July 8 , 1905.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
28 
“YeSj I guess it will be best for me to go to the store 
and try to, find some men,” said the Doctor, as though 
continuing a conversation. 
“That is the only thing to do,” said the Colonel, as 
though adding a last word to a lengthy argument. 
“Going to launch her?” said one of the newcomers. 
“Oh, no!” said the Doctor, “we want to turn her 
over to mend some broken seats.” 
“Well, why don’t you turn her?” inquired the other 
young man. 
The three friends shook their heads and smiled, as 
though mildly protesting against ill-timed levity, and the 
Professor said: “Get about three good men. Doctor, 
and we can put her over all right.” • 
“Three men beside yourselves to turn that boat? 
said the first young man. “Why, my friend and I can 
turn her by ourselves.” 
The three older men laughed good-naturedly at this 
extravagant statement, and the Doctor laid down the 
hammer and nails he had been holding and made as if 
to start on his quest for assistance. 
I got busy just then with a fish, and when again at 
leisure to resume espionage of the boat repairers, was 
not Surprised to see that the young men had been 
allowed to make good their boast, and the Sally lay 
right side up. 
“Your kindness is only equalled by your magnificent 
strength, young gentlemen,” said the Doctor as they 
stood recovering breath. 
“Indeed, yes,” chanted the others in grateful chorus. 
“And now,” said the Professor, as the young men 
picked up their coats, under the delusion that they had 
done all Ihat could reasonably be expected of them, 
“how would you proceed to measure this plank to make 
' new seats. We have figured it every conceivable way 
and it puzzles .us completely.” , , 
A little later the two shorn Sdinsons — one at the 
boWj.a'nd the Other dt the stern seat — were hard at work 
practically demonstrating the hard problem (which they 
had tried in vain to explain to the trio), while the three 
friends, with freshly lighted cigars, sat by admiring and 
frankly commending their skill. 
The seats duly marked out, and the young men 
cordially thanked, the trio now frankly admitted that 
not one of them could use a saw well enough to saw a 
straight line, and again began to discuss the advisa- 
: bility of sending off for help. Instead of taking to their 
heels, and not so much as looking back^ the young fel- 
: lows began to offer .suggestions and advice,, and in thrSe 
minutes thfey wferfe again at -work, wnth dull saw and 
maimed hatchet, repairing the broken seats. What else 
eOuld the.y do with such kind, appreciative and helpless 
gentlemen as the three friends. 
That evening after supper, when we all gathered in 
the smoking room, the Doctor announced: “Owing to 
a little assistance kindly given by our friends to-day, 
we are able to announce that the Sally will be ready 
for launching by to-morrow afternoon.” We all ap- 
plauded, with the exception of the two friends who had 
rendered the “little assistance.” They — over a lamp in 
the corner, with a borrowed needle — were lending each 
other little assistance in opening blisters on their hands. 
Bright and early the next morning the three friends 
‘ resumed (the farming out of) their work. Venturing 
a little too near, after it all appeared completed, I had 
the honor of hunting up, putting in shape and properly 
attaching in position, a twenty-pound stone for anchor. 
It was very thoughtless of me to admit that I knew 
where there was a suitable one, after the Doctor had 
suggested that one was wanting, and I am thankful to 
say I made no useless fight against fate, after the ad- 
mission was made, but found and fashioned it with all 
the expedition and skill of which I was master. 
When we gathered for dinner the launching of the 
Sally was announced for 2 P. M. Everybody attended 
and lent a. hand to set her afloat, the three friends con- 
sistently continuing to the last their role of aiders and 
abettors by word of mouth alone, and without delay or 
accident to mar the occasion, the Sally was duly 
launched. 
As soon as she floated, the Doctor and Professor 
I sprang aboard, and the Colonel took up his position at 
I the water’s edge. The Doctor pounded the gunwale 
; with an oar and sang lustily; the Colonel shouted and 
' clapped his hands vigorously, while the Professor-^ 
I using the tin bailer as a tambourine-— did a stunt that 
would have been the envy of a high-class burnt-cork 
■ artist. It was all funny enough to make even the men 
. with unhealed blisters laugh, and we wished that the 
; three dignified performers had other boats to launch. 
