284 
FOREST .AND _STREAM. 
[April ii, igo^. 
an open lean-to this seemed luxurious. It had been 
erected by hunters who visit that region in the fall 
for deer, and its walls were decorated with legends 
in charcoal certifying to their success. The only ten- 
ant when we arrived was a lively red squirrel, whom 
we interrupted as he was feasting upon a bit of stilt 
pork left by a recent fishing party. He objected noisily 
to our occupancy and scuttled back and forth across 
the roof and up and down the sides of the cabin at all 
hours, once or twice ruffling the hair of one of our 
party who happened to be obstructing his favorite 
pathway, the door post. 
At the forks we occupied a strategic position. Be- 
low us ran the main stream, wide, free from overhang- 
ing branches, an ideal place to cast a fly. Above we 
had a choice of the two large branches by lollowing 
either of which we could reach still other tributaries 
smaller, but all swarming with trout. There were 
miles of alternating rapid and pool, and all of these 
localities' were within easy tramping distance of the 
camp, which could always be reached by following the 
stream. Even the inexperienced camper can scarcely 
lose his way when runnmg water is his guide. Thus, 
whether we wished a day's trip or a few hours of cast- 
ing, our tastes were alike gratified. 
I may not dwell on all the details of those happy 
days, but no account of our pilgrimage would be com- 
plete without some mention of the birds, whose pres- 
ence and song contributed so much to our enjoyment. 
How much one misses in the woods from lack of a little 
knowledge of ornithology! Our party included no ex- 
pert, and so we saw and heard many birds which we 
were unable to identify. With the commoner birds, 
however, we were well acquainted. The woodpeckers, 
especially the flicker, were frequently seen; the junco 
tlitted about our camps; we saw many cedar birds, and 
the thin, clear note of the white-throated sparrow was 
ever in the air. One day we came upon a saw-whet 
owl blinking beside the trail in a leafless bush. He had 
evidently staid out too late (or too early) and mistaken 
his roost. But the bird that gave us most delight, the 
bird whose song seems to me to embody the very 
essence of those northern woods, is the hermit thrush. 
At any hour of the day this inimitable songster could 
be heard, biit it was while the silent twilight was set- 
tling upon the woods that he made his supreme effort, 
a veritable vesper hymn. I shall never forget on one 
particular evening, as we were hurrying campward 
after a hard day in a tangled swamp, how every cop- 
pice seemed to give forth a melody. Nature herself 
seemed speaking to us. 
Of four-footed inhabitants of the woods, we saw 
but few — squirrels, of course, a mink, a rabbit or two, 
and one of the party was vouchsafed one of the privi- 
leges of nature, the sight of a deer in the wilderness. 
Indeed, it is surprising that others were not seen, for 
the sand bars along the stream were close trodden 
with delicate hoof-marks, and the angler makes little 
noise as he practices the gentle art. Bears came not 
near us, although on previous expeditions to this 
region one of our party had several times been with- 
in hearing of them. 
Hovyr^much the hungry pilgrim to the woods will 
eat is a question that will probably never be answered 
for lack' of materials. We, at least, could not answer 
it. At the start our packs seemed composed of little 
else than provisions, but four days of hard tramping 
and harder eating had made fearful inroads. We were 
unscientific enough to carry bread, and all the good 
loaves which had been Hterally the staff of life to us 
were gone. The coffee and tea had followed suit and 
the rest of our stock was exceedingly low. Trout we 
had always with us, but even trout, when ungarnished, 
pall upon the palate. An expedition sent out to the 
farms along the Connecticut failed to postpone long 
the inevitable. Bread was the chief object of this 
expedition, but we were told that "the men were 
a-hayin' and the bread was all et up." Two good 
housewives were, however, persuaded to bake for us 
some five dozen biscuit. We secured, in addition, some 
trifles, such as eggs, potatoes, ginger bread, maple 
sugar and some "drawin's" of tea, but in three days 
starvation once more stared us in the face. And so, 
perforce, we bade good-by to the forks. An easy 
tramp of eight miles over a good trail brought us out 
into a lofty pasture, from which we gained a splendid 
view of the narrow river valley and the mountains of 
New Hampshire. Noon found us lunching bounti- 
fully at a farm house, and by mid-afternoon we were 
bowling along the Maine Central toward the humdrum 
haunts of civilization, far from that Mecca of the tired 
brainworker, the wilderness. A. W. 
