Dec. 17, ±904.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
309 
Washington, a Caddo Indian, is said to have ridden 
alongside of the wagons as they left Fort Sill. Mr. 
Tatum further states that, "With a butcher knife, which 
he [Satanic] had secreted, he started for the guard in 
the front part of the wagon, cutting one of the soldiers 
slightly in the leg. They both jumped out, leaving 
their guns. Satanic picked up one of them and com- 
menced loading it, wanting to kill one more man. Be- 
fore he got it loaded, he received several shots, and in 
twenty minutes died." At the time of his death Satank 
was the chief of the most important Kiowa soldier or- 
ganization, known as Chief Dogs, and when singing 
his death song he referred to this band. 
He was supposed to have secret powers, and on this 
account was more or less feared and hated by his tribe. 
Satank was an old man when he died. He had long 
been a leader among the Kiowas. He was one of the 
three men who, about the year 1840, went to meet the 
Cheyennes to arrange peace preliminaries between that 
tribe and the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches, and 
who, as a peace offering, brought back to the Cheyennes 
the scalps of forty-two Cheyenne Bow String soldiers, 
killed two years before by the Kiowas and Comanches. 
The story of Satanta's death Cabia Blanco repeats as 
it was much later told to him, with accompanying 
legends, generally believed at the time. As a matter 
of fact, however, it appears that Satanta, having been 
released on parole in 1873, was rearrested in 1874 on the 
ground that he had been mixed up in an outbreak led 
by Stumbling Bear, and was returned to prison at 
Huntsville, Tex., where he was confined _ until 1878, 
when he committed suicide by throwing himself from 
the second story window of the prison to the ground. 
Satanta (White Bear) was a great orator, and was long 
a prominent man among the Kiowas. According to 
Mooney, he first earned his title of orator of the plains 
in connection with events which led to the treaty of 
Medicine Lodge, in 1867. He was prominent in the 
councils of his tribe, and was the speaker at all coun- 
cils held with the white people, and a number of his 
orations have been reported in part. Mr. Mooney gives 
a concise statement in regard to his prison life and 
tragic death, written by Mr. L. A. Whatley, superin- 
tendent of the Texas penitentiaries. He says: 
"At the July term of the district court of Jack county, 
in the year:i87i, Satanta was convicted of murder and 
sentenced to life imprisonment in the Texas State 
Penitentiary. He was received at the Huntsville prison 
on the 2d of November, 1871. Upon the recommenda- 
tion of President U. S. Grant, Governor E. J. Davis, 
on August 9, 1873, set Satanta at liberty upon parole, 
i. e., conditioned upon his good behavior. It seems, 
however, that he violated the parole, for he was arrested 
and recommitted to the prison at Huntsville by Lieu- 
tenant-General Sheridan, on the 8th of November, 1874. 
On October nth, 1878, Satanta committed suicide by 
throwing himself from the second story of the prison 
hospital, from the effects of which he died within a few 
hours. He was buried at the prison cemetery, where 
his grave can be identified to this day. During the 
period of his incarceration in this prison, Satanta be- 
haved well, but was very reticent and stoical."] 
Maine Wolves* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In Mr. Grinnell's last article on "The Trails of the 
Pathfinders," he quotes Mr. Gregg as saying of the gray 
Wolf, "I have never known these animals, rapacious as 
they are, to extend their attacks to man, though they 
probably would if very hungry, and a favorable oppor- 
tunity presented itself." 
This agrees with all I have ever been able to learn 
about wolves in Maine. As my father, when I was a 
child, used to buy a large part of the skins of the wolves 
killed in eastern Maine, and I used to see the hunters 
who took them and hear their stories, and when I grew 
older hunted where wolves were quite plenty, I have had 
fair opportunities to know something of their habits, but 
have never known of any authentic instance of anyone 
ever being attacked by them. I have heard men tell of 
marvelous escapes from them by outrunning them, and 
writers of newspaper stories often tell of their uncles 
or grandfathers being attacked by wolves ; but as far as I 
have ever been able to learn, these stories had no more 
foundation of truth than the wonderful bear fights which 
are so common every year in our Maine papers; which 
fights only occur at desks where there is a man and per- 
haps a bottle, but never any bear. 
