448 
"How long will we stay ?" 
Pete thinks if we start by noon we can reach there by 
sundown, and then two or three days will give us all the 
sport we deserve. We all agree, "so provisions, ammuni- 
tion, blankets and other necessities arc put in our boats, 
and by ii o'clock we are on the way, shooting the creek 
leading from Big Lake to Island Lake. 
Just as we start, Pete thinks something may have been 
forgotten, so he shouts: 
"Joe, did you put drinking cups in the boats ?" 
"Yes, sir, she is in. One in your boat, and I have an 
empty can of condensed milk!" 
Joe looks a little hurt to hear Alien and myself laUgh 
at this reply. 
With the French language dominant, therefore recog- 
nizing no gender,_ and suspicious that Pete has caused 
this burst of merriment at his expense, Joe becomes sar- 
castic, and turning to Allen, he nods toward Pete and 
says, "She thinks it's smart." 
The guides throughout all these waters are expert 
rowers, and never seem to tire. Using a constant, steadv 
pull, we are through the Creek and Island Lake and 
eight miles up the thoroughfare toward Wolf Lake by 3 
o'clock. 
We have had an enjoyable time. So much to see, if you 
have eyes to see, there is not a moment that something 
wonderful does not take place. At this junction of the 
thoroughfare and Island Lake, on a dead pine, more than 
a hundred feet high, sat a white-headed eagle. In the 
air a large fish hawk was sailing over the water, looking 
for his dinner two or three hundred feet below him, 
What penetrating orbs of vision nature has endowed thif. 
bird with ! There, he. gives his lightning-like shot to the 
water, seems almost submerged, only to reappear with. S! 
4-pound pike in his talons. Slowly he rises, going to - 
ward the woods, where he hopes to enjoy his well-earnecl 
meal ; but he has reckoned without his host. The king of 
birds has been watching his every movement, and ?S found 
successful, is in readiness to exact that tribute whitch the 
stronger always demands and compels from the weak. 
Almost quick as thought the eagle is pursuing the 
hawk, and for a little while a merry chase it is. But the 
eagle is the master, and the hawk instinctively feels it, as 
after a sudden, violent swerve, only just to evade the ter- 
rible claws of the now enraged eagle, he drops the prize 
and slowly flies to the other end of the lake. 
There is no need for haste now, as the master was 
after tribute, not the hawk. Payment having been made 
by relinquishing valuable propertj-, the eagle once more 
displays his wonderful activity by catching the pike before 
it strikes the water, and then as leisurely to cover to 
gormandize. ' ~ » 
A logging road leads to the river, and here we disem- 
bark and pack all our possessions into bundles, cover 
them with shoulder bag straps, and after hiding our boats 
and oars in the rushes, we are ready for lunch, and then 
start on our four-mile tramp with packs on our backs and 
.eruns in our hands, to the deserted logging camping. 
When we are all ready to start, we discover we have too 
much lugcrage to carry, so we put in the boat what we 
need the least, and at 6 o'clock, after two hour"; of hard 
trudging:, at least for Allen and myself, we arrive at ou)- 
destination. 
Tired! The word does not express my condition, and 
it is. dark, and the moon will not be up' until 8 o'clock. 
After imbibing several invigorators and some cold lunch 
Allen and I roll up in blankets and are asleep almo.st as 
soon as we touch the floor. No description can be given of 
the camp and it surroundings until morning, as it is now 
pitch dark, except^ for the light from our lantern, and 
our physical condition is at too low an ebb to permit even 
the mind to flow freely. 
I have an indistinct recollection of Pete and Joe making 
use of some rather indecent language just as I was about 
to drop into the arms of Morpheus ; the subject of it 
seemed to be tobacco, and that it had been left in the 
boat. As I learned the next morning, our two laddy 
bucks started for the river to get what they so much 
missed, and incidentally to bring the remainder of the 
baggage. The shack we were in was about 20 feet square. 
It had a door and three .square holes on three sides, where 
windows had been once upon a time, but now were in the 
same condition as Uncle Ned, who had no hair on the top 
of his head. We were sleeping on the floor, nearly in 
the corner, where we would have had a perfect view of 
the door and three windows if it hadn't been so dark and 
we had been awake instead of in a heavy dreamless sleep. 
Some magnetic infl-uence caused me to open ray eyes 
after sleeping, as I then thought all the night through. I 
looked^ around, it seemed to be light as day, but soon 
recognirtd the effect of a wonderfully clear atmosphere 
and a full moon. Oh, how distinct everything looked! 
