S42 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Nov. I, xgo2. 
Ion," "Illingworth," "Leland," "Judson," "Kid," "T, D.," 
"DiR.," "M." 
On the pitted or roughened surface are the letters 
"McCa," apparently the beginning of the name McCarthy 
or McCann, the last letters having been worn away by 
the weather. 
Here is the apparent record, seemingly more than fifty . 
years old, of some party of travelers — hunters, trappers or 
traders — who once were encamped on Heart River, near 
its junction with the Missouri. Who they were and 
what Avas their purpose in the country we cannot now' 
know. Long before this date, trading posts had been 
established far up the Missouri River, and travel on the 
stream was now more or less regular. Yet— except for 
the fur traders and their engagees — the travelers to the 
more distant west passed further to the southward, since 
most of the trails to the Rocky Mountains, traversed by 
traders, trappers, explorers and missionaries, started out 
from Independence, Mo., and for a time followed the old 
Santa Fe trail. 
It wuU be remembered that about 1833 there was estab- 
lished on the east side of the Missouri River, about where 
Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota now stands, a trad- 
ing post known as Mitchell's Post. It will be remembered 
also that there were various forts then chiefly owned hy 
the American Fur Company up and down the river on 
both sides. Further, to anj- one traveling up or down the 
Missouri,' Heart River offers a natural stopping place and 
camp ground. In old times there was at the mouth of 
this river an Aricara village, the remains of which arc 
still A'isible. 
It is perhaps fair to infer- tlj.at the; men whose names are 
member of this party may still be alive and may see this 
note, or if not that, perhaps some descendant of a member 
ifiay see it and may be able to tell our readers something 
of the matter. 
— 
Sunday at the Cabin. 
(Continued from page 3i0.) 
Many summers ago a small boy went to visit his rela- 
tives in Connecticut. The trip was a delightful one. 
There was New Britain with its teeming industries. 
Hartford the beautiful, quaint Weathcrsfield with its 
onion patches and truck gardens, above all the lovely 
Connecticut valley dotted with farmhouses and meadow 
land, musical with the low of kine and the whetting of 
the scythe, redolent with the fragrance of June — the frag- 
rance of new-mown hay. All went well enpugh until 
Sunday came. Now at home one Sunday was no sooner 
ended then the dread of its successor began, but this 
Connecticut Sunday capped the climax. Great were 
the preparations therefor — the sweeping and dusting, the 
cooking and baking, the doing of all possible chores 
that might eliminate labor as any factor in its observ- 
ance. Soon after Saturday's sun had passed the meridian 
shadows of the levitical Sabbath commenced to forecast 
themselves. Clean clothing was laid out; the head of 
the house shaved himself, and the weekly bath was in- 
dulged in by all members of the family. Books and 
newspapers were laid away (locked up, I believe), save 
the Bible, the Independent, the catechism, and the 
nauseating "good child go to heaven," Sunday school 
literature that obtained a generation since. Saturday 
evening was but a foretaste of the morrow. There were 
no games, no conversation on secular topics, no books 
A RECORD OF THE OLD MISSOURI. 
inscribed on this stone were employees of the American 
Fur Company, but where they came from or what they 
w'ere doing we do not know. Can any of our readers 
help to read the story told by this stone? 
The stone is now the property of Major George H. 
Bingenheimer, long a resident of Mandan, North Dakota, 
and for several years agent of the Standing Rock Indians. 
It is to his kindness that the Forest and Stream owes 
the opportunity of seeing and illustrating the relic. 
The finding of this stone was a most extraordinary hap- 
pening. Here was a common enough fragment of rock, 
hardly a bit of gravel, for it is too large ; certainly not a 
boulder, for it is too small. In an idle moment, these 
m.en scratched their names upon it and then thoughtlessly 
threw it away. Later, some freshet on the Heart River 
carried along this and a million other similar pieces of 
stone, and heaped them up in a gravel bank, where this 
one may have lain buried for nearly half a century. Mean- 
time, the old fur company had gone out of existence; 
buffalo and antelope and Indians had been swept away; 
the railroad had come; white settlers had filled the 
country. Then followed railroad plans for a change of 
grade, the choice of this particular gravel bank for filling, 
the steam shovel, and the transfer of many tons of gravel 
from one point to another. In this transfer, the stone 
was moved, came to the surface and happened to catch 
the eye of some one who could read the markings it bore. 