Springer, in his "Forest Life and Forest Trees," relates 
for truth some of the old stock lies which were used to 
frighten the green men in our lumber camps. He states 
as follows : "Three teams in the winter of 1844, all in the 
same neighborhood, were beset by these ravenous animals. 
Sometimes one, and in another instance three in a most 
unwelcome manner volunteered their attendance, accom- 
panying the teamster a long distance on his way. They 
would even jump on the log and ride, and approach very 
near the oxen. One of them actually jumped upon the 
sled and down between the bars when the sled was_ in 
motion," and he goes on to tell of the teamsters carrying 
firearms to protect themselves. Now, these stories are all 
of the same kind as a few years later were told .to tender- 
feet of attacks of catamounts, ding-weasels, side-winders, 
and walruses. 
The only thing in Mr. Springer's accounts which has a 
particle of truth in it, is where he tells of a family on 
Mattawamkeag living in a log house happening to have 
some poison with which they saturated some meat which 
they threw out on the ice. "Next morning early the meat 
was missing, and on making a short search in the vicinity 
six wolves were found dead as hammers, all within sight 
of each other." The facts in this case were that Dr. Mc- 
Caulister, of Amherst, Maine, was the first man who, as 
far as is known, ever used any strychnine. He killed 
several wolves with it, and got some for my father. This 
strychnine he procured from Philadelphia. It was of 
French manufacture, and was pulverized, put up in oval 
bottles with a monogram on the seal, and cost $2.50 a 
bottle. A Mr. D. P. Wood, of Baskahegan Plantation, 
was down at Bangor and told my father of how plenty 
the wolves were near him. My father got a bottle of this 
strychnine for him. The first night he laid out baits he 
killed six wolves. It was not laid out by any family nor 
on the ice, as Mr. Springer states, but in a back pasture. 
Mr. Wood killed fifteen wolves before spring. He brought 
the skins to my father. They all had the upper jaw left 
on the skin for the purpose of obtaining the bounty of 
$10 on the nose. I well remember holding the skins on 
a log for Mr. Wood to cut the upper jaw off. My father 
had ten of these skins dressed and two robes made of 
them. One of these robes, although not in use for many 
years, is still in my carriage house in a good state of 
preservation, although made over fifty years ago. 
Previous to the use of strychnine, some wolves were 
trapped, and I have seen quite a number which were 
trapped on Chemo Bay, within sixteen miles of Bangor. 
I have known but four wolves shot in eastern Maine. 
After poison began to be commonly used, the wolves be- 
gan to decrease, although I think fully as much by migra- 
tion as by being killed. While plenty till the early '50s, 
there were extremely few left by i860. In 1857 I carried 
to Chesuncook a skin which had been sent down to obtain 
the bounty. In the winter of 1859 Frank and George 
Fairbanks, who were trapping near the Mooseluck farm 
on Aroostook, found part of a moose, which they had left 
on a hand-sled, badly eaten. They set a beaver trap for 
it, and fastened the trap chain to the sled. On visiting 
it the next morning, they found a large wolf in it. He 
had gnawed the sled badly, and would soon have escaped 
with the trap. This is the last wolf that I have any record 
of which was either shot, trapped or poisoned; but late in 
the '70s a very large wolf was found drowned in Union 
River above Ellsworth. He had chased a deer into the 
river where there was shell ice and logs, and was unable 
to get out. This skin was sold to me and afterward was 
kept for a show at Bar Harbor by a guide named Nicholas 
Caman, who got it of me. 
