^Ai^, 30, 1904-1' 
sound like quail flushing back of us where the rdad 
i>assed through the woods. 
Calling thfe dog; we went in the direction oi the sound, 
and he at once struck scent on the roadside. As He 
Seemed puzzled, thfe Esquire suggested that it was prob- 
ably where the birds, had flown from, and so it proved, 
for crossing the road atid working out in the wood5 a 
little way, we struck the trail. The birds wei'e running, 
arid led us a long chase, refusing to lie to the dog. SfeS- 
ing that the dog \yas clpse on, the birds, we kept as close 
to , him, as. possible, and finally, oh the edge of a steep 
bank; the birds flushed. 
I was immediately behind the dog, and as we were 
following a path the others were close in my rear, iii 
single file. The birds went straight away, and I killfed 
with my first barrel. The second bird I held on dropped, 
as did another in linfe with it Some distance in advance, 
but whether I killed both, or either one, I could not tell. 
Our heavy friend, from his position in my rear, took a 
hand in the shooting at this stage, and fired his big; guri 
within a few inches of my ear, the result being to rrie 
about the same as though he had struck me on the side 
of the head with the flat side of a wide plank. Had I 
followed my first inclinations, I should have clubbed my 
gun and attacked him with spirit and vigor, but con- 
trolling myself as much as possible under the circum- 
stances, I rnerely suggested that he had come very near 
putting me out of commission. "Birds up," was the 
response, in a jovial manner. "Everybody ought to get 
to business. I believe in getting into the game when any- 
thing is doing. Why did you not shoot. Esquire?" 
And I was sorry the Esquire had refrained from shoot- 
ing, as he was immediately in the_ rear of our broad 
friend, and could not have missed him. 
By the time we worked down to where our birds were 
I had partially regained consciousness, and took pleasure 
in assuring our reckless friend that he had killed a bird— 
perhaps two. Was rather inclined to urge him to take 
all three birds and spare my life. 
Following the covey we found them scattered in the 
woods beyond the branch to which they were making 
when we got on their trail. Roscoe located three birds, 
and two of them flushed wild, but not another one did 
we succeed in bagging. The cover was thick, and most 
of the shooting difficult, but several birds gave me per- 
fectly fair shots, which I simply missed. 
The big gun in the hands of my ever-ready friend was 
a handicap I could not overcome, and I paid more _at- 
.tention to him than to the birds. It was embarrassing 
itp shoot badly as I was doing, but especially so under 
j the circumstances ; as after the first two or three misses 
;1 heard the Esquire explaining and apologizing for me, 
assuring our friend that I really was not a bad shot, as he 
-\ would see when I "got down to business." But down 
- to business I did not get again until we were entirely out 
<of range of the gun carried by our reckless friend. 
As we climbed the fence into the stable lot at home, 
-the men were driving to the crib with a load of corn 
ifrom the field. "Yo' dis come in time, sub," called out 
ithe driver. "Dey's a fine gang of birds out yonder 
r.undah de big cherry trees. We des drove right by um, 
-an' Chestah thowed as yeah com' at um."_ 
lOur experience of the morning had inclined us to 
arrant skepticism. I would not have put implicit faith in 
.-the^hade of the cherry tree hero himself, if it was birds 
-he reported on. Yet as the cherry trees (two very large 
ones standing side by side) were just outside the orchard 
fence, ^and but a few steps distant, we concluded to give 
the man the benefit of a doubt, and prove his story. The 
small bey and his mother joined us as we crossed the 
■.back yar^, and accompanied us to see the sport. 
Arriving at the cherry trees we put the dog out, and his 
actions at once encouraged us to put some faith in the 
news of bicds near about. Undoubtedly there had been 
birds around the trees, but after working out the ground 
carefully and thoroughly, the dog gave us to understand 
'that it was a case of "gone, but not forgotten." 
"Those birds flew when the boys threw at them, and 
the rascals did not want to admit it," said the Esquire. 
"You all wait here a minute, and I will go get the straight 
of it." 
He went back, returning in a short time with the 
rinformation that the boys had admitted, under severe 
. cross-examination, that the birds had flown a very short 
t distance due< sou|:h. 