"Bad Men." 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The sketches published recently in Forest and Stream, 
having some of the southwestern gun and knife fighters 
as subjects, were specially interesting. I regretfully note, 
however, that on the part of the writers there is a ten- 
dency to treat those tough fighters from a heroic point of 
view. In Forest and Stream of March 28, Capt. Flynn 
introduces King Fisher to your readers, and, as per the 
card adverted to in the article, one would fancy that 
King Fisher was an honorable officer of the law who took 
rather a defiant method of discovering himself to Judge 
Bean, the law west of the Pecos, and that such was a 
mere incident of. his law-abiding career. 
As a matter of fact. King Fisher was one of the 
greatest criminals with which the State of Texas ever 
had to deal. He also was the leader of a gang of the 
worst criminals that ever preyed upon society. Its mem- 
bers were numerous, and were desperadoes of the most 
desperate . type. Murder to them was a pastime. Like 
most of the criminals of that time and place. Fisher lived 
a nomadic life in the wilderness, though having places of 
refuge; xvhen hard pressed, which were selected because 
of their natural properties as a fortress, or the friendii 
ness of the surrounding settlers, or both. 
I never saw King Fisher myself, but I have listened to 
descriptions of him by men who had seen him, and they 
described him as a short, stockily-built man, with a face 
so hard of expression that a city suit of clothes could not 
soften, and manners so assured that no judge west of the 
Pecos or anywhere else in that region, would mistake him 
for a tenderfoot. 
If I remember correctly. King Fisher and his band 
were so formidable that the available power of the State 
of Texas was unsuccessful in coping with them. In the 
immense region of forest and desert within the honndaries 
ct Texas, there were innumerable natural hiding places 
for men who were thoroughly schooled in the lore of the 
woodsman and the plainsman. 
There were other bands here and there throughout 
the State, equally desperate but of lesser fame. Some 
of the good citizens who followed regular vocations, and 
who were dignified by having permanent places of domi- 
cile, had none too great a reverence for the law or the 
rights of others, so he was not without spies and sym- 
pathizers. 
But there was a gradually progressive movement to- 
ward law and order; lawless gangs were captured, dis- 
persed or exterminated. King Fisher saw that the be- 
ginning of the end had come, so he bargained with the 
Texan authorities for immunity from the legal punish- 
ment which he had many hundred times earned, in return 
aiding the authorities to bring his fellow ruffians to jus- 
tice. He fulfilled his part of the compact faithfully, and, 
there being a constant use for a man of his peculiar 
talents in rogue catching, he was advanced to the office 
of deputy sheriff, or some such law officer. 
That he should be mistaken for a tenderfoot by any 
citizen of Texas is preposterous. That he should invite 
all the loungers to drink the Judge's whisky and then 
lay down a dollar on the bar is equally preposterous. In 
those days a dollar would buy only one or two drinks in 
that section, and in any event King Fisher was not the 
kind of man who cared much to settle the damages caused 
by his lawless shooting. 
But King Fisher was not specially notable as an excep- 
tional instance. He was one of hundreds, and only came 
more conspicuously to the surface because of his talent 
for leadership, fighting ability and great criminal record. 
There were hundreds of others. 
Another desperado was Ben Thompson, who could 
assume the character of a tenderfoot to perfection. He 
had a penchant for neat gloves and natty dress. I hap- 
pened to be in Houston, Texas, soon after he and King 
Fisher were killed together in .San Antonio, and talked of 
him with a number of people who knew him well. That 
he was a nervy desperado there is no doubt. He was 
cunning to a degree, for in his wanton encounters, of 
which he had many, he so manipulated circumstances that 
he could make a good legal plea of self-defense. He 
v/ould let the opposition reach for his or their guns first; 
then, being very quick on the trigger, and being able to 
shoot accurately with a gun in each hand, he had his 
man or men dead in a few moments. He rather sought 
encounters, and seemed to crave killing for the sake of 
killing. He carried his pistols in a specially prepared 
vest. They were large 44's, and the handles were within 
easy grasp on his chest. From that position he could 
v.diip them out much more quickly than a man could take 
one from his hip pocket. 