In years when beech nuts were abundant, our wolves 
used to eat a good many, and I have seen where wolves 
had fed on deer and beech nuts in the same day. I once 
saw a very large wolf caught in June in a bear trap, 
whose stomach was filled with green beech leaves. The 
animal must have been forced to eat them by hunger, 
which accounted for his getting into a bear trap, as a 
wolf is about as hard to trap as a fox. I have had one 
pass close to a bear trap set in a natural opening in a 
bank of cedar so that it showed no sign of any man's 
work, and which was baited with all the entrails of a 
freshly killed deer. I have several times had one come up 
to the back of a log trap, and with his teeth pull up a 
part of the boxing from the frozen ground, but in no in- 
stance did he touch the bait which was thus exposed. 
In conclusion I will say that although wolves made sad 
havoc among our deer, as well as farmers' sheep, I have 
never known of a case of their troubling either men or 
cattle. M. Hardy. 
Brewer, Maine. 
The Buffalo, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your issue of Saturday, October 29, I notice an arti- 
cle entitled "The Tragedy of the Plains," by Romanzo 
N. Bunn; there is also an article on the same subject 
by Mr. Ail en' Kelly; both of these gentlemen are trying to 
prove that what buffalo were not killed by Col. Bill 
Cody and Buffalo Jones, perished in a great blizzard. 
From the early spring of 1871 to and including the 
winter of 1875 I killed buffalo for their hides. In all 
that time I did not earn a single cent in any other way. 
I speak of that great body of buffalo that roamed between 
the Platte River on the ^north and the Arkansas on the 
south. Buffalo Jones made his appearance on the range 
about the time that I and many others quit for the want 
of material to work on. However, there still remained 
two herds, one in the far north and one on the Staked 
Plains of Texas. They were small in comparison with 
the great middle herd, and they did not last long, but 
certainly went the way of the rest to the tanneries. 
The five years I spent killing buffalo were spent not 
with the object of forcing the Indians on to< reservations, 
nor for the laudable purpose of opening up this vast coun- 
try for settlement, but for the sole purpose of getting 
money to spend with the post sutlers and other dealers 
in troubled water at 25 cents per trouble. 
The prime cause of the extermination of the buffalo 
was brought about, mostly by a Kansas City hide dealer 
named J. N. Dubois, who shipped several bales of buffalo 
hides to German tanners, who claimed to have a process 
for making good leather of them. Up to 1871 our Ameri- 
can tanners were unable to make leather of them that was 
suitable for any purpose where spongy leather would not 
do. However, after the first year of the slaughter which 
began in 1871 in the neighborhood of Bunker Hill and 
Russell stations on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, the 
American tanners discovered the secret, and no more were 
shipped to Europe. Early in 1871 J. N. Dubois sent out 
circulars _ offering to buy at a good price all hides killed 
at any time of the year. Of course robe hides were, 
always in demand, and buffalo meat was always good in 
the winter season; but summer hides never had a place 
in the markets until J. N. Dubois, the Kansas City hide 
man, opened up the demand. It was also he who intro- 
duced the South American hide bug poison that enabled 
us to preserve summer hides, and he instructed us how to 
peg out the hides and dry them smooth for shipment. I 
am not qualified to tell an interesting tale on this subject, 
but I do_ know the truth of the buffaloes' disappearing. 
Col. Bill Cody is entitled to great praise for the way he 
has handled himself. Instead of being a drunken hide- 
hunter, he was smart, and always something of a gentle- 
man; he was_ handsome, and undoubtedly was a fine shot 
and a very picturesque hunter, but I have yet to hear of 
his practicing the methods of still-hunting for hides. He 
got his great reputation first as a meat-hunter for the 
Kansas Pacific grading camps, and then from his dashing 
appearance on horseback for the amusement of wealthy 
foreign and American visitors to the great American buf- 
falo range. 
It has been said that soldiers slaughtered the buffalo. 
