FOREST AND STREAM. 
and had itever left it from that time. He had beett a 
sailor on the Baltic Sea, and knew the flavor of cod. 
He began to fish, got a cabin boat and this little red 
one was the last of the many he had owned. 
Now Anderson was suffering from a cold, the 
Arkansas appetite (always hungry, and nothing will 
satisfy it), biliousness, kidney trouble, headaches, joints 
aching, feet swelling, chills — that is to say, malaria. 
"Yes, he come down here, and the malaria's got him," 
Uncle Charlie Robertson said. "It's been working on 
him for years. It's going to kill him. Malaria just 
saps them down; they keep getting weaker and weaker, 
so slow they don't notice it — all of a sudden it grips 
them and they die like a deadening. I've seen hun- 
dreds like him." 
"Isn't it funny," Anderson said to me, "I used to be 
so big and strong. By golly, I could lift that skiff 
with one hand, and now I take both hands to change 
my oars. I am tired all the while. I guess I will have 
to get away from the river here. I would like to go 
to Oregon and fish for salmon. They say it ain't 
there like it is here, and that a man can get well there. 
Perhaps I will have a good spring fishing, and then I 
can go. I guess I get well this spring anyhow, and be 
all right again, like I used to be two years ago. I feel 
better to-day already. I guess maybe I be all right 
in a day or two. Last spring I was sick all during the 
good fishing; this arm here I couldn't lift it, it got 
small like my fingers used to be. But it's better now. 
Yes; I can see it is bigger. I get all right. Do you 
know how to play casino? I play blind casino while 
I am here by myself." 
He was a mile from his nearest neighbor, and 
three miles from the man who would look after him 
when he got down sick. His boat was tied to four 
stakes, bow to the bluff reef at the head of the big 
eddy above Helena. "I won't tie down there — I saw 
five shanty boats sunk there one day. They been lucky 
down at the Transfer Dock. For two years there has 
been no south gale; but it is coming some time. I don't 
want to be there then." 
For twenty-five years he had watched the river with 
eyes that gave evil things like river rats and bad land- 
ings "an awful sharp look," and he refused to be fooled 
down to a steep bank near kind people who might 
some day have all they could do to look after them- 
selves, let alone him, so he held to the sand-bar, the 
shallow water and his lonely shelter. 
It is so with most of the fishermen. They seek out 
the pockets, chutes and islands where the water in 
time of gales does little more than rock the chips and 
eddying sediment. Their business is in the depths of 
the water, and they know what it can do when wind- 
driven. They don't care for floods; they rise and fall 
with the water on the gauges, as a general thing, and 
would tie to the topmost branches of a tree fearlessly, 
so long as the waves and wind had no clear sweep at 
them. Day by day they look at the sky,, not just once 
in the morning, but almost constantly eyeing each cloud 
and each shift in the wind. Not till the gale settles 
down on them and their boat is tied to meet it, not till 
bow lines, stern lines and anchor lines are out and 
stage plank set, do they take their pipes from between 
their teeth with anything like a breath of relief; then 
it's "Well, I guess we're fixed this time — wonder if 
that anchor is going to get hung under? I got to get 
a trip line first chance I get." 
Ask one of these wise old fishermen about the 
weather for the next day, and it's "I don't know; can't 
tell anything about the d thing down here." Let 
the clouds be hanging ever so low, the wind sweeping 
in lifting gusts along crested waves and the feel of 
rain just pouring through one's pores — not even then 
will the fisherman say it's going to rain. "When it 
gets here, it will rain — that's all you can tell about it. 
It makes a man mad sometimes, the way the weather 
swings round and don't do like it looks. The weather's 
a levee-camp nigger." 
Rain is rain, and snow is snow; but it takes wmd 
to make a storm for the fishermen, and the wind that 
travels along through wide areas of calm, ripping things 
up, is a cyclone. Anderson remembers winds, tough 
fellows and dreams. One night he had gone to bed in 
a big three-room boat tied to the bank just below Burl- 
ington, la., when a cyclone came. It turned his boat 
over, broke a lot of jugs full of fish oil on the gunwale, 
and mixed the grease with the feathers of a great 
feather-bed and several pillows. It was an awful job 
cleaning the boat afterward, but the boat was tied 
good and it didn't float away. I wanted to know how 
he got out. "I was in the bed when it hit me, think- 
ing it was blowing pretty hard. Well, it come and 
turned the boat over on its side, down come those 
jugs from the other side all round me. I yomped up— 
couldn't find noddings. Dark as the inside a coon tree. 
