Nov, lo, 1900.1 
FOREST^AND^STREAM, 
363 
rifle between the butt and the small of the stock, look 
in the glass and keep moving until you get the muzzle and 
rear sight on a line just the same as shooting from the 
shoulder. It may take some time and patience at first, but 
when you once get the idea it is dead easy. Other shots 
m.ay be done the same way — viz.: on top of head, over 
left arm, between the legs, etc." 
And to youngsters who are ambitious to try the de- 
lights of roughing it in the West, he says : "If you have 
always been used to living in a city and have kind 
parents to look after you, plenty to eat, a good bed to 
sleep in, then you should be content with your lot, for 
you have not the slightest idea what roughing it means. 
I myself as well as hundreds of others have on several 
occasions passed many a long and weary night on the 
prairie with my saddle for a pillow, and nothing -but the 
canopy of heaven for my cover. Rheumatism is a com- 
mon ailment among hunters and trappers ; it is a hard and 
dangerous life, and I have never known of one instance 
where the hunter and trapper ever accumulated any 
amount of wealth. You can go in any Western village 
and see old men bent with age and scarceb' able to walk 
about, and if you should engage in any conversation 
with them, two-thirds of them will tell you they were 
hunters and trappers, and that they are now so crippled 
from exposure, that the}' are not able to do any work. 
Such is the case in all my experience, and I was brought 
up with the gun in my hand, and at the age of fourteen 
I could market as much game as some of the men." 
One hears some good stories in the Bowery shooting 
galleries when business is slack. Here is one Oklahoma 
Bill repeats, as told by Tom Black. "Tom," Bill pre- 
faces, "was the greatest hunter and trapper of his day, 
and he Avas the biggest liar that ever trod in shoes. The 
following is one of his lies that he often tells the people 
in barrooms when he feels good : 
" 'One day I was out a-huntin' and I was tired and 
sot down to rest, rite along the edge of the Missoury 
River, and I looked up and seen 16 Injuns comin' down 
the river in a canoe. I knowed if they got hold of me 
they would try to scalp me, so I jist waited till thej got 
about 25 yards oflf. I was layin' down behind a stump, 
and I raised my rifle and let go at 'em, and killed 6 of 'em. 
and as soon as the others heard the shot and seen 6 of 
their party fall dead, they seen my head stickin' up behind 
the stump, and they made for the shore and started for 
me with their war-whoops. I was just a little skeered when 
I looked up and seen there was just to of 'em, so when 
they got up to me I went at 'em with the butt of my 
rifle and killed 5 more of 'em ; then I dropped my rifle and 
went at 'em rough and tumble and killed 2 more with my 
fist; the other 3 got hold of me and throwed me down 
right close to the edge of the river, so I got hold of 
one of them and held his head in the edge of the river, and 
with my other hand I held another by the throat and 
kicked at the 3d one with both feet. I kept this up for 
about 20 minutes, and then I fainted away, and when I 
come too, I saw the one I held in the edge of the river 
was drowned, and the one i held by the throat was choked 
to death, and the one i kicked was still alive, so I 
took my huntin' knife and finished him. I tell you, boys, 
that was the worst fight I ever had with the Injuns.' " 
Our Opening Day. 
A Vancouver's Island Idyl. 
September first ooene-d fair. A sweet south wind, soft 
as a woman's kiss, drifted the early morning mist in 
wreaths from off: the beaver meadows, and the solemn 
stillness of the deep fir forests was only occasionally 
broken by the red squirrel's hungry breakfast chatter. 
Late on the evening of Aug. 31 we had risen from our 
dry old battered editorial chair, a chair well seasoned 
with red hot editorial swear words, and we had vowed to 
our august and proof-bedraggled selves that on the mor- 
row — it being the opening day for mowitch, which in the 
rich and eftete East reads "deer"— we should take a 
solitary jollification to our venison-hungry selves, and 
stalk the wily buck for a spell, leaving the poor old 
printing push to the tender mercies of the "devil." There- 
fore it IS that we open this scrawl with a faint attempt 
at a description of how the fresh air felt and smelt to 
ourselves as, Avith Eph the Reliable of old Sharp's make 
in our itching hand, we quietly traversed certain timbered 
ridges, intersected by small meadows, on our way to a 
pet spot. 
The air was almost quiet; in the deep timber quite so. 