I That night in the smoking room, the amiable Master 
■ of the Sally, in a few well chosen words, apparently 
sincere, returned heartfelt thanks to all, assuring us 
that never before in the twelve years he had owned her, 
had he had less trouble and labor in putting her in 
I commission. To which the Colonel added, sotto voce: 
“Nor more, if the whole truth be told.” 
Lewis Hopkins. 
Belle the Beauty Killed. 
Belle the Beauty, the splendid Russian wolfhound 
who had long been an attraction at Staak’s saloon, at 
Ninety-sixth street and Columbus avenue, was killed yes- 
terday by Policeman Snyder, who, with many others, 
thought that the dog had gone mad. Apparently she had 
not. 
Belle became the mother of nine fine little puppies yes- 
terday. Leaving them snug in a champagne case, she ran 
up stairs to The barroom, barking noisily. The crowd, 
frightened at her show of excitement, fled to the street. 
The dog ran out, too. The bartender also ran out, lock- 
ing the doors to balk thieves. 
Belle, after running about a while, tried to get into the 
'Saloon again to see her babies. Failing, she barked fran- 
tically and began tearing at a door with her long teeth. 
Snyder ran up and with two shots made -the little puppies 
orphans.. . . 
Half an hour later the puppies were drowned to save 
them from starvation. Then the crowd that had shouted 
“Mad .dog!” acknowledged that they felt ashamed. — New 
y.orjk Tirctes, 
A Friendly Hunt for Indians. 
I STARTED on Chi'istmas morning, 1878, from the ,camp 
of our cavalry troop on Wolf Creek! sixty miles west of 
Camp Supply — Fort Supply it is now — in the Indian Ter- 
ritory. I was sent out to hunt up the different bands of 
Indians who were west of, this, hunting. Ihere were no 
buffalo in the country and these Indians were reported 
to be starving, and I was told to send all I could find 
into Camp Supply, where they could get rations, then 
they could go home. 
It was thought that this trip Would take rne about 
eighteen days to make, but I managed to string it out toi 
about six weeks before I got home again. I found a 
band of Comanches on my way home and attached myself 
to them, making an excuse to our officers that I wanted 
to see that this chief did go home; any excuse was better 
than none at all, and mine went. I got no court-martial 
for disobeying orders, but did get a blowing up from 
my captain. 
I started on this trip with a young northern Cheyenne 
Indian as a companion, but he deserted me while ive 
were in the canon of the Canadian River; he was afraid 
of d big band of Pawnee Indians I was then hunting for. 
I told him the Pawnees would not molest him while he 
was in my company, but he still thought they would, so 
I told him to take the trail home; he was of 110 use to me 
anyhow, I would rather go alone. 
I had a Springfield rifle and two Colts pistols. I took 
an extra horse with me instead of a pack mule, the horse 
would follow and not have to be led or driven. I knew 
every foot of this country and needed no guide ; that was 
why I had been sent. We first traveled about west, then 
in a day or two turned southwest. I wanted to send in 
any Indians I found in this country, then strike the Cana- 
dian River up near the Adobe Walls. I expected to find 
the Pawnees and other Indians up there. We_ would start 
each day about sunrise, travel about thirty miles, then gO' 
into camp, get our saddles off, stake our horses out and 
cook supper, then spread down one of our saddle blankets 
to lie on, covering ourselves with the other two and using 
the saddles for nillows. 
This young Indian spoke very good English for a 
Cheyenne, and when w^e had been out several days and 
were now almost in sight of the Canadian _ River, _we 
were riding along one afternoon when the Indian, pulling 
up his horse, said, “Look! Heap antelope over there, 
you see them?” I saw them now, but had not he called 
my attention to them I should not have noticed them at 
all. We were not going in their direction; they were 
off to our left, on the side of a small hill, or rather a 
high roll in the prairie, off which the grass had been 
burned lately leaving a black surface, and I estimated 
them to be 1,200 yards away. 
