. And all this 
was uttered with a serious and impressive face, despite 
the kicks at my heels in the rear and the fusilade of chaf- 
fing in front. 
Finally, the Indians took a hand in. One old chief, 
eighty-five years old, got warmed up when talking of 
his past wrongs, and was undoubtedly eloquent. He 
spoke of the Rice treaty (a bogus ai^air), and said that 
the schoolhouses. farm implements, churches, sewing ma- 
chines, carpenters tools, etc., promised under same had as 
yet not materialized to the extent of even a single hoe. It 
was interesting, to say the least, and I would to-day give 
much to have had a fiashliglit photo taken of the whole 
scene in that car. The pow-wow ended, I took up a sub- 
scription, ordered the car door barred, and made the 
funny crowd in front ptvt up $15 for poor Lo. I turned 
it over to the Chippewa head chief, who put it in the in- 
side pocket of his shirt, amid an approving or disap- 
proving grunt from the rest of the Indians. 
The car had just been cleared of every one when a fish- 
ing party, headed by Captain Clow, drove up, wet, cold 
and hungry. Hot water, lemons, sugar, spoons and 
whiskey were produced, and tlie boys speedily improved 
their circulation. Captain Clow's wagon was the first 
to reach the car. I was outside talking to Lyon. In the 
darkness I could see a hind quarter of something being 
hustled into that dining car. I made up my mind a deer 
had been killed by one of the party. Some of the boys 
had rifles with them, and I dreaded a deer being killed 
and the consequent trouble, criticism and new!;paper ridi- 
cule it would bring upon us. But our trip was about 
oyer, no one had been hurt, no accident of any kind, and 
all was well. When I saw this venison hustled into that 
car a host of troubles flitted across my vision, like Ban- 
quo's ghost. I was for a few moments too mad for utter- 
ance. I went back to the smoking compartment and met 
Cooper and Fitch. I said: "Colonel, there is venison 
on this train, and we are in for all kinds of trouble. I'm 
mad enough to shake the whole crowd and disown the 
whole park scheme." And just then, who rolled into the 
smoking compartment but the round-faced, gray-bearded, 
jovial old Captain Clow, an embodiment for the moment 
of Falstaff himself, wearing in his hat the buck-tail of a 
freshly killed deer! 
He threw himself in to the corner and began his story 
just as about Mr. Falstaf? would have told it himself. 
How the deer came in the open; how he drew a bead, a 
difficult thing to do in the gloaming of the dense pines; 
how he plugged him with his trusty .303, and how the 
deer dropped in his tracks, a fine five-pronged buck, etc. 
During all this recital I was so worked up as to fail 
to remember that in the whole of Captain Clow's party 
there was nothing deadlier than a fishing rod. The Cap- 
tain had hardly finished his yarn before Cooper, giving 
one look at my angered, ashen face, reached for Clow's 
cap, and, tearing the buck-tail loose, threw it under the 
seat, anathematizing the Captain meantime for his dis- 
regard of the game laws, etc, 
John Allen, Cochran, and Clark were on their way to 
the dining car, now transform.ed into a buflfet, and the rest 
in the room followed in good and true Indian file. I was 
a pretty mad and tired out individual, and I sneaked off 
to my lower, magnanimously surrendered to me by Pro- 
fessor Schenck, who insisted that he preferred an upper. 
I dreamed of game wardens entering the car at Minneap- 
olis and snaking that deer out of the empty pickle bar- 
rel into which the cook had thrust the hind quarters. I 
read ribald notices of the law-breakers from Washington 
killing deer out of season, and, like Ajax, defying the 
lightning of the law. I stuffed my ears to the joshings 
of the boys, and I saw myself done up in black and 
white, and gracefully posted in Recreation as a "deer hog 
and law-breaker." And at daylight I awoke with a start, 
and in my pajamas made a break for the smoker and 
dived at once under the seat, groping for the discarded 
buck-tail. I found it. Harry McCantry almost had a fit 
when he saw it. He knew as well as I did what venison 
on that train meant. "Who killed it?" said he. "I think 
your friend Clow claims it," said I. "Lord! But if the 
game warden at Minneapolis gets this, our park scheme 
will be called Dennis, with a big D!" "Go ahead," said 
I; "wake up the Captain and get disposition of it." He 
did so, and came back and said that above all others on 
that trip the Captain wanted me to have that venison. 