I was told that, once upon a time, he entered the bar 
of one of Houston's best hotels. He was arrayed in fine 
city clothes, not forgetting kid gloves. There were three 
cr four men present to whom the advent of a tenderfoot 
was like unto a wave of happiness. They tempestuously 
invited the tenderfoot to drink; he coyly declined. He 
was looking for trouble. Then came the conventional 
ultimatum of the lawless hosts, the big revolver pointed 
tenderfoot-ward which was supposed to persuade any 
tenderfoot to drink, be he ever so reluctant. Immediately 
then Thompson pulled out his big revolvers, fired rapidly 
with each hand, and had the whole company dead before 
one could say scat. 
It was said of him that he would take journeys betimes 
near the Rio Grande, and when he returned he would 
have his bridle reins decorated from end to end with 
"greasers' " ears, tacked on evenly and artistically. 
No doubt bad whisky was the inspiring cause of many 
of the evil deeds of these men. 
The two worthies, Ben Thompson and King Fisher, 
while on a spree in the early 8o's conceived the plan of 
going to San Antonio and settling some old grievances 
with the proprietor of a "theatre" in that city. They must 
have been much below their average in degree of cun- 
ning, for to their enemy they telegraphed their coming 
and its purpose. It was a case then of forewarned fore- 
armed. 
The two worthies arrived according to schedule, and at 
the first display of hostility they were shot down by men 
stationed in advantageotis places within the theatre for 
that particular purpose. Even then Ben Thompson shot 
one of the assistants in the thigh as he knocked down 
Thompson's pistol, and the wound caused death a few 
days afterward. The two desperadoes were both dead 
soon after they were shot. Thus passed away two of the 
greatest Texan "bad men" of modern times. 
Strange to relate there were maiiy law-abiding, peace- 
ful citizens who admired the two desperadoes, and they 
had many good friends where, in the proper order of 
things, they should have had only enemies. Some few 
good deeds accredited to them seem to have been of 
sufficient weight, in the opinion of a few admirers, to 
mere than counterbalance their infinite deeds of evil. And 
j'et their good deeds, if there were any, if performed by 
a man who had no setting of crime wherewith to make 
violent contrast, would have passed unnoticed because 
they were commonplace or devoid of the spectacular. 
The general feeling, however, was one of relief, and 
that, if two Texans must have gone into "the eternal dark- 
ness, no two could have been better spared. 
Those were the days when the reign of the "bad man" 
was drawnng to a close. The reputation was once much 
desired by a certain class of men, but there came a time 
when a man with a bad reputation was watched and 
marked by the better class of men. He was considered 
a common enemy and on the first overt act he found the 
hand of every honest man against him, which meant 
ucain. Those were lawless times, even from a Texan 
standpoint, but it must not be overlooked that the per- 
sonal code of settling difficulties is much more liberally 
interpreted even to-day in that State than it is in the 
Northern States. 
In my opinion it is a mistake to glorify the "bad man." 
The few acts of desperate courage or chivalry are no true 
index to the real characters of those men. They were 
predatory rather than productive. In a way, they had 
nothing worth living for, unless we admit that the life of 
the wolf is worth the living. As a class, they were dense- 
ly ignorant, lawless, dissipated, and in money matters of 
the robber and murderer class. Of course, there are ex- 
ceptions, but these remarks apply to the general run of the 
class of bad men. 