The're was not one chance in a million that this particular 
stone should reach the surface, or, if it reached the 
surface, that it would fall under human eye. Yet it did 
so, and now its picture goes forth to the world, carrying 
the question. Who were the men who carved their names 
on this imperishable register? 
The register gives us much information. There are the 
names of the signers^ the States in which some of them 
* resided, and a date. It is entirely conceivable that some 
that any sensible child would care to read. There was 
a preview of the Sunday school lesson and au unusually 
long supplication at family prayers. I really befieve that_ 
everyone rejoiced when bed time came. 
A glorious Sunday dawned. It was heralded by birds 
that carol their Maker's praise for seven days in the 
week without regard to creed or catechism. The per- 
fume of the roses floated up to my w^indow. There 
was no restraint upon their blooming. Kind Nature 
puts no sabbatical stint upon her botmty. It was just 
the day for a ramble in the woods; but, no! The very 
mention of such a thing would be considered sacri- 
legious. There were prayers, and a breakfast that would 
have been cold had not coffee and oatmeal removed the 
curse. Then came the preparation for meeting— a long, 
long service, with a very dry sermon. I wondered if 
people in the old pillory and stocks felt the way that 
I did for a couple or hours. Sunday school occupied 
the time for another hour and a half. Then we made 
way with the cold lunch, by courtesy termed the Sunday 
dinner. According to the laws of hygiene it w'as eaten 
altogether too hurriedly, but the afternoon service be- 
gan at two o'clock. This was a repetition of the morn- 
ing's ordeal, only a little more so, for I was more tired. 
After the benediction we went back to the farmhouse, 
now as bleak and dreary as a winter funeral. Uncle 
doled out the literature appropriate to the day, and 
then proceeded to read a sermon from the last Independ- 
ent. The juniors took their good books like good chil- 
dren. When I was unobserved I stole off to the barn 
to speculate as to how long it would take a "highholder" 
to peck through a dry limb, or whether the honey that 
the bees gathered from the sweet peas tasted the same 
as that obtained from clover blossoms. Coming back 
to the family group I found the children looking anxious- 
ly toward tire west. Never did sun -decline more slowly. 
At length its rim touched the hills; dow^n, down, out of 
sight! Then my uncle arose. It was a signal, and dense 
powder is not more instantaneous in its action. There 
were smiles on every face. Story books and dolls were 
brought from concealment. The larger boys went to 
their milking or to see their best girls. Uncle vanished 
to talk over the crops with a neighbor. T'he Sabbath 
was ended. 
Trajn up a child in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it. Evidently the wise 
man did not practice what he preached, for but few of 
his numerous posterity were any credit to their royal 
sire. Tl]e fact is, overmuch preaching generally pro- 
duces negative results. When the proper time came I 
went to a New England college. It was before the 
happy day of electives, and, of course, chapel attendance, 
especially on Sundays, was compidsory. Sunday morn- 
ing is always the best of the week for sleep, and many 
a youth ran across the campus donning collar and cra- 
vat, or running his fingers through his wet, uncombed 
hair, lest the last stroke of the bell should find him out- 
side the chapel door, and uncertain what excuse to render 
"prexie" in the morning. Then, indeed, Simday after- 
noon vyas the time to wander amid green fields and be- 
side still waters. All college boys have "cousins" to be 
visited occasionally and conveniently, and if, when I ob- 
tained a Sunday's leave of absence, my cousins proved 
to be a botany can and a fishing rod, who will cast the 
first stone at me? 
Later on six days out of the seven were given to hard 
grinding in Gotham. Sunday demanded recreation. I 
would not shock the home folks by absolutely refusing 
to go to church and Sunday school, or by reading a 
Sunday newspaper, so I usually visited a friend. In 
spring and autumn the Hackensack marshes and Orange 
Mountain were the attraction. But in summer, after 
the long, sweltering week, what could be more enjoyable 
than to take the Mary Powell on Saturday afternoon 
and sail up to Pougekeepsie? From this point one 
might ramble up or down the river, but I preferred 
crossing to New Paltz and enjoying the shades and scen- 
ery of the Shawangunk Mountains and Walkill Valley. 
