FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 6, 1900. 
Among the Indians Sixty Years Ago 
Among the survivors of the old-time Adirondack 
guides is Louis Watso, of North River, N. Y. He be- 
longs to the Waubanakee tribe of Indians and came from 
Canada many years ago. His experiences as hunter 
and guide would fill a good-sized volume. He began 
hunting when ten years old, and quit only when the in- 
firmities of age unfitted him for the chase. He is now 
eighty years old, but to my knowledge it is only a few 
years ago that he backed out of the woods a fine buck 
he had helped secure. I have before told Forest and 
Stream something about the old man, and this writing 
is to describe one of his early expesiences, rather than 
himself. In a kindly way he told the story to the writer 
this summer. 
It wiJl be repeated as nearly as possible in his own 
Miords: 
"Oh, yos, I have seen wild Indians. Sixty years ago, 
when I was about twenty years old, my brother, who kept 
a store at St. Francis, and traded largely with wild In- 
dians for their furs, wanted me to go with him on a trip 
to the Northwest. So we loaded a canoe with a large 
quantity of goods for barter, and started. We had with 
us another Indian who understood the language of the 
people where we were going as interpreter. It took us 
a month to make the journey. I do not know the name 
of the people we visited, nor of most of the lakes and 
streams we traveled on, but I know one river was called 
St. Maurice, and that we went over the Divide, so that 
the last waters we were on ran westward to tlie Pacific 
We had a good time, for game and fish were plenty. 
But we didn't need to hunt or fish at all for a living, 
for the people brought us plenty of all kinds of game — 
deer meat, moose meat and bear meat, besides small 
game and fish in abundance. They were verj' kind to 
us. I tell you right there I saw some shootin.' As I 
said, their weapons were bows and arrows, but how they 
could shoot with them! At five or six rods they would 
take a partridge's head off every time and not miss. I 
have seen their young men do it repeatedly. 
"We lived among them all winter. We had to, for the 
streams froze over and we couldn't get away. So al- 
together we were with them about six months, and I 
must say I never saw a more peaceful or happy people 
among themselves. I never saw any sign of a quarrel 
among them, but always kindness and contentment. 
Their living was entirely game and fish, and their cloth- 
ing entirely of skins. Their blankets were made of 
rabbit skins, with the hair on, cut into strips about half 
an inch wide and woven together with somg sort of thong 
or wood fiber. The blankets were more than half an 
inch thick and very warm, so that in the coldest weather 
they would be perfectly comfortable sleeping on the 
ground, with one blanket imder them and another over 
them, and without any fire, while we, with our blankets, 
often had to keep a good fire all night." 
"Did not their greater hardihood partly account for 
this?" 
"Oh, yes: but their blankets had a good deal to do 
with it, too." 
"I suppose from their peaceable lives together that 
they did not have any 'firewater' among them?" 
"Oh, no; they didn't know anything about that. I 
suppose we were the first traders who had ever visited 
them." 
Photographing Wild Deer Close By. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept 17. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The deer pictures which I left with you were .taken on 
the Roan Creek, Garfield county, Colo., and I will try 
to explain the methods and how difBcult it is to. obtail 
a fairly good photograph, when it is considered that d'' 
rection of wind, light, time of day, proper location, etc 
must be just right. 
Build a blind with sage brush, and put the camera 
equipped with a Telephoto lers in position, pointing \v 
the direction from which the deer are expected to come 
Remove the cap from the lens, focus for a certain dis- 
tance, set your shutter, and then when everything is 
ready, sit down bulb in hand to snap the camera at the 
right time and wait for the deer to come. Sometimes it 
is a long wait and there is no deer; at other times a 
short wait and plenty of deer. 
But they come the wrong way — sometimes from be- 
hind, at other times either to the right or left, but none 
in front of the camera; consequently there is no negative 
and no picture. The next day you try again. Here they 
come straight for the camera! Do you know how it 
feels? Just think of your proverbial first deer comiii" 
for you m the open ! You wait to let it come closer, and 
you shake and tremble so that you could not hit a barn 
door. It is the same feeling when taking pictures at 
50 or 100 feet and over. If the deer come in front of the 
camera make a little noise, just enough to attract their 
attention, and press the bulb. The shutter chcks: awav 
the deer go like a flash and disappear quickly. This may 
represent two Aveeks of hard work with a few fairly good 
pictures. It is no trouble to get deer to come close to 
you if the wind is in your favor and you don't move 
I have hunted witk Capt. L. A. Myrick, who lives on 
Ocean. Finally we reached the shore of a big lake 
four or five miles across, and the interpreter said, 'We 
will stop here.' We could look across the water and 
see a large Indian village, but the interpreter said, 'It 
won't do to go direct to- those people. If we should 
they would kill us. We will wait here till they send some 
one to us.' So we built a fire and set about getting 
camp ready for the night. 
"Within an hour after the smoke of our camp-fire 
began to rise the interpreter said, 'Look there!' I 
looked where he pointed and saw an Indian peeking at 
us from behind a tree. His eyes shined, and he had a 
bow and arrow in his hand. Our man walked slowly 
toward him and spoke to him. Soon I saw another 
peeking at u-s from behind another tree, and then an- 
other. They each had a bow and arrow. Finally our 
man made the first one understand that we were not 
enemies, but had come there to trade with their people, 
and invited them to come to the boat and see our goods. 