I couldn't get my pants, so I tried to get out. I tell 
you it boders some to find a door out when the boat 
is half up side down. I got out and walked in my 
shirt to where there wass aneinder fisherman in a leetle 
boat. The wave had set him way up on the bank, 
high and dry, and when I come in to borrow a pair of 
pants, he was getting breakfast of potatoes, it bein' 
mos' time for to get op, anyhow. He hadn't seen any 
light of my boat, and he thought I was drowned." 
Anderson said that he had a sure sign as to the rain, 
but some might think it less reliable than the cloud 
colors. "I know when there is a rain coming," he 
said, "for I dream of water." 
Anderson had lived long and most of the time alone 
on the river, and dreams and feelings were come to be 
significant to him more than to most, but for all that, 
he was a god fisherman. "I dreani I have a piece of 
meat in my fingers, and a great big snake comes and 
takes the meat away. That kind of scares me, and I 
wake up — I yumps up and goes out to my line in the 
middle of the night and there is de big fish, yust ready ^ 
to get off de hook." 
There is not a great variety of ways used in catching 
fish for market out of the Big River, but they have proved 
to be so efficient that any old fisherman will say, "Fishing 
isn't what it used to be." That is to say, 4,000 miles of 
main stream have been fished to death, or are being fished 
to death, and the Government will be called on to stock 
the river one of these days. 
It 15 jwssible to give any estimate of the number 
c from the lower river in any given time. Not 
one fisherman in a thousand keeps any account of his 
catches hut a few scattered bills will indicate something 
of the fishennan's catches. P. J. McKey, located at Fort 
1 illow, said he made a thousand dollars a year. He said 
he lived easy on the river, scorned the little hill man who 
ate only com bread and pork most of the time, pointed to 
the chubby cheeks of his two babies, and set out a bottle 
of whiskey ; had potatoes, hot bread, fresh pork for din- 
"^J' beef for supper, and smoked his pipe contentedly. 
The fish buyers are rivals, of course, and do their best 
to get the fish — do everything, in fact, so I was assured 
many times, save have honest scales. To the young dealer 
just starting in business the fishermen go with their 
catches, while the old buyers in the neighborhood scorn 
him as green, and hate him for honesty. But after a 
while the young buyer becomes learned, "gets tricky like 
all the rest of them," and scales that require 105 or 110 
pounds to bring up the bar at 100 pounds take the place 
of the old ones. My own weight varied nearly twenty 
pounds on various scales in a few days ; the bank stores 
were not exempt from the variations. "Thev'd spend it 
for boo.^e, anyhow," is the excuse offered. The fisherman 
says, "He's a good man—his scales are all right," or, T 
don't like him much— scales no good for the fisherman." 
In the river there is plenty of deep water, and there is 
always a current; any fish can go deep, and must keep 
moving on account of the water; its flesh is harder, better 
and unmistakable to those familiar with fish of the bot- 
toms. But the lake fish are in stagnant water — water 
that grows so warm that the meat becomes almost like 
jelly, and the fish wallow in the mud, not finding deep 
water,^ and their flesh tastes of the mud. Probably the 
best idea of how warm the water gets and what it means 
to the fish of the rivers and ponds— "Old Rivers"— may 
be gathered from the fact that buffalo and other clumsy 
fish of the bottoms have small forked bones tliroughout 
their flesh to keep it from melting off their skeleton or 
sloughing from their sides— an interesting little scheme 
of skewering by nature. But it doesn't make eating fish 
from the bottoms easier. 
In some of the deep lakes good fish are found, but in 
the shallow ones the muddy flavored are taken. It makes 
some difference to the fisherman in price, but the lakes 
are usually the "best" fishing, because more fish are taken 
from them. As a result of the difference between still 
water and running water, there are two classes of fisher- 
men — those who follow the running river, and those who 
go to the lakes. The men who buck the current must use 
different tackle from those who run the lakes and still 
waters, and must make allowances for various things not 
known on the lakes — long trees with roots that reach deep 
into the water, gouging the set nets and tearing them 
lengthwise. The danger from river rats who pick up nets 
and go on down stream with them is less in the water 
back from the main channel, too. 
The man who sets his nets along the banks looking for 
the "runs" of the fish, seeks places where the fish travel 
from one place to another; he finds them in the river at 
little points jutting out into the current, causing eddies. 
The fish run up the eddies close to shore, and then hit the 
current close in to avoid as much of it as possible. Right 
where the fish round the point is where the fisherman 
tries to get his nets fixed. One sees pairs of fishermen, 
one at the oars, the other poking down into the opaque 
water feeling for the best place in the bank to lay the 
mouth of the hoop net — incidentally to find if there are 
any snags there on which to lose his nets. 