A delightful stroll was from New Paltz to Cornwall or 
Newburg. This may be done leisurely in a day; with 
long rests to thoroughly absorb the ever-changing pano- 
rama. The West Shore road was not built then and 
there were no magnificent country seats and villas on 
the west bank, though the opposite si-de of the Hudson, 
as tar up as Peekskill, was experiencing its first thrill 
of popularity. Old-fashioned farmhouses, dating back 
to colonial days, old-fashioned hospitality, old orchards 
and older legends gave a charm to Ulster, Delaware 
and Orange counties that I am afraid has long since de- 
parted. Except at a country tavern it was useless to 
ask to pay for bread and milk, berries and cream, or 
any other light lunch that a loiterer might crave. Some- 
how those Sundays along the Hudson are canonized by 
lime, and a halo of perfect peace crowns their memory. 
Since then it has been my custom to spend .Sunday in 
comnninion with Nature. Yet, even now, I sometimes 
pause with my flies just dropping on a mountain brook, 
Ijause with a start wlien I remember that I am fishing 
on the Sabbath, and I fall to wondering if — simply won- 
der'ng; that is all. And- after these years I can look 
back and say that I believe that my Sundaj's have been 
more happil)'- and mtich niore profitably spent than had 
their sacred hours been devoted to listening to homilies 
on predestination, or to futile efforts to prove that 
Darwin. Huxley and Spencer were inspired by the devil, 
and that the tendencies of modern thought and modern 
life w 11 soon bring upon this unrighteous generation 
the judgments of Sodom and Gomorrah. 
This is a long preface and somewhat of a digression 
from the caption. I do not want an^^ of my clerical 
brethren of rod and gun to consider me a heretic or an 
unbeliever. But my experience has been that "as the 
twig is bent the tree m inclined" sometimes, and it does 
laot pay to be too hard with boys that have ideas of 
their own, even about remembering "the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy." 
Two years of strenuous life under a tropical sun gave 
choice between a change of scene or an untimely grave. 
I preferred the former alternative aitd my heart inclined 
toward the mountains that I love. High up in the 
Wasatch a little creek, upland valleys, rugged canons 
and a sunny cabin offered all I wanted. The hills over 
which the sun rises separate me from the Strawberry 
reservation; the high peak behmd which it goes to rest 
from the farm life of Utah valley. In an air line I am 
not more than six miles from a town of 7,000 inhabitants. 
Fortlinately the mountain is practically unscalable, and 
so I am twenty miles, by trail, from the cares of busi- 
ness life. When the wind blows from the right quarter, 
which has been only once this year, the echoes of distant 
factory and locomotive whistles remind nie of the world 
otitside. 
A Sunday in June! The sun peeps into the canon and ■ 
kisses the white veil from the tender grass. Then little 
films of mist commence to climb the mountain furrows. 
They sail over rolling foothills, but yet half-clad in 
Nature's gorgeous livery, up through new-leaved oaks 
and inaples; higher yet, to where the white-stemmed 
aspens are just showing the first tinge of green. They 
are lost in the tops of the somber pines, and. when they 
find themselves, they mass, rank upon rank, against 
mighty walls of snow and ice that will not yield to any 
but midsummer sun. Higher, yet higher, till they 
reach the crest, more than a vertical mile above their 
cradle. Then with one exultant bound they clear the 
earth and, white as the snow beneath, launch in the 
ethereal blue, proclaiming a new day is born. And the 
loving sun, who called them into life, sees them, and 
draws them to himself, until they melt and vanish be- 
neath his warm caresses. 
"Sweet day, .so cool, so calm, so briglit, 
The bridal of the earth and sky. 
Sweet dews shall weep tliy fall to-night — ■ 
For thou must die!" 
Now a spring morning is not one in which a healthy 
man can sit idly in the cabin with melancholy and ashes 
for his boon companions. The shadows on life's dial 
turn backward a score of years. There is keen stiriitdus 
in the air. It sharpens every sense and quickens the 
pulse. A rugged trail leads to the mesa, where one may 
view the landscape o'er and quaff the inspiration of the 
day. The birds have chanted matins and now they are 
too busy witl.i domestic affairs to i^our forth the music 
that erstwhile filled their souls. Over a mountain tor- 
rent a fallen maple makes a bridge. The water, fed by 
melting show, is as unrestrained and tawny as a lion. 
