2 & A 
eat. We had both seen some deer sign during our Wan- 
derings, but nothing to equal that we found here. Around 
the pools of dead water, and the whole length of the 
alternately muddy and sandy old channel, there wasn't a 
place as large as one's hand that did not bear the im- 
pression of a deer's foot. Most of them were made by 
mule deer, but there were also numbers of whitetail 
tracks. Back from the channel is a high cut bank at the 
edge of the flat, and at each place it could be climbed the 
deer had made a wide dusty trail. 
While sitting on the bow of the boat eating our lunch, a 
whitetail doe and her fawns came out of the timber and 
several hundred yards below us, and after drinking fed 
around on the shore for some time. The fawns were in 
high spirits, and did some bucking and kicking which 
would have made a broncho ashamed of himself. We 
did not molest them, and they finally went quietly back 
into the brush. It was here, after lunch, that we found 
the first signs of a disease which had killed many white- 
tail deer during the summer. In a small open park in 
the timber lay a magnificent buck, in the willows a fawn, 
and on the outer shore a two-year-old doe. The two 
latter had been dead a long time, the buck not more than 
three weeks. What this disease was no one has been able 
to tell with certainty. It was local, extending, so far as 
I could learn, only from Cow Island to the mouth of the 
Fourchette, one hundred miles by river, and did not affect 
the mule deer at all. Mr. Jas. Gibson, who has lived on 
the river for thirty years, claims that it was not a disease, 
but that the mortality was caused by eating the bulb of 
a weed which is poisonous. The leaves of the plant are 
not poisonous, and in ordinary years, he says, the bulb 
is so firmly imbedded in the soil that in eating the leaves 
the deer do not pull it up and eat it too. This season, 
however, was exceptionally wet and rainy, and as a con- 
sequence many deer died from eating it, as they easily 
pulled up the whole plant. For proof, Mr. Gibson cites 
the wet summer of 1886, when many whitetail died the 
same way. The only post-mortem I heard of was made 
by Mr. Mark Frost, "a rancher who lives near the mouth 
of the Musselshell River. Out hunting one day, he shot 
two fawns, which slowly rose up out of the sage brush 
and stood stupidly staring at him. When he came to 
cut them open, he found that their milt was congested and 
that their stomachs contained a viscid, ill-smelling, yel- 
lowish fluid. He did not take the meat. The mortality 
began in June, and ended in October with the dying 
of the plants and other growths from the effect of frost, 
another point which seems to sustain Mr. Gibson's theory. 
Whatever the cause, the deer died very suddenly after 
being taken sick, as evidenced by the good condition of 
those found. Anthrax is the only disease known which 
kills so suddenly, and had it been that, the mule deer, 
bighorn, antelope and cattle along the river would get 
it, too. 
Leaving our lunching place, we pushed off, and a 
stretch of swift water took us quickly down around a 
bend and in sight of Crescent and Grand islands. We 
arrived at the head of the latter about 1 o'clock, and 
having made twenty-five miles since daylight, decided to 
camp. This is one of the largest islands on the river, a 
mile and a half long and half a mile wide. At its upper 
end there is a magnificent grove of tall old cotton- 
woods, and a growth of smaller timber completely belts it. 
The rest of the island is a level .plain, covered with 
buck brush and tall grasses. We soon had the tent up 
under a large cottonwood, and then proposed a hunt 
up in the breaks of the south side of the valley, for 
mule deer. There were numerous tracks and trails of 
whitetail where we were, also more wolf signs than in 
any place we had yet seen, ' but after finding the dead 
deer on Dry Island, we did not care especially for that 
kind of meat. 
Directly opposite the island a long high-cut bank shuts 
off sight of anything beyond it. After crossing the river 
we were obliged to walk up the shore some distance to 
find a place where we could climb it, but when we did 
finally arrive on the summit, a typical view of the Bad 
Land country was spread out before us ; long ridges and 
deep coulees sloping up for miles; hills of blue clay ab- 
solutely devoid of vegetation; here and there patches of 
juniper brush and groves of pine, especially in the heads 
of the coulees, and back of them cut walls of sandstone. 