That was enough. That deer was mine, to do with as I 
pleased. Yet in my pajamas, I went to the diner and 
awoke the conductor. "You have a deer on board." 
He w^as well trained, and with his eyes half opened lied 
like a trooper, and said he never, to his knowledge, had 
seen a deer in his life. "That deer is mine; you hustle 
up and pull that deer out of that pickle barrel and ditch 
it. We are but twenty miles from Minneapolis, so hus- 
tle." 
He had his eyes open by this time, saw who was talk- 
ing, jumped irom his cot, hustled out the cook, snaked 
out the vension from the cask (oh? but it did look nice!) 
opened the car door, and, while the train was making 
fifty miles an hour, sent the magnificent piece of venison 
into the ditch, a present for the next section man who 
came that way. 
And then I smiled on'ce more, and dressed and washed 
and said nothing, and until now the true story of that 
deer, which some of the newspaper boys suspicioned, but 
never knew enough of to write about, for the first time 
appears in print. 
A banquet at Minneapolis, a farewell handshake all 
aroimd, and the same palatial Burlington hauled the boys 
back to whence they came. 
This is simply a sketch, and a rough one at that; but 
one-tenth of the story is untold. I have snatched the time 
to pencil this from time when I could have lain in bed, 
to wit, before breakfast. There was a whole book in that 
trip. Somebody, wielding a better pen than mine, may 
write it, I hope. 
Now, my readers, we must have that park. When I 
say "we," I mean, every man, woman and child who loves 
nature, and who wishes to have the only remaining com- 
pact body of pine forest in the Northwest saved for pos- 
terity. The health seeker, the camper, the canoeist, the 
explorer, the fisherman — you all want this park. In the 
whole United States there is no such combination of 
land, woods, lake and river as is to be found on the site 
of this proposed great national park. 
The friends of the park are in great tribulation. At 
Washington the Minnesota delegation are more or less 
influenced by their rich lumbermen constituents, and are 
working tooth and nail to have the Government owning 
this land to-day sell the timber therefrom in one lump 
to the highest bidder. It is a deplorable situation, and we 
are doing here all we can to stay the hand of Congress. 
This park affects the interest of every inhabitant of the 
Mississippi Valley, and if the timber is razed to the 
ground future generations may read of what the Missis- 
sippi River was before they denuded her headwaters of 
the water controlling timber. 
All the friends of the park ask is to have enough influ- 
ence brought to bear in Washington to hold off the Nel- 
son act until a proper study can be made of the proposi- 
tion from all sides. The cutting of this .timber means 
stumps, sand, drought and desolation for all time to 
come — a woodland hill where paradise fonrierly was. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
St. Paul, Minn., Feb. 6. 
Fred IVIather. 
Providence, R. I., Feb. 17.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
It is with sorrow and regret I heard of the death of Mr. 
Fred Mather. The news comes to me as a shock seldom 
equaled. Although I never saw Mr. Mather, and knew 
him only from his writings in Forest and Stream and 
his books, I feel as though I had lost an acquaintance 
of years; and I stop and think who will be next, and 
who can be found that can fill his place, 
J. E. S. 
Calais^ Me. — Editor Forest and Stream: I was pained 
to hear of the death of Mr. Risteen, and then so soon of 
the death of Mr. Mather. I have known them both ever 
since they began to write such interesting articles for the 
papers. They have solved the great problem, which we 
are all approaching, but leave pleasant memories be- 
hind, and those that knew them will say their farewells 
with a deep sense of personal loss. 
Geo. a. BoARDMAr^. 
At Our Log Cabin. 
Vermont. — There \vas a soft crust that promised good 
snowshoeing as we started on the two-and-a-half-mile 
climb to Mount Merritt. Where the road turns to skirt 
the side of the hill we tightened the thongs on our "web- 
feet," and, loading the toboggan with hemlock slabs, 
began our laborious climb. Did you ever try to drag a 
loaded toboggan up hill while on snowshoes? Well, my 
advice is: Don't. 