The hoop net is the mainstay of the river fisherman. 
He runs from five or ten up to thirty or even forty. And 
these hoop nets are all of a model, varying only in size. 
Each fisherman has his own notion as to what constitutes 
a proper distance between the hoops, and as to the size of 
the hoops. Raymond S. Spears. 
Newfoundland Notes. 
St. Johns, Newfoundland, Feb. 14. — During the last 
few weeks we have had very variable weather — snow- 
storms, gales of wind, spurts of keen frost, and an odd 
"soft snap" complete the cycle as we get it here. Even 
heavy snowdrifts and keen frosts have their compensa- 
tions. They bring about a condition of affairs that make 
it possible for lumbermen and loggers to get through the 
woods easily and cut and haul their timber to convenient 
rivers preparatory to getting them down to the mills in the 
spring, and incidentally making data for some reader of 
Forest and Stream who the coming summer will be 
shooting or fishing in the vicinity to burst into poetry. 
After a hard day's tramp, when he at last reaches the 
bank of the rushing river, can't you imagine him, after 
apostrophizing the flies, pushing back his hat off his fore- 
head, taking his corn-cob out of his mouth, mopping his 
face with his bandana, and bursting out— 
"At last the blackened timber ! At last the racing stream ! 
With the raw, right-angled log jam at the bend!" 
But I must not anticipate. 
And the ice men are now reaping their harvest. They 
can get all the ice they want about two feet thick on any 
of the lakes near the city. As a result, thousands of tons 
of clear blue ice have been stowed away during the last 
few weeks, to serve to cool the thirsty lieges during the 
hot days of the coming summer. 
Winter Sports. 
The sports indulged in consist chiefly of skating out- 
doors or in the rinks, hockey, curling and racing. We 
have two fine rinks in St. Johns, and they are largely 
patronized. In the Princes Rink there have been several 
hockey contests between our local teams. The players 
and spectators enjoy the game immensely. A selecting 
committee are now engaged picking out of the various 
clubs a team to meet a Canadian team that is expected 
along next week. 
Sone of "auld Scotia'' and their descendants affect the 
"roarin' game," otherwise curling'. The Mic-Macs and 
the Terra Novas played an exciting game yesterday, the 
former winning by two points. 
We have had also several skating carnivals, a very en- 
joyable pastime for participants and spectators. The cos- 
tumes range from the grand to the grotesque, and the 
motion, the brilliant electric lighting, the music of the 
band and the gay-colored dresses of the maskers, ali con 
bme to make a very pleasing spectacle. 
We have had a skating race in which there were aboi 
a_ dozen contestants. It was won by F. Chislett, the chan 
pion skater of Newfoundland. Though not hard presset 
he skated 71 miles in 5^ hours, nearly 12 miles an hou: 
I hat IS not bad traveling, even on ice. 
Caribou, 
The railway agent at Gaff Topsails reported last wee 
seeing a herd of deer going north. This railway static 
IS situated in the interior of the country, and is on th 
highest altitude attained by the line. It is most unusuj 
to see caribou going north at this season, and the "olde; 
inhabitant" is making it the basis of a prophecy of a 
early spring. 
As an instance of how plentiful they are, train men te 
that last week, while the train was running full speed a 
Grand Falls, two deer suddenly jumped on the tracl 
They kept ahead for a short time, till the train struc 
them; one of them had three of its legs broken, and th 
other was thrown clear of the track. The train hand 
got off and despatched the wounded deer and took it 0 
board the train. The other one trotted off through th 
woods and escaped. 
TrotJting. 
Every lake near the city has its devotees seeking troui 
'J hey fish through the ice, but the sport is not very excit 
nig. While a small number fish for sport, the greate 
number fish for food. Several large catches have bee 
reported from Guidi Vidi Lake, just outside of the towr 
A man fishing near the electric power house caught 
brook trout weighing six pounds. Another, in Mundy* 
Pond, caught a Loch Leven 26 inches long weighing 5^ 
pounds. Several of these latter have been taken in othe 
lakes, but as they are generally thin, scraggy fellows, the 
are not in favor with sportsmen. 
The Marine and Fisheries Department is making in 
quiries into a report that the river at Salmonier had beei 
dynamited last season for salmon. It is to be hoped tha 
the matter will be thoroughly sifted, as this is one of th 
very best salmon rivers in the country. 