We started up the nearest ridge, following a well-beaten 
game trail. After traveling a mile or more we stopped to 
rest a bit, and I caught sight of a deer as it was entering 
a pine grove at the head of a short lateral coulee not 
far away. We were not long in getting to the lower edge 
of it, but there was so much underbrush that I did not 
like to go in, fearing that I would scare the animal out 
without getting sight of it; so I decided to circle around 
to the upper edge of the timber and have Sah-ne-to try 
to drive it to me. Another climb of half a mile and I 
stood on the top of a high cliff ; at its foot there was a 
boulder-strewn slope of some fifty yards, and then the 
pines. I waved my hat to Sah-ne-to, saw her start into 
the timber, and then sat down to await the result of my 
plan. In order to have this story read right, I suppose I 
ought to make my pencil say that the deer suddenly 
bounded out of the timber several hundred yards away 
and ran as fast as it could, and that at the crack of 
my trusty rifle it gave a convulsive spring and fell dead. 
What really did happen was this: I had been looking 
over the ridges and groves to my left,_ trying to spot 
some game, and again turning my attention to the busi- 
ness in hand, was surprised to see five deer, one of them 
a good-sized buck, standing on the slope right under me 
and loc king curiously into the timber from which they 
had likely just emerged. Back and forth they swung their 
great ears, and occasionally stamped the ground with 
their forefeet. I allow that it was unfair, but we needed 
meat, and I took a careful sight on the buck's back just 
.back of its withers and dropped him. The othesr made 
ij few jumps, but did not know which way to run, until 
I threw a rock at them and shouted, when they hurried 
away along the edge of the timber and turned up the 
nearest coulee. 
I was obliged to go back several hundred yards to 
get around the end of the cliff, and by the time I got to 
the fallen deer Sah-ne-to appeared a little further on. 
She said she had heard the deer run when she scared 
them up, and remarked that she had found an old "war 
house." 
The buck was larger than I thought when I saw him 
FOREST AKE> STHEAM. 
from the cliff, and still very fat, for the rutting season 
had barely commenced. He was too heavy to be packed 
whole, so I skinned out the forequarters and hung them 
on the nearest tree. But before starting back the "war 
house" had to be inspected. It stood in the thickest 
part of the timber, and was a large one, some sixteen feet 
in diameter inside. Like all others of its kind, 'twas built 
of a number of long poles set up cone shape. The many 
layers of pine and balsam boughs which had covered, it 
had long since slipped clown and decayed, and the flooring 
of brush was in a like condition. Wc poked around in- 
side where the warriors had sat and slept, hoping to find 
some little trinket they had lost or forgotten, but all we 
found were some mice-gnawed ribs of deer or mountain 
sheep. There are hundreds of these "war houses" hidden 
in the breaks of the Missouri, or rather, there were. Most 
of them have fallen down and rotted away. They were 
built by parties of Indians on the warpath in order to 
screen the flame of their fire from observant eyes, and 
also as a protection from the cold and storms. We won- 
dered what tribe had built this one, where they were 
bound, and what had been their success. More than like- 
ly they had their eyes on some "woodhawk's" little band 
of horses, and perchance secured them and his scalp also. 
Although I packed but half the deer, _ my back and 
shoulders ached before I finally dropped it in the boat. 
There was ample time to get in the remainder before 
dark, but Sah-ne-to rightly said^ that there were other 
days. So we rowed across to camp, 
After dinner I set out to explore the island, walking 
down through the center to its lowest point. Trails of 
the whitetail were everywhere, and at every step I ex- 
pected to see some of the animals jump up, for their 
many beds in the grass and low buck brush showed that 
they passed a part of their time in the open. Then I 
remembered the wolf trails on the sho^e. Wolves know 
the runways of game as well as human lovers of the 
chase, and better. Here, for instance, unless they were 
to swim the river, deer cross to and from the island only 
at its head, where a shallow, gravelly ford separates^ it 
from the north shore. All along behind it the sluggish 
water has a bottom of fathomless soft mud, which they 
do not attempt to cross. Knowing this, the wolves secure 
their prey by watching the runway, while several of their 
companions drive the island. All the way down, and 
back by the north shore, I never saw a deer. Where the 
runway crossed the sandy bar and entered the water were 
the imprints of flying feet, both deer and wolves. Could 
I have crossed over I doubt not that I would have found 
some freshly gnawed bones and bits of hide. 