Nothing to be seen of Pete and Joe. and looking at my 
watch I found it was only ii o'clock. They had not 
returned yet. The endurance of these people is past un- 
derstanding. In the morning they will be fresher than any 
townsman, if they get only three or four hours' sleep. 
But hark! What is that noise? Purring; now loud, 
now soft, sounds like the grating of a miniature millstone 
grinding big leaves. I turn over gently to get a fair look 
at the third window, and Heaven help me ! What is that 
huge, terrible monster sitting in the window hole? A 
panther, a grizzly, a mountain lion? I acknowledge frank- 
ly I was thoroughly frightened for a few minutes. Eyes, a 
greenish yellow, shining like burning brimstone, sitting 
as the monster was in the opening, with the mellow, clear 
moonlight for a background, his size and develish out- 
lines were enhanced manifold, both by the conditions of 
♦■h^- setting and atmosphere, as well as by my most agitate'' 
mmd. In a few minutes it dawned upon rne that I had 
nothing more fierce to face than a Northern wildcat. The 
brute looked savage, with his wicked orbs gleamincr 
viciously down on us, but knowing him and his peculiar- 
ities. I knew there was nothing to fear. 
_ My revolver was lying in my hat by my side. Grasping 
it, I gave Allen several sound nudges in the ribs. He 
awoke, and then T whispered : 
"Don't move, Ed. Look at the window to your right," 
He looked and continued looking. I was frightened. 
Alien was more so. He %vas speechless, and I was heart- 
lesslv cruel. ' ' " ' 
■'./*Ed,_that's__a panther, and Ffn afraid we're m for it; 
fl^e devtl h evidently liyitijjry. and I'm goincr to try a shot at 
FOREST . AND^ STREAM. 
him. If I miss you roll yourself in your blankets and let 
me fight it out _ He will not attack but one. We both 
have families, but, oh, Ed, look after my wife and 
children. Oh, Lord I Why did I ever come here and cause 
you to run your head in this death trap !" 
I gurgled several gurgles in imitation of tearful despair, 
and Allen still remained speechless. Slowly I took ain; 
with ray revolver, until the barrel covered the body of 
the cat. I had a perfect sight, thanks to the moon ; I 
pre'ssed the trigger, a deafening report, and then two 
ear-splitting yells — one from the cat, the other from 
Allen. 
To this day I am unable to state which was the louder, 
but I give Allen the benefit of the doubt. He had so 
thoroughly taken my advice that when I tried to unroll him 
from his blankets, he evidently thought the panther had 
lunched off me, and was after him for dessert. He kicked 
and squirmed, but at last he was quiet long enough to hear 
me speak to him, and then uncovering himself, he leaned 
on his elbow and hoarsely whispered: 
"Old man, old man, are you badly hurt? Is the panther 
gone?" 
My emotions forbade my speaking, and Allen mistaking 
my convulsions for spasms of pain, like a true hero, re- 
gardless of the probable presence of the panther, jumped 
to his feet and came to me, turned me over on my back 
and seeing my uncontrollable convulsions of laughter, in- 
stantly regained his sang froid, and calmly said : 
"Say, you're very smart, mister, but T knew it wasn't 
a panther all the time. Any fool could tell it was a bear." 
And then I began anew, until Allen opened his vials of 
wrath and gave me such a shower bath of the most 
pungent English that I soon began to sober up. 
But he would not accept ray wildcat story. In a few 
minutes Joe and Pete came trotting in. They had heard 
the shot when they were within a mile of the camp, and 
fearing some danger, had run the remainder of the wa3^ 
After listening to my story, Pete asked: 
"Did you hit the cat?" 
I acknowledged I hadn't gone outside the shack to see.^ 
Pete went, and about 30 yards from the window he 
found the cat — a male, and a giant, stone, stark dead. 
After taking a nerve-quieter all around, we again re- 
paired to dreamland. Allen claims that he didn't sleep an- 
other minute that night. 
[June g, 1900. 
Make It a Political Issue. 