Cabia Blanco's reminiscences of the Comanches hav^ 
interested me very much. I have been reading them wit! 
a great deal of pleasure. They deal with a very interest 
ing epoch in the lives of the aborigines of the plains, am 
while they may not be unique, I imagine that the sports 
men \vho enjoyed such rare experiences must be very few 
even in America. Besides supplying interesting readin 
matter to sportsmen of to-day, he is putting in an at 
tractive form data as to Comanches and buffaloes— knowi 
to most of us_ only through Fenimore Cooper et al. — tha 
will prove of immense value to the historian of the futun 
As a proof how such information not only flows througi 
the main aqueducts such as Forest and Stream, but fron 
them trickles through innumerable side channels such a; 
country and provincial newspapers, I inclose annexe( 
clipping from Cabia Blanco's excellent article of a couph 
of weeks ago. As you will notice, it is cut out of the 
middle of the article, and appropriated without credit t( 
either Forest and Stream or our friend Cabia. I recog 
nized it immediately I saw it, and cut it out and senc 
to you and Cabia as an illustration how these things travel 
Old War Horses. 
These old horses never forget the calls, no matter how long i 
has been since they last heard them. 
One day some years ago, when I was passing an open lot in th( 
outskirts of Chicago, I found a boy trying to play an old cornet 
While the boy and I were at work on the cornet, an old negr( 
ash hauler came along driving an animal that had once been ; 
food horse, but was now only a collection of skin and bones 
he horse stopped when he heard us, and stuck up his ears. 1 
came to the conclusion that lie had once been a cavalry horse 
and asked the old negro where he had got him. 
"From a farmer," he said. I could not find a "U. S." on Uk 
horse; he had probably been discharged so long ago chat hit 
brand had been worn off. 
But taking the cornet, I sounded the stable call, and the horst 
immediately began to dance. 
"Hold fast to your lines, now, uncle," I warned the old negro, 
I am going to make that old horse do some of the fastest running 
he has ever done since he left the cavalry." 
Then, beginning with the call for the gallop, I next sounded 
the charge, and the old plug went plunging up the road at hisj 
fastest gait, dragging his wagon after him. I gave him the recall 
next, and he came down to a walk, much to the relief of the old 
negro. 
He said that this was the first time he had ever seen the horse 
run. He had never been able to get him to go faster than a 
!.!ow walk before. 
"You don't feed him well enough to get him to do much run- 
ning," I told him. "That horse, when he did have to run, got 
his twelve pounds of corn and all the hay he could eat every day." 
' c. 
Extermination of Salmon. 
They say "unknown conditions" have interfered with the work, 
of the salmon hatcheries, so that not one-fifth part of the eggs 
expected have been obtained. The conditions are not unknown. 
Contrary to law, the fishing season was extended, or at least was' 
not closed as required by law. Again, there should be closed, 
intervals, even in the fishing season, so the fish may have a' 
chance. Artificial propagation will do wonders if the fish are: 
allowed to come in from the ocean. But when the massacre cuts' 
off life in its source, whst is to be expected? IMost of the fish' 
having been caught in the lower river, there are few to produced 
young for the hatcheries. The greed of to-day often cuts off the 
gain for to-morrow. A few years more and there will be no 
salmon in the Columbia— unless more vigorotis enforcement of the 
law of the closed season can be had, and the law itself requires 
amendment that the closed season may be longer. Again, there 
is need of an understanding between the States of Oregon, 'Wash- 
ington and Idaho, and vigorous enforcement of the joint agree- 
ment, or of intervention of the United States with a uniform law 
for the States of the Columbia basin. Under present conditions 
the salmon are doomed, and will disappear, and money expended' 
on hatcheries is wasted.— Portland Oregonian. 
George Fields, Horace Philhower, Louis Disbrow and Con- 
stable Frank D. Cranmer, all expert shots of the North Branch! 
Gun Club, may have to pay damages for nearly destroying a 
flock of domesticated geese that they mistook for the wild variety.' 
It appears that John Lore, who lives a few miles from North 
Branch, owned the flock of geese, and that Thursday night dogsl 
got into the flock and scattered them. Out of the flock of fifteen, 
ten flew in the North Branch direction, and Friday morning they 
settled on the meadows near the village. 
An early riser gave the alarm, and an organized posse, the prin- 
cipals being those named above, started to gather in on the birds 
that were feeding on the meadov/s. They were lucky enough to 
get seven out of the ten. Before noon. Lore, who had been out 
searching for his much-prized geese, drove into North Branch, 
where the birds had been proudly displayed in the country store. 
When he discovered the dead geese were from hk own flock, he 
was furious, and threatened to have the sportsmen all arrested, but 
when explanation was made, he became less bellicose, and nego- 
tiations for a settlement are in progress. The geese were valu- 
able, as the breed is getting very scarce.— Newark, N. J., Call. 
