Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. \ 
Copyright, 1904, by Forkst and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 NEW YORK SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 6, 1904. \ No. 846^Broadway, Nbw York. 
Six Months, $2. f > ' 
HENRY P. WELLS. 
Henry Parkhurst Wells, successful lawyer, en- 
thusiastic angler and outdoor man and graceful writer, 
died November 20 at his home in Brooklyn, N. Y., after 
a long illness. 
Mr. Wells was born in Providence, R. I., in 1842. He 
was a graduate of Amherst College, and a soldier in the 
Civil War. He was admitted to the New York bar in 
1869, and to the bar of the United States Supreme Court 
in 1883. 
Mr. Wells was one of the most ardent lovers of outdoor 
life, and not satisfied with enjoying this himself, desired 
to share his pleasures with others, and to give them the 
benefit of his long experience and his keen observation. His 
manual of "Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle" has had a wide 
circulation, and his other books, "American Salmon 
Fisherman," and "City Boys in the Woods," were not 
only charming in themselves, but appealed strongly to the 
popular taste. Mr. Wells was a long time correspondent 
of Forest and Stream, to which he contributed many 
articles on angling, in one series of which were detailed 
his experiments on the sight of fishes. 
Personally Mr. Wells was a most attractive man, a 
ready and entertaining talker, and possessed of keen and 
almost boyish enthusiasms. He was a delightful com- 
panion, and will be sadly missed by a large number of 
old-time anglers. 
NOT NECESSARILY A PART OF SHOOTING. 
When we consider that tens of thousands of guns are 
in use every day of the autumn shooting season, we may 
reflect that it would be strange, indeed, were the papers 
free from reports of shooting casualties. "About this 
time," a|pthe almanacs say, "look out for" headlines like 
these: "Gunner Shot by Friend." "Shot by Son while 
Gunning." We shall not look in vain. The papers are 
full of them. It would be no difficult task to fill a column 
or two of the Forest and Stream every week with de- 
tailed stories of shooting casualties of this character, but 
no good purpose would be served by doing so, except for 
the admonition afforded by so many horrible examples. A 
journal devoted to field sports is naturally reluctant to 
make much of the dangers of shooting, nor is there any 
good reason why gunning casualties should be given 
prominence in its columns. They are not necessarily any 
part of shooting. 
Occasionally there is chronicled an aggravated case, the 
circumstances of which compel more than casual atten- 
tion. Such a happening is reported to us by a Minnesota 
correspondent. We repeat it in briefest outline only. 
A well-known ferry boat master of the Duluth-Superior 
harbor was out hunting, traveling up and down the road 
in a buggy, carrying a double-barreled shotgun, looking 
for partridges. * The gun slipped back and was in danger 
of falling out of the buggy. The man reached quickly 
forward, and, catching it by the muzzle, drew it forward. 
Both hammers caught and were drawn back and then re- 
leased before they came to a full cock, with the result 
that both charges were exploded, and blew off his left arm 
at the shoulder, set his coat afire, and started the horse 
running away in a mad gallop. A mile and a half further 
on the horse was stopped, and the wounded man was 
taken to the hospital. It is a moving story ; and the pity 
of it is, as of so many others, that the casualty came 
from a disregard of those simple rules of gun handling 
which no sane man should ever think of violating. To 
carry a loaded gun in a wagon is of itself to invite fate. 
To pull a falling gun muzzle forward is to make imminent 
fate doubly assured. A pathetic element of most of these 
woundings and mannings and killings by gunners lies in 
the fact that they are caused by a violation of the simple 
rules which ought to be the gunner's invariable and in- 
violable guide of conduct. If these rules are observed, 
sport with the gun in the field is not more hazardous 
than riding in trolley cars or walking the streets. 
There are some men who are constitutionally careless, 
and others who are flippant with deadly weapons. If some 
practicable system could be devised of testing a would-be 
shooter's temperamental fitness to carry arms, its adop- 
tion would preserve to many a home the son or brother or 
father of whom it would otherwise be bereft. Such a 
system we may look to see in a thousand years. In the 
meanwhile, let us exhort one another in season and out : . 