At the lower point of the island I found some recent 
beaver cuttings, and also some moccasin tracks in the 
mud. From the shape of the latter I knew that they 
were of Cree make, and concluded that there was a camp 
of Cree breeds somewhere in the vicinity. Alas, for the 
beaver. They have been protected by law for a long 
time, but every year their number grows less and less. 
Appekunnv. 
The New York Forest Preserve. 
Following is the text, practically in full, of the me- 
morial addressed to the Legislature by the New York 
Board of Trade and Transportation, setting forth . the 
convincing reasons for the rejection of the measures to 
open the State forest preserve to the lumbermen. It will 
be remembered that in 1895 the same organization con- 
ducted a most vigorous campaign to defeat a proposed 
amendment which would have surrendered the forests to 
the pulp men. This new presentation of the facts and 
governing principles involved is deserving of careful 
reading. 
Rooms of the 
New York Board of Trade and Transportation. 
New York, March 8, 1902. 
To His Excellency, the Governor, and the Honorable, the 
Senate and Assembly of the State of New York : 
The New York State Constitution, Article VII., Sec- 
tion 7, reads as follows: 
"The lands of the State, now owned or hereafter ac- 
quired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed 
by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They 
shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any 
corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber there- 
on be sold, removed or destroyed." 
This provision became a part of the fundamental law 
of the State, and went into effect Jan. 1, 1895. 
A brief statement of the conditions which led to its 
recommendation and adoption will be in order at this time 
when measures are pending in the Legislature designed 
to radically change the constitution and policy of the 
State in this respect. 
Forty years ago the relation of the forests to the ma- 
terial welfare of the people was very imperfectly under- 
stood. They were regarded primarily as the source of 
the lumber supply only, and this was thought to be inex- 
haustible. Incidentally, the forests were regarded as the 
sportsman's paradise, and as the environment most favor- 
able for the restoration of health impaired by certain 
diseases, or as a sanitarium. > » 
Therefore, the lumberman carried on his operations for 
years without restriction, stripping the mountain slopes 
of their timber until it dawned upon the people that the 
supply was limited, and the total destrucion of he forests 
was near. 
The effects of this wholesale tree cutting became ap- 
parent in the spring freshets which, coming from the 
melting snows, rushed down the steep declivities, inundat- 
ing the valleys, and carrying the alluvial deposits of the 
ages into the rivers, leaving the rocks behind bare and in- 
capable of renewing their verdure. In the heated summer 
months, no longer tempered by the forests and the soil no 
longer capable of holding in reserve the waters of the 
melting snow and spring rains, and of giving them out as 
formerly in constant but economic flow, the streams be- 
came contracted or dried up and the Hudson River 
showed that man had taken from it the supply which 
nature had provided. The wfter supply of the canals 
also was diminished, and their "very existence threatened. 
These warnings were heeded by public-spirited men, 
and steps taken to enlighten the people on the true relation 
of the forests to their interests. 
Vast, interests which had secured strong hold upon the 
wooded lands of the State were threatened by the grow- 
ing sentiment which favored a restriction of lumbering 
operations. 
Their united influence in opposing measures of relief 
was felt in the State Legislature, and years passed before 
any substantial progress toward reform could be attained. 
The dissemination of information on the subject and 
the claims of the forests for protection, supported by an 
enlightened public opinion, at last prevailed, and in 1885 
an act was passed creating a State Forest Commission. 
The law itself gave expression to the actuating spirit 
and underlying principle of the legislation in substantially 
the same language as that of Article VII., Section 7, of 
the Constitution. 
Popular movements lack the elements of constancy 
and endurance. Resting in a sense of security produced 
by the enactment of this law, and trusting in the wisdom 
and good faith of the Commission, public vigilance was 
relaxed, while all those interests which had corporate or 
private gain in view worked unceasingly to break down 
the protection afforded by the law. Year by year the act 
was amended under these influences, and in 1893 not a 
vestige remained except that, like a wolf guarding a 
sheepfold, the Commission still existed to receive the de- 
nunciation of those who had brought it into being. It 
became apparent that the fruits of many years of labor 
might be lost by a single year of inattention and inaction, 
because any Legislature may undo all that its predeces- 
sors have done. 