Doctors say that 'the, weight of babies is the. subject of 
rmore prevarication thanj any other one thing. Fishermen 
fSay it is the weight of j^^b, but the sportsman knows it is 
rlhe amount and whereabouts of game. A covey of birds 
inumbering eight to ten,. is never reported as less than 
wlwenty.-^five. Seen twice 1 in the same neighborhood, they 
„are always exactly in, '^he same place "any time you go 
ithere." Scared up: the day reported, they are always right 
wbere they flew frorn,, although your informant has 
watched them fly half a mile. And all this is not confined 
to the local Munchausen^, but to fairly honest, good- 
hearted fellows who really wish to help you to sport. 
The boys had protested that the birds we sought had 
"des flew a little ways," but we did not believe them. 
However, as the field was level, the cover light, and the 
small boy and his mother eager to go on, we started off. 
About three hundred yards out the dog found scent, 
and was soon close on to the birds, which, were running 
straight away. Walking fast we closed up on the dog, 
when the birds, probably under the impression that an- 
other fusilade of corn on the cob was imminent, flushed. 
They were rather a long shot away, but flew across to the 
right, giving a fair shot. As I was shooting before a lady 
who firmly believed me to be one of the best field shots in 
the country, I killed a bird with each barrel, and was 
as cool about it as though I never did otherwise, even 
when the shot was Ipncr. 
Everyone was satisfied except the small boy, who in- 
sisted that I should have "dot a whole heap of buddies, 
taus dey was dare, taus I saw all of dem." 
There was quite a sentiment in favor of following the 
covey, but as they had flown some distance, and I knew 
the cover into which they had gone, I advised against it. 
Returning to the house I swung out to one side to 
pass through a bit of cover from which I had twice be- 
fore jumped a rabbit. He was a rabbit with a peculiarity, 
as I had observed on the two occasions referred to, and 
this was his ability to change his course at acute angles 
-KVhile at full speed. His running resembled the flight of 
a jacksnipe more than anything else I could liken it to. 
I fduiid the rabbit at home at the far edge of the cover, 
and so jumped him practically in the open. The first load 
of shot went into the ground exactly where he would 
have been had he kept on as he was running when I 
fired, instead of jumping suddenly to the right, and my 
second load went where he would have been had he not 
jumped just as suddenly to the left. In all, first and 
last, I had either six or eight shots at that rabbit, in 
fairly open cover, arid nfevei: so much as cut fur, 
Ltwis Hopkins. 
— ® — 
Star Routers. 
With a warm place always in my heart for a good 
horse I read with much interest what has been said 
in Forest and Stream of trail horses. Every fron- 
tiersman could, if he would, say something good in 
that direction, although it is not everyone that has 
been blessed in the ownership of an animal gifted with 
the faculty of back-tracking. All horses can do it to 
a limited extent, but thoroughbreds to the business are 
never very plentiful. In camp parlance we know thein 
as "Star Routers," and when a horse showed his abilijy 
in that direction life was always made easier for It. 
In what are known here as early times, in the arid 
southwest, such horses had a decided value above its 
fellows. Of the two to be mentioned here, one was a 
little black cow pony, quiet and gentle, but he was a 
thinker and a student of the country. I never knew him 
to make a mistake, but I have known him to hesitate 
and apparently work the subject over in his mind be- 
fore reaching a decision, but when he did reach it his 
rider never had a misgiving. The other Was a bay, of 
California stock. He was a bad tempered animal, but 
the king of any country he ever traveled over. He 
was all resolution and self confidence. I never knew 
him but once to seriously flinch from anything, and 
then, for a moment it looked as if the jig of life was 
over with us both. During the time I owned him he 
was not, to my knowledge, ever touched with whip, 
spur or currycomb. 
Readers of the Forest and Stream, unfamiliar with 
the life of a pioneer prospector in the arid southwest, 
can have .but little idea of the hardships and privations 
gold hunters were compelled to face. I have heard 
it said many times, "There is no God on the desert." 
Sometimes it does certainly seem. so. An empty can- 
teen will turn a man of iron nerve into a gibbering 
idiot. But it is in the arid southwest that a man really 
learns to love his horse. It is his companion and his 
friend, his first thought in the morning and his last 
care at night. If there is any advantage to be given 
it must go to the horse and not to the man, for with- 
out the horse there can be no man. 