Don't point a gun at a human being. 
Don't pull a gun muzzle end first toward yourself. 
Don't carry a loaded gun in a wagon. 
Don't stand a loaded gun Up in the corner for the baby 
to play with. 
Don't handle a gun you know to be empty in any other 
way than you would handle it if you knew it to be 
loaded. Handle it always as if it were loaded, thus culti- 
vating a habit of caution which shall in time become 
second nature. 
If such rules be observed, shooting accidents will be 
extremely rare, and the casualties which are not accidents, 
but are the natural results of criminal carelessness, will 
be unknown. 
MONOLOGUES OF KIAH. 
The flickering camp-fire shed its cheerful light and heat 
a few feet on all sides against the circumambient dark- 
ness. Tremulous high lights on the faces and figures of 
the campers playfully responded to the fire's flickerings, 
revealing expressions which were either vacuous or con- 
tentedly free of cares past or future. Each man squatted 
or lolled about according to his fancy; for supper had 
been eaten, pipes under forced draught emitted volumes of 
smoke and fumes, and the stomachs of the party in uni- 
son were functionally busy in elaborating material for re- 
pairs of mind and body. Peace and quiet reigned, save 
for the whisperings of the leaves and breeze. Content- 
ment, consequent to satiety and sluggishness, dominated 
the camp; and each man seemed to be too- apathetic either 
to talk or to listen. One might easily imagine that the 
muteness was perpetual ; fallaciously so, however, for no 
group of men ever remains long silent. Ruben broke the 
inaction by grasping a carboy of water near-by and pour- 
ing out a large swallow for himself, thereafter wiping 
his mouth with much gusto; then solemnly stuffing his 
pipe with another cargo of tobacco preparatory to further 
fumes. Apropos of his own musings, he began thus : 
"Give me camp life for true enjoyment. Here we find 
pure air, sunlight everywhere by day and unpolluted dark- 
ness by night. Here good health comes to us while we 
are. free from the shams, fictions, and maraudings of so- 
ciety. I enjoy it heartily for its simplicity, its sterling 
genuineness — " "Exactly, precisely," exclaimed Kiah, 
with irrepressible eagerness, "and we, when gathered to- 
gether happily in camp, are always free to have heart-to- 
heart talks on the themes of sport dearest to us. In my 
opinion, the communion of thought is the strongest bond 
of true sportsmanship. Yet how few there are who 
properly appreciate this higher form of it — the pleasures 
of mind, of memory, of anticipation; in short, of its in- 
tellectual feasts. I regret to say that few rise above the 
gross materialism of sport. It is a pleasure to> me to 
shoot over my dogs, to admire their beauty, to study their 
pedigrees, to ob:erve their cunning ways; and, to confer 
a favor on my friends, to share with them my pleasures, 
as it were, by telling them truthfully of all these things. 
Now, there's that new setter puppy that I bought soon 
after it was weaned. It was as precocious as anything 
that you ever saw, from the very moment that it opened 
its eyes to the light of day. I noted many of its acts, 
which were manifestations of high reasoning powers; but 
my wife was a closer observer, and noted many more than 
I did. Why, every time that that pup barked, she could 
interpret its language and explain the ideas that it was 
endeavoring to articulate. It was a born hunter. It be- 
gan to point about as soon as it was able to waddle 
about. That was a matter of course, because it was bound 
to be a good field dog, having in its pedigree fifty-nine 
field trial winners on its sire's side and 198 on its dam's 
side. I have the pedigree with me, and I will read it to 
you in full in the morning at breakfast. It shows blood 
that is the bluest of the blue. You know that it is a mat- 
ter of months to accomplish the education of the average 
dog in work to the gun. My puppy was in the hands of 
the trainer just three weeks when he graduated perfectly, 
and I immediately took him on a quail hunt. He" would 
range in rings around my other setter dog, which there- 
tofore was considered the widest and fastest ranger that 
ever lived. And find birds ! Why, that pup would pick 
up points on single birds with the same ease and accuracy 
that 3 turkey picks up corn. But its acts, while phe- 
nomenal, were a mere bagatelle in comparison to the 
grace and beauty that it infused into its points and backs 
and gallops. On point, it stood with nose proudly tilted 
high in air, tail extended straight as an arrow pointing 
slightly above the line of its back, one forefoot held deli- 
cately off the ground, eyes glistening, lips quivering — oh, 
it was grand ! In the city I called on my friend Bill 
Smith — you know that he is a dog fancier, or rather pre- 
tends to be such— and after buying several hundred dol- 
lars' worth of goods of him, I began to tell him about my 
pup. I had not in a half hour of talk finished its pedigree 
before he told me that his office was a place in which to 
transact business, and not an annex to a dog kennel. 