On reaching camp, where a previous load of slabs had 
been left, we disturbed a pair of nuthatches, who flew up 
to the tall spruces. But the attractions were too great; 
the little lady flew down, and, alighting on a slab within 
3 feet of me, made a determined attack on a beechnut 
wedged in a crevice of the rough bark. The shell was dry 
and tough; every time she drove her sharp-pointed bill 
she leaned away back, using her tail for a brace, and then 
beating her wings upward with a lightning stroke, drove 
her bill into the nutshell with all the might her tiny form 
could muster. Mr. Nuthatch perched on a small spruce 
a few feet distant, and, raising his feathers till he appeared 
like an animated ball, vibrated his wings rapidly and con- 
tinuously, all the time uttering faint notes that sounded 
like the striking of a taut rubber band. 
But the beeclanut was obdurate, so I went inside the 
cabin, donned my reefer and came out to see the finish. 
My movements alarmed them but little, though I stood 
almost over them. The persistent drilling finally cracked 
the tiny safe, and the contents went the same old way. 
Meantime, the male bird had overcome his nervousness, 
and lighting on a slab extracted a borer about an inch 
long, which he swallowed after some work which would 
have insured him a permanent job with any circus as a 
contortionist. Then they flew up among the spruce cones 
and I was left to regret that that new outfit for bird pho- 
tography had not yet arrived from the factory. 
Few appreciate the beauty of nature in her winter 
dress — the dark spruces wnth snow-laden boughs, the 
gnarled old hemlocks, the birches in their tattered dress 
of silver and gold, the soft gray beeches reaching out with 
many knotted limbs; and all so still, with not a sound 
save the occasional croaking of the rheumatic joint of 
some old grandsire of the forest. And then the snow — 
the broad, white pages of nature's ledger, on which every 
guest tells how he came and why and where he went, and 
what his business was. 
There we read how Madame Skunk had taken advan- 
tage of the recent thaw to dig out through the snow and 
stretch her legs and potter around in search of things to 
eat. 
Eight here the page is splashed with blood; near a 
small group of sprnces the snow crust for a space of 2 
feet is covered with the skin and hair of a red squinr-: 
Small, round footprints at first bespoke the work of th; 
red fox, but closer scrutiny showed that he had only callec 
to leave his regrets. We find a rather large four-toed birc| 
ti-ack and droppings, and with a dark brown, barred 
feather; and we read the author's signature — Mr. Horned 
Owl. He must have been very hungry, for every scrap 
of the poor red had disappeared except the fur — the tail 
had even been skinned to within half an inch of the tip. 
Well, to moralize, it served him right; he had probably 
done the same to many a fledgling ere he met a well- 
deserved fate. 
■ Ah! and then the evenings in camp. Who can describe 
the contentment as, after the hearty supper, for which the 
mountain air gives such keen appetites, we sit gazing intc, 
the open fire, while from our pipes the smoke houris rise 
and clasp the rough old rafters in their warm embrace. 
But such pleasures cannot last forever— -bedtime comesji 
like other evils; we crawl into our blankets, the fire and! 
mercury both go down, and then— sleep. 
Daylight brings us back, and as Ave lie curled up in our 
comfortable bunks and watch the steam rise from our 
breaths, each tries to make the others see what a nobiC' 
thing 'twould be for him to crawl out and build the fire,. 
It is snowing hard, and after fortifying well with coffee; 
and the succulent bacon, the snowshoes go on again. In; 
single file and with the toboggan in tow we start for lum^, 
ber to build a bunk. The snow is soft, and we are going 
silently, when out from under the toe of my snowshoe 
ruffed grouse rises with a whirr of wings and hurtles away 
through the bare trees. I am still undecided which of us 
was the most startled. I did not move, and a careful 
study showed a partially filled hole near, where she had 
dived in to escape the coming storm. 
While we stood discussing the bird's narrow escape an-, 
other rose from the snow about a foot from Dick, who was 
the third in line. It was getting interesting. We searched 
for more holes. Tom saw one, and with a whoop made 
a jump for it, but it was all guess work, and she came up 
from between his snowshoes. tlere was a new sport. 