I was one of the three to go into Death Valley,. Cali- 
fornia, to look for a man that, crazed with thirst, had 
broken away from his companions. We found him 
stark naked, sun blistered and crazy, but holding to his 
horse. The instinct was still strong within him that 
the horse was his and must go with him. Where water 
holes are known, no matter how great the distance be- 
tween them, provisions can always be made for reach- 
ing them, but in a new and unknown country a wise 
man will hesitate long before he cuts loose from a 
known supply. In early days the untraversed deserts 
and unknown mountain ranges of Arizona and northern 
Mexico were objects of great expectation to the char- 
ing adventurer. Above them the golden ball of fortune 
danced and shimmered in the sun. That others had 
been killed by Indians, died of thirst, or had narrowly 
escaped death were trifles easily explained away in the 
mind of the next adventurer. Some necessary pre- 
caution had been neglected, good judgement had not 
been used, and a thousand excuses were ever ready 
to satisfy a willing mind. Some of these places, even 
at an earlier date than the one in which the writer 
played his part, had undergone partial exploration and 
investigation, but others were wholly unknown. To ex- 
plore such places required the best material there was 
in man and beast. It was never safe to get beyond the 
reach of one water supply until another had been lo- 
cated. Every canyon an4 promising spot on the line 
of travel is worked for water, and if none is found we 
must back-track to our .water supply base. This back- 
tracking was nearly always done in the night time, and 
here is where the beaiity and usefulness of a "Star 
Router" is to be seen. Night travel over an unknown 
country is always attended with danger and uncertain- 
ty. Great gorges and canyons slash the mesas from 
the valleys to the foothills, and frequently long detours 
have to be made before crossing places can be found, 
and some of them, when found, require the greatest 
of care in getting down. At night this class of travel 
becomes trebly dangerous and difficult. Any prospec- 
tor with an average bump of locality has wit enough 
to know the general trend of the country, but that is 
not sufficient when one has to back-track at night a 
trail made all the way from two days to six months 
before, and the horse best qualified in that direction, 
whether saddle or pack animal, must take the lead. Night 
or day that was always the place for the bay, and he set 
the pace for travel. At times, when famished for 
water, his indomitable spirit had to be continuously 
held in check. He cared nothing for anything there 
was behind him. When water was reached his wants 
were always the first to be attended to. He soon came 
to regard this as his right, and would kick and bite at 
anything that dared to interfere with bis prerogative. 
On the other hand the little black would ^invariably 
give a sigh of relief the moment his journey's end had 
been reached and his saddle girth loosed. I always 
thought that he understood fully the responsibility 
that rested on him. Another feature in back-tracking 
was the ever present possibility of bumping into hostile 
Indians, and it was no uncommon occurrence to find 
that they had been at the water during our absence. As a 
rule the Indians of the southwest never make flight 
attacks, and by star routing we avoided such little un- 
pleasantness, but the one. great reason for it was the 
hot sun. Undfer a heavy pack it will soon burn the life 
out of the best of anything. 
Some horses are like some rrien, they need watching. 
So long as it is daylight they can follow directions, 
but after dark they invariably manage to mix things 
up and go wrong. I was once lost in a bunch of mes- 
quite timber through the stupidity of the horse I was 
riding. He had been a stallion, and while sniart enough 
in the day time, he was a dummy at night. The tirri- 
ber was probably a half mile wide, by ten miles long, 
but wider in some places owing to the configuration of 
the valley. It was during the winter season and tlie 
night was cold, rainy and black, but the road F was on 
was well worn and wound through the timber at its 
narrowest part. It was about teh o'clock at night wheti 
I struck the timber, and two o'clock the following 
morning when. I was well clear of it on thfe opposite 
side. The brute persisted in leaving the road, and 
twice I succeeded in righting him, but in the end I 
made matters worse by cutting for the road in the 
wrong direction and was soon hopelessly lost. Al- 
though I had no business to be there when daylight 
broke, I twice unsaddled, but with each lull in the 
storm I again pushed on, my object beirig to reach the 
open country before the day broke, ride a few miles 
out on the mesa, seek the protection of a friendly bush 
and wait for the sun to come up before going further. 