I never knew of their slaughtering much of anything but 
their rations. In the winter before the Custer massacre I 
was a witness to Sitting Bull's efforts in killing thousands 
of buffalo and drying the meat for the campaign in which 
so many lost their lives. Sitting Bull came to the head- 
waters of the Republican River with hundreds of war- 
riors, and sent out soldier Indians or police to notify all 
hunters that they could kill for meat only, and no more 
than was needed, while his warriors laid in a tremendous 
supply. I have often wondered why Buffalo^ Jones did 
not notify Uncle Sam. of this move of the Indians, and 
thus prevent that terrible disaster ; but come to think of 
it, Buffalo Jones had not yet made his appearance on the 
range. I was one of the youngest of the hide-hunters, 
but I know that dozens yet remain who will verify my 
statement. They are numerous in the neighborhood of 
old Fort Wallace; and if there, is any real desire for the 
sake of history to hear the truth, we are the rank and 
file and not. the circus element, and I think can be relied 
on. Mr. Buffalo Jones and Colonel Bill Cody did really 
nothing toward exterminating the buffalo. Mr. Jones 
caught a lot of calves at the wind-up, and thus his real 
place is as a perpetuator, which is far more to his credit. 
One writer has said that the real disaster to the buffalo 
was a terrible, blizzard. I agree with him, but the blizzard 
began in J. N. Dubois's hide house in Kansas City, then 
extended to the manufacturers of Sharps sporting rifles 
in Connecticut, and finally ended on the Great American 
Desert, where now. are so many beautiful towns and 
happy, contented people. Joe W. Hutt. 
Light, Maries County, Missouri. 
The Search for the Loon. 
To the man that hopes to start and find the loon's 
solitary nest, and photograph this shy, elusive bird, my 
advice is "don't." 
For miles through swamp and drowned lands, up- 
rivers and to the head of long, winding creeks, through 
all the waters of the Atonabee River, with its marshy 
edges, far and wide in that best of all game lakes, 
Rice Lake, Canada, on its many islands, closely search- 
its deep bays, where the wild rice and wild cherry, 
those best of duck foods, grow luxuriantly, the search 
has led. It is my pleasant business to "snap" the 
feathered game, small furbearing animals and game 
fishes in all their various seasons of mating, nesting, 
rearing, flocking and migrating, but of all the wary 
ones that breed in these long stretches' the loon carries 
off the. prize. 
The male bird with an ingenuity that is almost un- 
canny, frequents all other places but the vicinity of the 
island on which the nest is placed. To see him slowly 
swimming around a secluded bay is to decide that the 
nest is right there. After hours of careful hunting he is 
next seen haunting the shores of a neighboring island, 
as if on strict guard. That island is then most thor- 
oughly searched and he is sticking like its shadow to 
the next one. Then when he has led you far enough 
afield he dives and is seen no more. 
The female all this time is miles away up the lake, 
making the nest, laying the two big olive green, red 
and brown . spotted eggs and hatching them out, and 
usually in the dusk of evening she is joined by her far 
traveled mate; he settles himself for slumber near the 
nest and tomorrow repeats his deceptive practices. 
Luckily my work has led me far and wide over the 
surface of the lake and time solved the riddle and found 
the nest. 
There is a little island far up in the western end of 
the lake belonging to the Ojibways, unused, seldom 
visited. Here in the deep tangle of last year's dry un- 
dergrowth on Grape Island, while searching for a sand- 
piper's nest, I heard a great rustle of dry grape vines . 
and then a splash into the lake, fortunately on the lee 
side. Creeping carefully through the brush I saw the 
pointed bill and gray head of the female loon show 
for a second, held flat as a snake's on the water, about 
a hundred yards out. So at last, by mere accident, the 
nest was discovered. It was placed near a big granite 
rock that had been pushed by the spring ice above far 
in among the trees, a sun searched spot, but far out 
of the wanderings of trapper, hunter or guide. A circle 
of dry wild rice straw that had also been pushed in 
here by the great power of the ice, contained one big 
egg, no great energy displayed in the building of this 
nest, but carefully lined with a coating of soft feathers, 
it made a very consoling picture after the long hunt. 
The female sat watching about a quarter of a mile 
out, and at last, thoroughly alarmed, gave out that 
weird call that is so fearful on a dark night on a lone- 
some lake; almost at once he answered, the wooded 