Rahway, N. J., May 30.-~Editor Forest and Stream^: 
On Saturday morning last a cigarette smoking youth of 
seventeen or eighteen years, fishing in open view of the 
street at a pool known to be frequented by bass, was seen 
to catch a small-mouth black bass of about 6 inches 
length, was remonstrated with for thus doubly infring- 
ing the law (season opens May 30), he became im- 
pudent, not only, but reluctantly complying with demand 
for its return to the water, proceeded to free the hook 
by a succession of brutal jerks upon the snell, which 
proving ineffectual, he deliberately planted his foot on 
the fish and by one vengeful yank tore out the deep-seated 
barb and then flung the already moribund bass 30 feet 
out in the river. Accompanying him, as pupils, were two 
urchins of seven to nine years, a pair of samples of the 
graceless dozens of town youth who from ice clearing to 
ice forming year after year haunt our bass waters with 
perfect assurance and impunity. Hundreds of small bass 
are thus sacrificed every season. Besides, netting and 
spearing are common nracticies, and by no m.eans furtively 
at that. Police officers even are guilty of these latter 
atrocities — ^poach without fear. From infomiation known 
to be accurate, mostly from my own observation, I could 
give enough details and particulars of infractions of our 
game and fish laws to fill a column of Forest and Stream 
entire. 
Time and again have efforts aiming at punitive enforce- 
ment of the statutes been made. To be ignored, un- 
iroticed entire or more or less pointedly snubbed for the 
l5ains taken, has been the result in every instance, two 
barely excepted. One. the burning of a net of the bass 
poachers and another a domiciliary visit by the warden at 
the home of a sooner gray squirrel shooter. That warden 
has since been given seven years' imprisonment for per- 
forming his duty fearlessly, as he and many others saw it. 
B}^ the way, his conviction and harsh sentence has done 
much to weaken the wardens and impair their usefulness 
and embolden the gangs of Italian laborers engaged by 
contractors on public works everywhere to continue their 
Sunday maraudings. 
Directly to blame for all this is the prevalent corrupt 
practice of political leaders of rewarding their favorites 
and heelers for their services by appointment to sinecure 
offices, or sustain and abet them in neglect of duties due 
the position. Such_ is the case in two counties of the 
State where conditions are well known to the writer. 
Good men who would give good, efficient seiwice have 
sought wardenships, but State leaders have no use for 
such material. Nor will Governors, ex-Governors, Attor- 
ney-Generals or Senators heed any protests aft'ecting their 
appointees — all they require of the underlings is "to get 
out the vote." Nor have reminders that the sportsmen 
throughout the State could, if they chose, decide the out- 
come of any election made any impression for good. 
Under such conditions, with such provocation, why should 
not such recognized a champion of the interests of sport 
as Forest and Stream is, "talk politics" and speak out 
loud, too, at that? Why not urge the sportsmen of the 
State and elsewhere where interest demands to organize 
and "go into politics" and for the same purpose the 
partisans do — our own good and profit, the betterment of 
sport, the ending of the days of the N. G. political job 
warden? E. J. W. 
Pennsylvania Fca.th.cted Game. 
Templeton, Pa, — ^We have had a splendid spring for 
grouse and quail hatching, although some nests were de- 
stroyed by forest fires. I saw a brood of ten grouse yes- 
terday, and half-grown rabbits are plentiful. Quail are 
again becoming plentiful. Bass fishing in the Allegheny 
River near TempletoTi promises good. G. E. 
The Massachusetts Law. 
5 Park Square, Boston, June 2, — Editor Forest and 
Stream: As regards the bird bill of the Central Commit- 
tee, the end is not yet. But we confidently expect a 
satisfactory result of the long contest. 
On Monday, May 28, the Senate passed the bill, to be 
engrossed, by a vote of .14 to 8. Yesterday Senator Leach 
moved a reconsideration of that vote, and had it put over 
to Thursday next and placed first in the order' for that 
daj''. He is working hard, but against odds, to defeat the 
bill. Meantime the friends of the measure are not wholly 
idle and are hoping that all their supporters will do their 
duty when the final vote is reached. Your readers will 
be informed of the result. The House members who bore 
the brunt of the fight in that body are watching the con- 
test in the upper branch with the keenest interest, and 
so are the most intelligent sportsmen all over the State. 
An important and exceedingly interesting meeting of 
the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association 
was held at the Copley Square Hotel on Thursday even- 
ing. The President, Hon. Geo. W. Wiggin, was in the 
chair, and there were present ex-Presidents B. C. Clark 
and Horace T. Rockwell ; Vice-President A. B. F. Kin- 
ney, chairman of the Central Committee; Vice-President 
C. H. Moulton, President of the Quacumquasit Club, of 
Brookfield; Dr, Samuel H. Spaulding, President of the 
Hingham Gun Club; A. C. Sylvester, President of the 
North Attleboro Fish and Game Association; J. E. 
Tweedy, of the Central Committee, and several others 
from the North Attleboro Club and a goodly number of 
members of various other associations. 
The principal speakers were Representative Harry D. 