A flicker heliographed an orange-scarlet signal for an 
instant from his shield-like wing as he crossed a beam 
from the rising sun. Then speeding into the forest 
gloom, he disappeared, and the squirrel chippered a 
volley of bad words alter him at being fooled into the 
belief that a hawk had swooped at him, causing him to 
drop a fat cone, and to swallow a juicy kernel so hastily 
that he quite lost the delightful titillation of the palate 
that should by rights have been his.. 
The frightful scrambling he made among the tallen 
leaves to recover that sweet fir cone deluded me for an 
instant into the belief that a deer had sprung up. The 
next instant, however, a little winter wren told me, "No! 
noi No! no!" and I went on my way with quickened 
steps, as the fast rising sun warned me that my chance 
for a deer that morning would soon be over. 
In due time I reached the edge of the ridges where 
the last one sloped down steeply into a tract of swampy 
land, overgrown with trees and bushes of every in- 
digenous species. This would seem to be a qvteer place 
to search for deer, but, knowing their habits from long 
experience, I felt reasonably sure of at least seeing one, 
' and quite hopeful 'of being able to get a shot. The deer 
in these parts, during the early part of the season, live 
• in these thick, tangled swamps and windfalls. They 
come out on the more open ridges at night, to feed and 
play about on the dry, sandy ground. At davbreak they 
move toward their day haunts, in which, if a' place like I 
; ;pow see before me, it is useless to hunt for them, as 
no care and precaution will pi event the hunter's approach 
being heard by the sharp-eared beauties. Therefore it 
is on the edges of these haunts that one is mo.st likely 
to get a shot as they move toward cover in the early 
morning. So I had made for the rim in this hope. 
I had now quite got out of the deep woods, and for 
some time had been traveling over comparatively open 
ground, covered with dry twigs, short sallal and huckle- 
berry bushes. Reaching the slope, I went part way 
down and stopped by a big fallen tree to rest after my 
sharp walk, smoke, and take a "tloosh naanitch" — a 
good look. Nothing was in sight, and no sound broke 
the quiet btit the faint rustle of the maple leaves on the 
trees in the hollow and the occasional croak of a tree 
frog. Suddenly, the silence was sharply broken by an 
unmistakable sound — the noise of deer jumping among 
the undergrowth. The sounds came from a deep- gully 
to my right, which cut the hill diagonally, the head of it 
leaving the brow far to the right, while the foot de- 
bouched into the swamp almost directly below me. 
At first the sounds were at some distance, but so still 
and clear was the air that one could hear them dis- 
tinctly. Several seconds elapsed before I could discern 
an}' movement, and that was nearly at the foot of the 
gully, where, over a clear spot in the brush, passed one, 
two, three, deer — two does and a prong buck. Pretty 
as pictures, and, oh I how productive of water in the 
mouth ! Out of sight they passed, to reappear in another 
instant on a clear knoll under some trees at the very 
edge of the thick swamp. A sharp whistle brought them 
up standing, but appearing so dimly in the gloom of 
the trees that to select the buck was impossible. Eph 
had been at m}^ shoulder long before; just naturally 
climbed there himself, did Eph. So, taking aim at the 
likeHest looking deer, . I fired. A vision of a white leg 
wildly kicking as its helpless owner rolled down the 
kiioll, told me that venison steak would be mine shortly, 
and the sound of one heavy crash m the thicket told that 
its lucky companions had vanished into sanctuary. 
Getting to the spot as quickly as possible, I found 
the buck with a broken spine. A second shot ended his 
pain, and then I sat and cogitated. Those deer were 
alarmed when they came down the gully. One of two 
things had caused that panic. Some other hunter on the 
ridges, or a hearing or scent of me while crossing the 
high ground, had sent them scurrying for the ravine, 
down which they had been accustomed to travel, as 
afi"ording them safe shelter to the very verge of the 
swamp itself. This last theory I think the correct one. 
Alas! they did not judge that I, walking .straight, would 
intersect that fatal canon at the critical point. After a 
smoke, I gralloched him, trussed him up, making pack 
straps of his pretty legs, and started up the hill with 
him. 