But they said they' must wait and see what their chief 
said about it. Then they went off, and in about an hour 
several canoes started from the village and came right 
across the lake to us. The chief himself was in the 
party. Through the interpreter w? told him our business, 
and he went to the canoe and saw our goods for himself! 
Then he 3«emed satisfied that we had told him the truth, 
and told us to come right over to his village. So we 
put everything into the canoe again and went with him 
to his village. He told us where to make our camp, 
about a quarter of a mile or so from his own, and we 
were soon surrounded by wild Indians and doing a big 
business. Those people had a big stock of furs, and my 
brother had a big stock of trinkets to trade for them. 
He had a big lot of jewsharps, which cost him about 
■three cents apiece, and of colored cotton handkerchiefs, 
which cost him about four cents apiece. Often he would 
get ten dollars' worth of mink fur for a jewsharp, or 
fifteen dollars' worth of beaver skins for a bright-colored 
handkerchief. I asked him, 'What do you cheat these 
poor people so for?' He laughed and said. 'I ain't cheat- 
ing them. They hain't no use., for these "furs, and they 
want these goods — it's all right.'. 
"The chief give us a strip of h'ver and the w-oods 
Tbordering on it for our hunting and fishing ground 
PHOTOGRAPH OF WILD DEER, 
1' From a photograph by Capt. L. A. Myrick. 
"What about their religion?" 
"I didn't hear that they had any. I never saw any- 
thing to indicate it. They were just peaceful and happy 
all the time — contented." 
"How about their family life?" 
"Oh, that was all right. They were kind, and the 
men did their share of the work. 
"When we came away in the spring the chief invited 
us to come again, and sent some of his young men to 
help us over the carries. Our canoe was heavily loaded 
with furs, and the young men would help carry them 
to the next water. When we started on in the canoe they 
would disappear in the woods and be at the next carry 
ahead of us. We always found them there when we got 
there. So they went with us and helped us for four 
days. Finally we told them they had better go back, as 
they were getting so far from home. 'Oh, no,' they 
said, 'it is only a little ways,' But they started back as we 
advised them to, and would not take any pay for help- 
ing us. 
''We got home all right, and my brother sold his furs 
for several thousand dollars." 
Juvenal. 
Wild Rice fo^ Wildfowl. 
Wild rice has been successfully grown to furnish at- 
traction for wildfowl. It is very prolific and grows an- 
nually on the same grounds, requiring no car« to culti- 
vate. It will grow well in almost any water that has a 
muddy bottom, is not too cold and has not a strong cur- 
rent, and is not more than 8ft. deep. It will succeed 
in any of the Middle States and Northwest as far as 
latitude 50". Rice has been found doing well on prairie 
sloughs of Minnesota, the water of which is tinctured 
more or less with alkali; it has been successfully intro- 
duced into many of the salt marshes of the Hudson 
River and Long Island, and it grows well in fresh-water 
marshes and on the banks of slow-running streams. 
The proper time for sowing the seeds is immediately 
after it is gathered ripe, 1. e., in September. The plant 
is hardy, prolific and aggressive, and usually more than 
maintains a footing once established 
his fine fruit ranch about three and a half miles from De 
Beque, on the Rio Grande River, for a number of years, 
and it was through him that I became acquainted with 
the methods of taking wild deer pictures, and to him 
belongs the credit of having taken the pictures I fur- 
nished you. He is a fine hunter and sportsman, and a 
better companion on a hunting trip cannot be found 
anywhere.. Well educated, kind-hearted, he enjoys the 
frien-'iship of many, and ladies or children are in his care 
as safe as in their own homes. He takes but parties on 
trips, has a beautiful, charming home on the Rio Grande 
River, and a few weeks spent with him at his home or 
on the hxmt are the most erfjoyable possible, and his 
charges are very reasonable. 
Let me tell you, as nearly as I can recollect, his way 
of telling atout the taking of a deer picture in company 
with his friend Wallaham, of Lay City, Colo., who has 
quite a reputation as a wild animal photographer: Time, 
July, 1898. Scene, California Park, where there was 
only one quaking asp tree in the open, and not another 
bush nor tree within 500 yards. "Our camera was planted 
in open view. The deer would come to this tree to roll 
in the dust and fight flies. The deer would see you 
sitting by the tree in bold view, and would stop and 
stamp their feet, but come gradually closer. The wind 
was favorable, the camera slide drawn, and the only 
thing to do was to sit perfectly still. If a fly. should 
alight on your nose, just let it stay there and bite away. 
You dare not move a muscle. They would come within 
a few feet and look you square in the face, stamp and 
snort, go ofif again, lie down and roll in the dust, get up 
again, and take another look, as much as to say, 'Whc 
are you?' You would sit there for an hour waiting to 
get the deer in a favorable position. If the deer move 
sideways and get your wind, away the3'- stampede, and 
all your labor is lost. It takes lots of nerve and staying 
qualities to get a deer or any wild animal's picture in 
an open field, but the oiie we were after we got, even if 
it was a poor one." 
Geo. 'Dan Seib. 
The Forest and Stream is put to prese each week on Tuesdi 
Correspondence intended for p.ublication • should reach us at 1 
latest ty Monday sad as muph earlier as practicable 
I 