Although I cannot be called superstitious, I was, short- 
ly after getting clear of the timber^ annoyed by the 
antics of a coyote. At a distance of about twenty feet 
it persisted running along, growling and snapping at 
nle, and it was only after I had repeatedly tried to ruti 
the horse over it that it left me. I was not in very 
good humor with my horse, so when he hesitated to 
jump what, to me in the darkness, appeared to be a 
narrow gulch I forced him over, but instead of land- 
ing on the opposite side he struck it only with his fore 
feet. For a moment he struggled desperately to hold 
on, but slipped and rolled to the bottom. I was in- 
stantly out of the saddle, but this did not prevent me 
going down with him. Just how I escaped being seri- 
ously hurt in the mix up I do not know, but fortun- 
ately I did. As I was drenched with rain, bruised, and 
miserably cold, I concluded that we had better wait 
for aaylight where we were, and we did. The wash 
proved to be between fifteen and twenty feet wide. 
One of the most remarkable instances of back-track- 
ing that I ever heard of is that of an old bell mare. 
She was driven with a band of horses from eastern- 
Oregon to central Nebraska, a distance of about a 
thousand miles. In the following year she turned up 
at her old home with three others. She belonged to a 
Mr. Devine. He told me that he was five months in 
making the drive. 
Since I commenced this letter I have been ruminating 
over the past and, according to my way of thinking, it 
is now twenty-seven years since I wrote my first letter 
to the Forest and Stream, and off and on, have been 
a contributor to it ever since. I had gone to Tucson 
for suppMes for my camp in the Santa Ritas, and while 
there, had bought a copy of Forest and Stream. The 
regular price for all such papers was twenty-five cents. 
They were kept for sale by a worthy old pioneer by 
the name of Mansfeld. Once I called his attention to 
the published price of Harper's Weekly being but ten 
cents. The -old gentleman looked at me with well 
feigned surprise and said, "But, my dear sir, you for- 
get the postage." At the time in question a contro- 
versy was going on in the Forest and Stream over 
the merits of different guns for the killing of big game. 
I butted in to the effect that the efficiency of a gun 
depended largely on the man behind it. I had seen 
most all classes of guns tried, and knew pretty well what 
I was talking about. Well this is out of the line of back- 
tracking horses, so good-by for the present. 
Papago. 
Yuma, Ariz., Jan. 17, 
Her Heart was Tf ae to Missottfi. 
Alma, Ark— Editor Forest and Stream: I have read 
with some interest in some of the recent issues of Forest 
AND Stream of the "back-tracking instinct" in horses, 
and am reminded of a trait possessed by a large bay mare 
owned by my father when I was a small boy livmg on 
the old farm in the Ozark Mountains in Washington 
county, Arkansas. 
My father was a Confederate soldier, belongmg in a 
cavalry company; and when he with his command sur- 
rendered, he was allowed to keep his mount. He had pur- 
chased the mar0 from a party from Missouri, who had 
taken her from some point in Missouri to the Red 
River country in south Arkansas at the beginning of the 
Civil War. 
She was about five years old when the war ended, and 
we kept her ten years, and to my certain knowledge never 
at any time did she gain her freedom but that she started 
north in the direction of Missouri, and traveled until 
overtaken and brought back. We tried al! kinds of ex- 
pedients to induce her to remain ; but nothing but con- 
finement kept her in Arkansas. In those days the grass 
was fine in the mountains, and all kinds of stock grew 
and fattened on it, with no cost but a little salt occa- 
sionally. But even after three or four of her colts were 
grown up and in the herd, and with a colt in the pasture, 
she would occasionally gain her liberty and start north 
on a fast trot, and had to be caught and brought back. 
And finally, when she had become old and of small value, 
one spring day my father ordered me to take her out 
and turn her on the range and let her go. This I did, 
and within ten minutes she began to feed out north, and 
I took one look at her, went home, arid never saw her, 
again. J. E. London. 
All communicdtions for Forest and Stream must he 
directed to Forest and Stream Pub. Co., New York, to 
receive attention. We have no oth^r Qifice, _ 