Hunt, of North Attleboro, member of the Legislative 
Committee on Fisheries and Game; Hon. Wm. Tolman, 
Senator from Pittsfield; Representative Arthur Harring 
ton, of Boston, and Chairman J, W. Collins, of the State 
Board of Commissioners. 
Representative Hunt read a paper reviewing the various 
stages of the contest at the State House, an abstract of 
which I send you herewith, as follows: 
"The Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Game 
this year has not been one favorable to the best interests 
of the sportsmen. In fact, that committee has' been dis- 
tinctly unfavorable to the objects for which your Asso- 
ciation stands. Two members of the committee — one in 
the Senate, the other in the House — have been hostile to 
House Bill 549 from the first. My colleagues on the com- 
mittee early vouchsafed the information that 'AH the. 
cranks in Massachusetts appear before this committee.' 
Between the sf)ortsmen and the marketmen nobody can 
tell 'where he is at.' Some report, 'Leave to withdraw.' 
We let them talk themselves out. Several warring ele- 
ments early appeared. Mr. MacKey seemed anxious to 
.stop everybody from doing anything. The marketmen 
were for the 'open door' policy. Soon about forty bills 
were before the committee, with a general mix-up, and a 
battle royal on each bill with the prospect of ''no legisla- 
tion necessary' as the verdict of the committee. This 
would have been the result but for the happy thought of a 
conference between sportsmen and marketmen. Mr. Jas. 
H. Bennett, for the marketmen, and Mr. Heman S. Fay. 
counsel for the Central Committee, came to an agreement 
on what should be done. To Mr. Fay the sportsmen of 
the State owe no small debt of gratitude for his untiring 
efforts in their behalf. The evidence for the bill was 
overwhelming in amount and in character. Then carae .a 
tly in the honey — ^the Walker Bill, 571 — practically the 
same as 549, with its best feature — prohibition of sale — 
left out. Much shorter and easier would have been our 
fight but for this bill which came from those who should 
have been our friends. The first report of the committee 
was in favor of No. 571, and 'ought not to pass' on No. 
549, four members dissenting. They were House Chair- 
man Reed and Messrs. Sprague, Collins and Hunt. The 
constituents of one member of the committee who had 
voted against No. 549 made such a commotion that he 
asked the House to recommit it to the committee. The 
committee finally reported favorably on 549, with a slight 
change of the open season, and meantime S71 had been 
quietly laid on the table to await the_ fate of 549. Before 
the final vote a campaign of education supplemented by 
personal efforts had been carried on by Secretary Kimball. 
Sportsmen of the western counties who desired opening 
the shooting season at an earlier date whirled into line. 
Adverse amendments were defeated by large majorities, 
and the bill, receiving some unimportant changes by the 
Committee on Bills in the third reading, was sent to the 
Senate. 
"Our enemies had said all along, 'We will bui-y it in tlie 
Senate.' At the solicitation of Mr. Wm. B. Phinney, of 
Lynn_, Senator H. K. Sanderson agreed to take charge of 
the bill, and his efforts were ably seconded by Hon. Wm. 
Tolman, Senator from Pittsfield. The result of the first 
test vote was 14 for to li against. Our last vote on en- 
grossment was 14 to 8. 
"In politics, religion, business, the fi'rst lesson to 
learn is organization. That, and only that, can win vic- 
tories of legislation for the sportsmen of Massachusetts." 
At the conclusion of Mr. Hunt's paper, which was re- 
ceived with unbounded enthusiasm, the meeting by a 
standing vote passed a vote of thanks to him for his 
efficient and untiring labors in behalf of sportsmen's in- 
terests and his intensely interesting account of the hard- 
fought battle at the State House. Representaive Arthur 
Harrington also spoke of his efforts for the bill, and 
later on Senator Wm. Tolman, of Pittsfield, who worked 
very hard .last year to secure a more efficient system of 
administration for the State Department of Fisheries and 
Game, spoke with great earnestness of legislative mat- 
ters. By a standing vote he was also accorded a unnani- 
mous vote of thanks. Chairman Collins expressed his 
hearty approval of and warm interest in the bill. 
The meeting was one of the most enthusiastic the Asso- 
ciation has ever held, and among those in attendance was 
Heman S. Fay, Esq., of Marlborough, who has been 
indefatiguable in his efforts for the bill from the very 
first, and Mr. A. B. F. Kinney, who, as Chairman of the 
Central Committee, has done valiant service. 
Both these gentlemen should hold a warm place in the 
hearts of Massachusetts sportsmen. But all our labors, I 
sincerely believe, would have come to naught but for the 