Probably none of lhe_ lot are more famous than is Jim 
Bowie. He had personal encounters innnnierable, went 
through them ail victorious though not always unharmed, 
and died bravely in the Alamo. Yet withal his apparently 
patriotic death, he was as great a ruffiian as ever escaped 
the gallows. He craved brawling and blood for its owa 
sake. As a citizen of Louisiana, he was an habitual loafer 
and ne'er-do-well, was in constant brawls and feuds, and, 
being cunning and wonderfully expert in the use of the 
knife — one of a well-known pattern which he devised 
bears his name — he was marvelously successful. It is 
said of him that he was ambidextrous; that he could 
shift his knife from one hand to the other with lightning 
dexterity, which, combined with superior physical supple- 
ness and agility, made him a most alarming and danger- 
ous foeman. When he left Louisiana for Texas there was 
a feeling there that he left his country for his country's 
good, and that Texas was welcome to his person and hii 
talents. That he never got hanged or imprisoned for 
life was one of the peculiar happenings in the formative 
stages of a country's development of which the West and 
Southwest a few years ago furnished many illustrious 
examples. But in any event, I think it unfair to parade 
the bad man as a hero unless it is mentioned also that he 
was a criminal, if such he was, and there is no doubt 
whatever that the men under special consideration were 
criminals of the deepest dye. Chas. Day, 
Experiences of Amateur Sportsmen. 
An Interesting Tale Spiced with Sarcasm — How Two 
Wives Knew More ihan Two Husbands who were 
Short oa Knowledge, 
The New York Observer and the Forest and 
Stream usually come to us by the same mail, and in 
the evening my husband and I become forgetful of 
each other and the world, as he reads the paper last 
named and I drink in the religious and secular news 
of the Observer. My husband will not read the Ob- 
server, giving as his (flimsy) excuse that it carries 
many fake financial advertisements; but some allow- 
ance has to be made for him, for in his re- 
ligious sentiments he is of the Golden-Rule- 
Brother-of-Man kind. I did not read the Forest 
AND Stream for a long time, for I believed it to 
be a sporting paper, and I hate the word "sporting." 
But when one evening a few months ago my husband 
explained to me the difference between "sporting" and 
"sportsman," and said his paper came under the last 
denomination, my prejudice passed away, and since 
then I have found much pleasure and very wholesome 
information in reading it; and I further confess it has 
inspired within me considerable desire to become a 
sportsman myself. I am specially fond of its cleanli- 
ness. 
It was early last spring when my husband said, one 
evening after a long reading of his paper, that he was 
inclined to take a vacation in the Adirondacks and see 
what it was like. He being a hard-working man and 
in need of rest, I supported the proposition, and the 
more we discussed the subject the more his inclination 
was strengthened, until finally he resolved to go late 
in April. It was now early in March, and as days 
wore away, he became enthusiastic, especially as his 
close friend, Donald, had promised to accompany him, 
He never had studied his catechism so thoroughly as he 
read the Forest and Stream even to the advertise- 
ments these days, and he also read several circulating 
library books on "Camp Life," "The First Principles 
of AngUng," "Woodcraft" and others. He read chap- 
ter after chapter to me after I had fallen asleep in my 
cosy rocking chair surfeited with what he had previ- 
ously read. 
My husband spent much time and more money in 
gathering an outfit for that, his first trip as a sports- 
man, and I also took keen interest in the work, which 
was quite new to him and especially so to me. I saw 
things I had never seen before, and asked many ques- 
tions in relation to them, all of which Jack was kind 
enough to answer as well as his own information 
would permit. 
Every day for three weeks previous to the date of the 
projected trip, at least one article of some kind would 
come to the house, and on some days a dozen or more 
things would be delivered. Two or three days after, 
every evening when Jack had studied the Forest and 
Stream advertisements more faithfully than usual, a 
lot of things would come by express from New York. 
Very soon his den became well filled with his pur- 
chases, when he meekly asked my permission to use 
the adjoining sewing room, and of course, consent was 
readily given, and it too was soon so well filled that 
when packing time came, the work had to be done in 
the hall. 
Incidentally, one day while this gathering of an outfit 
was in progress I was made somewhat unhappy by the 
half-hidden appearance of several black quart bottles, 
against which my suspicions were aroused. Yet I 
could not really distrust Jack, for he could not have 
found in his paper, by which he swore, not profanely, 
any suggestion that spirit-disturbing influence should 
constitute any part of his outfit. But I was entirely 
relieved of my vague suspicions, and chided myself for 
them, when my husband came home at night, and in 
reply to my early and earnest inquiry, told me that the 
bottles contained tar oil, to be used in protecting him- 
self from annoyance by fliesi. I could have hugged him 
for thus relieving my mind, but did not, for to have 
done so would have been to expose my weakness in the 
entertainment of my suspicion. 