We didn't want the grouse, and would have released them' 
if caught, as it is the close season now ("Sour grapes," 
says somebody?), but we tried hard to get a snowshoel 
over one. We put up thirteen in a small space ; but as we 
got excited and noisy they did not lie so close, and we 
could not get nearer than 5 or 6 feet before they would: 
rise. After diving into the snow they had moved to one 
side, but we never could tell which way nor how far. I 
hope those thirteen did not go under again, as the snow 
turned to rain later, a crust formed, and, I am afraid, 
caught many birds. This habit of the ruffed grotise also 
gives Br'er Fox a fine chance to dine on a cold bird. 
.At noon we start for home, coasting some of the way on 
the toboggan in spite of the snow. To describe the .spills 
in the soft snow while sliding standing up with snow- 
shoes on and doing other "fool things," would not sound 
so funny as it looked. Suffice it to say we reached home: 
iri time for our Sunday dinner, with mind and body clearer 
and stronger and ready for another week's work. 
, . . / W. W. Brown. • 
Dyfcer Meadows. 
Bay Ridge (Greater New York), March i. — Perhaps 
no single locality in this section so strikingly evidences 
the diminution, in numbers of our bird migrants as thei 
Dyker meadows, in the old town of New Utrecht, now a 
part of Greater New York. 
Lying on the eastern shore of Gravesend Bay, the ; 
whole locality in the immediate neighborhood of the] 
meadows bears on its face the most unmistakable marks ! 
of the "graver's tool," wielded by the ice-cap of un- 1 
numbered ages gone. Drumlins, with their attendant > 
kettle holes, abound, and the heavy drainage from the ' 
ice sheet that covered the surrounding country pro- ' 
duced the swampy meadows now known as the Dykers. \ 
At one time the meadows were heavily timbered, as 
the numerous stumps of cedar that studded the surface 
some years since,, plainly testified. I have measured \ 
some of these relics of the past that still showed a 
diameter of 18 inches, in spite of the fact that times and 
seasons had told severely tipon their original bulk. 
There used to be an inlet connecting with the bay, but i 
the shore has been steadily making along here these 
many years, and no trace now remains of the once always 
open tideway. The meadows must have extended much 
further to the southwest at one time, for I remember 
when a heavy northwester used to give us an abnormally 
low tide, hundreds of the same old cedar stumps were 
revealed, away out beyond low water mark. 
But, you will ask, "What has all this to do with the 
birds?" The hills (drumlins) are covered with fine, 
short, springy turf, beloved of upland, golden and kildee 
plovers, and meadowlark. The depressions between 
(kettle holes), some swampy, others dry, often filled with 
a dense growth of low birch (mostly white), wild cherry 
and scrub oak, all a-tangle with vines, gave fine cover 
to woodcock, and the visiting thousands of song bird 
migrants, while the soft loam and dampness in many of 
them tempted the English snipe to tarry. At the foot 
of these beautifully rounded hills lay the meadows, in 
my younger days a veritable small game bonanza. Here 
we found an occasional black duck and sheldrake, while 
meadow-hen, sora, now and then a curlew, and all sorts 
of plover were always to be had in season, in company 
with a horde of lesser "tidbits." The whistles and calls, 
when the flight was on, used to make my boyish blood 
tingle, as I came over the hills with my muzzleloader in 
rhe early mornin.*s of long ago. While the immediate 
section is much the same, having been practicaly undis- 
turbed, the meadows year after year are lonely for lack 
of feathered occupants. They were not killed off, for 
gunning here was never carried to excess. The fact is 
a sad one, but I believe a real one — the birds are gone. 
The fall migrants that occasionally happen in are few 
and far between. Many little thicket tangles still nestle 
in the kettle holes, but the seasons come and go, leaving 
them largely deserted by the bright forms that used to 
swarm and sing among their twigs and branches. 
The Redcoats under Lord Howe once marched 
along here to the battle of Long Island, We know 
where they are. or at least we think we do, To-day the 
redcoats of Dyker meadow and Marin nnd Field 
Club golf reserves march "whackingly" about, an4 