The sun is w.ell up noWj and the shade of the heavy 
timber is .grateful. The wren teetered on the root of an 
upturned tree. "I told j^ou so. I told you so," she 
sang. The flicker plastered up against a dead fir 
solemnly thumping the hard wood for a breakfast (which 
reminds me that I am mighty hungry), The squirrel was 
chucking down cones from a big tree top, and apolo- 
gized for swearing so shockingly with a "kurr-r-r-r, as 
I passed. I rested on the trail where some white bones 
marked the spot where a martin's body had been thrown 
two years ago. I picked up the tiny ,skull and extracted 
the delicate ivory teeth, putting them in my pocket for 
cliarms. So after a while I reached home, and oh! how 
heavy that deer was ! for he was fat as mud. 
I was happj-. So would you have been. 
Mazama. 
CoMox, B. C , Oct. 19. 
Gens des Bois. 
tX.— James M. Wardner, 
Ne.mu.y fifty years ago James M. AVardner travelled west- 
ward through the Adirondacks over a road that steadily 
grew worse, till finally, like Nessrauk's trail, it ran up a 
tree and ended in a knot hole. This was somewhere in 
the neighborhood of "the Oregon," a title given to the 
sandy, rolling country on the watershed between the St. 
Regis and Saranac rivers, once devastated by a cyclone 
and afterward swept by fire. Storm and fire had cleared 
awa}' the primeval evergreen forest, but- in its stead a 
second growth of blueberries and deciduous trees and 
shrubs sprang up, furnishing luxuriant feed for deer and 
bears and small game, while the numerous lakes and 
marshy ponds were full of trout and frequented by the 
various fur-bearing animals. 
Wardner cut his own road for a time till he reached one 
of the ponds connecting with Rainbow Lake, and here he 
stopped, fully convinced that he had at last reached the 
Promised Land. With him were his household effects 
and a horse and cow, A few weeks' labor sufficed to erect 
a cabin and a shelter for the stock, and a day or two more 
was taken up planting corn in a recent burning. The 
corn was put in "Indian plant" with an axe. A gash 
was made in the ground wherever there was space between 
the charred tree trunks or roots, and four or five kernels 
dropped in, and then another stroke of the axe alongside 
the first served to cover the corn. The land received no 
preliminary cultivation and little subsequent care, yet 
from a very small area enough fodder was harvested to 
provide for the horse and cow during the long winter 
months which followed. 
Moving into the wilderness in those days was not half 
,so serious a business as moving to the city at the present 
time. Men were content with the bare necessities of 
life, and got them. Everything was free to the man who 
had the brawn and the courage to take it. The only 
coin was the sweat of the brow. There were no middle 
men to fatten on other men's toil. Capital and labor 
traveled under the same hat. Every man was his own 
boss, and every day was pay day. 
There were no sweet Saturday nights and sour Mon- 
day mornings. No one was chained to business. When a 
mian wanted venison or a mess of trout, he went and got 
them— and didn't have a guilty after feeling that perhaps 
his time might have been occupied to better advantage. 
Nervous dyspepsia was as little known as gout, and when 
a man got a rifle bullet through his body they swabbed 
out the hole wnth a bandanna handkerchief on the point of 
a ramrod and left the man alone to get well and tell the 
story to his grandchildren. Truly those were the golden 
days ! 
When Wardner cailte to have a hired man, the hired 
man followed a bear to the top of Jones' Hill, calling 
' Bossie, bossie," mistaking its mournful cry for the lowing 
of the cows he had been sent to get. Twice Wardner 
caught $50 worth of fur in one day. Once it was five 
mink, which sold for $45, and a "saple," which brought 
^3-7S, and seventeen muskrats. The second time there 
were one otter, one fisher, two mink and three or four 
sapJe and rats included in the catch. 
The Biter Bitten. 
What might easily have proved a fatal accident hap- 
pened to Wardner m his early hunting experience li 
£n= "^^^^n^ -^^ '^^"Sht a bear in one of his 
traps and killed it, and being in a hurry, he attempted 
to reset the trap without the aid of levers^ Wardne" is a 
powerful man, weighing 220 pounds. Right over the 
place he was to set the trap there happened to be a 
£ ^''^^ '■^■'^'^'"g ft such a height above the ground that 
rirl ■ '^T-'^ ^ ^^'^ to accomplish the 
nnH K """"^^ shouldcrs against the purchase above 
and bearing down on the springs with his feet. At the 
critical moment he slipped and both hands and one foot 
were caught m the trap. 