Such a man as that has no genuine sportsmanship in his 
soul. Now in camp it is so different. Here each has a 
pleasure when the other is pleased because of the sole 
reason that that other is pleased. We are all congenial 
spirits together, and pleasant conversation on our sports- 
manship makes one endless feast of reason and flow of 
soul. I, better than anyone else, Ruben, can understand 
your exaltation of spirit on happiness unalloyed in camp, 
on your passion for camping — " "Camping be hanged !" 
Ruben tartly retorted. Again peace and quiet reigned, save 
for the whisperings of the leaves and breeze. 
YELLOWSTONE PARK BIG GAME. 
Most of us read with very great pleasure President 
Roosevelt's interesting and delightful paper entitled "Wil- 
derness Reserves," published in the last volume of the 
Boone and Crockett Club's book, and copied in Forest 
and Stream. Those who did so, and all visitors to the 
Yellowstone Park are glad to at any time hear of game 
conditions in the Yellowstone Park. 
During the summer the game is driven by the flies to 
the high mountains ; but with the first snows of autumn 
they begin to descend again toward lower ground, where 
open pasturage can be had, and when winter fairly sets 
in they occupy the flats of' the Yellowstone River and its 
tributaries, or make their way out of the Park southward 
toward the Jackson Hole country. 
In the Park the antelope have already begun to leave 
the higher land and to pasture on the flat, not far from 
the town of Gardiner, which for many years has been 
their wintering ground. A year or two since Major 
Pitcher, the superintendent, brought water on this flat 
and sowed it with alfalfa, and last year.more than 1,100 
antelope wintered on this small area. 
The deer and sheep are beginning to come down to 
their winter homes. Eleven white-tail deer and from 50 
to 100 black-tails have been feeding on the parade ground 
of Fort Yellowstone. On the benches of Mt. Evarts there 
is a band of about thirty mountain sheep, among them a 
number of lambs, while recent accounts from the Hayden 
Valley show that it is dotted with bands of elk, and a 
scout recently from there estimated their number at 3,000. 
The increase in the game which has followed the close 
protection of the Park makes the question of their winter 
subsistence a problem of ever-increasing importance. 
Major Pitcher's experiment of sowing alfalfa on the win- 
ter range of the antelope has solved this question for 
these animals; and, since this flat is used by the antelope 
only in winter, it will produce during the summer crops 
of alfalfa hay which will serve to feed the sheep of the 
Gardiner Valley and the deer of the post all through the 
winter. The very large bands of elk which winter in the 
valley of the Y'ellowstone, and on its tributaries, still re- 
main unprovided for, and in exceptional Avinters these 
animals must be fed if we would not see them die of 
hunger. As things are at present in ordinary winters the 
elk can get along well enough. There will always be 
some starvation just at the end of the winter and in 
March and April, and many old and poor animals will 
perish; but this will only be a natural death rate. Once 
in a while, however, at intervals of ten or fifteen or 
twenty years, there comes a winter with heavy, deep 
snows and early spring crustings, and at such a time the 
elk must be fed, or they will be swept away almost to the 
last hoof. The cost of providing hay for these animals — 
to be used only in case of necessity — will be comparatively 
trifling, and the Department of the Interior, with an eye 
to just such a possible danger, shculd see that the super- 
intendent of the Park takes proper measures to provide 
against it, 