The following pertinent paragraph is quoted from a re- 
port published in 1894 by the Committee on Legislation 
of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation; 
It is nobody's business to stand guard over statute laws; we 
have no governmental or political organization that is charged 
with the duty of guardianship in this region as England has. We 
look in vain for any organism in the State to protect the general 
law from change or invasion at the dictate of private interests. It 
may be said that this is part of the duty of Congress and the State 
Legislature. True, but the duty of initiation and watchfulness 
is one that must be coupled for the habitual exercise, with re- 
sponsibility, and to charge a whole body, constantly dissolving 
into its constituent elements, with the duty of initiation and watch- 
fulness, is practically to charge nobody with it. 
Holding this view, therefore, of the relation of the 
Legislature to existing law, and distrusting alike their 
own constancy in watchfulness, and the good faith of the 
Forest Commission, the friends and advocates of the 
forests decided to secure, if possible, the adoption of a 
provision in the State Constitution which would stand 
as a wall of protection between the State forests and those 
who had sought their destruction. Thereupon the Com- 
mittee on Forestry of the New York Board of Trade 
and Transportation submitted to the Constitutional Con- 
vention of 1894 the draft of an amendment, and Article 
VII., Section 7, above quoted, was the result. 
From some four hundred proposed amendments which 
were considered by the Constitutional Convention only 
thirty-three were adopted, and Article VII., Section 7, 
was the only one which had the distinction of approval 
by the unanimous vote of the delegates. 
ijc J^C S^C 4* 
The question of forest preservation is one which cannot 
be mastered in the busy and brief period of a legislative 
session. Statements made to members and legislative 
committees are wholly upon honor, and too often only 
one side is presented and that in the most pleasing way 
possible. These conditions and methods favor erroneous 
conclusions, and it is a matter of congratulation and sur- 
prise, most creditable to the Legislature, that so few 
serious legislative blunders are made. 
The facts and conditions herein referred to are best 
known to the members of the Legislature themselves. 
The question arises, therefore, and this committee feels 
warranted in urging it upon the consideration of the 
Legislature, with all respect for the wisdom of that body, 
is it safe in the present condition of knowledge on the 
forest question to confide the care of the forests to the 
Legislature, as provided shall be done in the pending 
Constitutional amendments ? 
If, perchance, the present Legislature is better informed 
than its predecessors and therefore better qualified to 
handle the forest question, is there any assurance that he 
Legislature of two or three years hence will be quali- 
fied to legislate upon it wisely ? Therein is the danger. 
Is it wise to break down the safeguards erected and 
now existing in Article VII., Section 7, of the State Con- 
stitution, until such time in the future as the knowledge 
of forest care and preservation shall have become more 
universal, as the result of the study and experiments now 
proceeding, and which shall then make clear what changes 
are practicable, wise and safe? 
The undersigned committee thinks it very unsafe and 
unwise, and urge upon all members of the Legislature and 
State officials as well as private citizens a careful consider- 
ation of this very important question. 
Lest lack of confidence in previous Forest Commissions 
may be considered unwarranted, the committee takes the 
liberty of referring again briefly to their conduct in con- 
nection with Article VII., Section 7, of -the Constitution. 
By what influences moved it cannot be said, but in 
December, 1894, on the eve of the taking effect of Art cle 
VII., Section 7, of the Constitution, the Forest Commis- 
sion met' and took action to grant a certain railroad com- 
pany the right of way through the State forests which 
the amendment a week later would close to them. The 
proposed grant had just before been denied by the Land 
Board after a hearing of the case. A peremptory in- 
junction by the Supreme Court against the action of the 
Commission prevented the consummation of the grant 
until the amendment took effect, and- this deliberate at- 
tempt by the Commission to circumvent the expressed 
purposes of the people was prevented. 
Not content, however, the Commission, before the new 
Constitution was two weeks, old, consented to the intro- 
duction in the Legislature of an amendment designed to 
eliminate the intent of the forest preserve provision.' No 
opposition was then made, and, after passing two Legis- 
latures, this proposed amendment came before the people 
at the polls two years later with the open support of the 
Forest Commission, which issued an official appeal to the 
public in its behalf. This attempt to open the forests 
was also defeated and the Article VII., Section 7, sus- 
tained in its original form by a majority of nearly 400,000 
votes, the largest majority ever given in this State to 
any question or candidate, either State or National, 