At that time Wardner wa.S; living alone and he had 
mksed'aiT''""'--. I' '"^'^ tha?' he tould bt 
missed and even if his absence was noted and a search 
msftuted, no one knew the location of his bear traps 
Waidner however, did not bother turning over such 
eventualities m his mmd. Fortunately the spikes had 
not happened to go through his hands or leg^ but the 
ap was pmching badly and the mosquitoes and gnats 
were stinging unmercifully. It was this latter ciixum- 
■jtance that bothered him most. Wardner says he thought 
for a minute he would never get out and that he woS d 
lot over? ■ ^i^' ^Tdid 
-IrJ, A predicament, but he admits that he 
sweated some Three minutes later when he was out of 
drv ''tW • ^'"^^^^"u^ " ^^"'^^ there wasi? 
overb^rd Thp" ^'"^'.^"^ ^e felt as if he had been 
overboard. The way he got out was this: With his 
snrint^ H? n I'li''^,^'' ^" ^'^^ ""^ the trap 
spring He pushed down on the spring with all the 
to.ce he could exert, and the jaws of the trap fell far 
\"f°e?thnTtr '° could draw his hfnds out 
.f^v A }- comparatively easy matter for a man 
aL Jdease'ttf"^''^ '° '""^T' «P-ng3 still further 
ana re ease the imprisoned foot, and when this w^s 
accomplished he cut levers and .set the trap as he oi^hrS 
have done m the first place. By a curious coincidence 
James Wardner',s brother, Seth, once met with a siinSa? 
se'? fnf /'f'"^ ^^l^' ^^"Sht in a trap which he hai 
set for a sheep-kill.ng bear at Vermontville Seth felt 
very much ashamed of the fact, and tried to conceal t and 
became indignam if any one questioned him as to the 
cause ot his bandaged hands.. 
Infallible Hunting Receipt. 
WaSwr ''"Vr' ^ Shot," said 
Waidner. They are the shyest and hardest to shoot of 
hunting IS that one I have mounted in the house I was 
after deer on a knoll, and he came poking along 
darkv'tn^''' ca,se where I took the direction an old 
darky gave me about huntmg deer. He was one of. John 
inn3d ^"'"'^^ ^'b^' ^hen I was a boy J 
sa?d Til f ''S'f °/ successful deer hunting. He 
^aid, 1 11 tell you,' and he lowered his voice as if he was 
Le dfr ' 'tw'"''''v.'\^^ ^° be dar when dey 
had ^t,- if ^^^^ w ^'1 ^""^^"^ instruction I ever 
had. It IS easy enough to be before or after, but to 'be dar 
When dey be dar is what makes the successful hunter." 
Not of the Hunting Caliber. 
"Some men are born hunters and some men are not" 
continued Wardner. "We had a city fellow up here oAe 
year that couldn't kill a deer if the two were put in a 
lo-toot pen. I sent him down to the runway at the foot 
01 the lake one time to watch for deer, and as it happened 
there was a deer there right close by when he got to 
the place. When the city man saw the deer he just stood 
.i??^'^? till the deer got frightened and went off 
Ihe fact of the matter is, Mr. Wardner,' he said to 
me when he come to explain, 'the deer didn't stay there 
hut a very few moments.' 
"Another time this man was coming up the lake one 
evening, when he happened to see a deer behind him on 
the shore. He put both hands on the sides of the boat 
to^take a good, strong look, and the next thing he knew 
he d turned the boat bottom side up and he was under- 
neath. It surprised him so to go into the water so sud- 
denly that for a while he was lost, and didn't know 
where he was. It was dark under the boat, of course and 
It was some time before he knew enought to get his 
head out from under it and holler.- 
More Men Killed Than Deer Still-Hanting. 
"Since they've stopped hounding we don't have the 
hunting or the hunters we used to have. The old race of 
sti 1-hunters are nearly all dead, and very few deer are 
killed still-hunting now. More men are killed than deer 
in some places. I am in favor of hounding. It's more 
economical of human life, for one thing. You can raise 
a good hound m three years, but it takes at least twenty- 
five years to make a good guide." 
Personal Eccentricities of Am Washburn. 
Sometimes, though rarely, a woods life tends to make 
a man careless of his personal appearance. Old Am 
Washburn is a typo of this kind. He has always fished 
and hunted, and knows and cares for nothing else, barring 
perhaps chewing tobacco and food. As for clothes, he 
would far rather live in a bear's hide than his own,' for 
then he would have his bodily covering renew.ed- by 
nature instead of unsympathetic fellow beings. 
Am Washburn spends his winters in the poorhouse, 
but long before the ice is out in the spring he boards a 