I had not had my rifle long; our Springfield carbines 
had lately been taken from us; they did not carry far 
enough; the Indians had better guns and could get be- 
hind sand hills and stand us off. I had given my carbine 
up when it was called for, without any regret at losing it. 
I would not give ten cents a dozen for them and use 
them to shoot with ; they might be worth more as scrap 
iron. I was never quite sure of being able to hit an ob- 
ject smaller than a barn door or a hay stack with it, but 
with this rifle I could hit what I aimed at. 
In the twenty years that I was in the cavalry I had had 
about all the guns that the Government put out to try 
us on, about a dozen different ones from first to last. 
They were continually experimenting with guns — good, 
bad and worse one.s — but they never thought to give us a 
Marlin or Kennedy, we might hit something with them. 
I should have had a .45-90 Marlin of _my own long since, 
but I would not be let carry it; I might hit an Indian 
with it; I would if he got in my road less than a quarter 
of a mile away. 
The last gun I ever had must have been sent us by 
mistake; it was the Hotchkiss carbine. While I never 
tried to split a ball on a knife blade with it (that can be 
done easier in story books than it can anywhere else), 
nor did I ever snuff any candles with it (I have done that 
with a pistol, and so can anyone if they try). I could He 
face down at 500 yards and make 23 or 24 out of a pos- 
sible 25, then repeat it with the next five shots. The 
target reports of Troop F, Fourth Cavalry, for the year 
1884 at Fort Lowell, Arizonia, will tell, if they still exist, 
whether I could or not. 
But the antelope are waiting to be shot all this tirne. 
I had forgot all about them. I drew my rifle out of its 
case on my saddle, put a load in it and put the sight up 
to 1,200 yards. The antelope were not that far off I now 
thought, but I had found out that the rifle dropped above 
500 yards; how much it would drop at a thousand I did 
not know. 
“No good; too far; you can’t shoot,” the Indian told 
me. 
“You wait, maybe so I can shoot. You look now.” I 
took stead)^ aim, at the whole bunch, of course, then 
fired. The antelope stood still for a minute then began 
to run around, and next disappeared across the rise they 
had been on. 
“You shoot one,” the Indian says. 
“Did I hit him ?” 
“Yes, me see him. I go get him.” 
“No, you stay here. I want to see how far; you come 
when I say come.” 
I had no tape line but we had been drilled to estimate 
distances, and I could guess them very closely now. 
Riding off what I thought was a hundred yards, I might 
have made it two or three hundred and got through with 
it sooner, but I wanted to be sure. I called the Indian 
down, then let him stop there while I rode another hun- 
dred, and at the end of the tenth hundred I was still sixty 
yards from the antelope. I’ll allow that sixty for pos- 
sible errors, I thought, and call it a thousand yards ; it is 
not a foot less. 
I had hit the antelope in the -flank and the ball had not 
gone clear through; it had no doubt ranged forward or 
it would not have killed him so soon, but I had no time 
now to hunt for it. The river was still several miles 
away and it was down in a canon. I might have to -hunt 
an hour for a place to get down to it. I cut off the hind 
quarters, leaving the skin on. The Indian wanted to take 
all, but I did not want to overload my pack horse; I 
might have to jump these horses over rocks to get down 
to the river. I knew that canon pretty well now. 
“How far you shoot?” the Indian asked. 
‘TIalf mile,” , I told him. That was as near as I could 
tell him. He knew nothing about feet or yards. , 
“How far your gun shoot all the time?” 
“Two miles, maybe, no more.” 
It would not, but those Northern Cheyennes had to be 
kept down where they were now by force. 1 hey. be- 
longed up in Nebraska and were always trying to get up 
there again. They had gone only a year ago and we 
had had to go after them; and I wanted this young fel- 
low , to have a high opinion of the distance I could 
“shoot” if I had to shoot at them again. 
We got to the canon an hour before sunset and 
struck it not a hundred yards from a place 
where I could get down into it. The descent was like a 
giant stairway ; there were regular ledges of rocks, each 
about five feet wide and about two feet above the next 
one below. We led our horses down, jumping first ora 
each step ourselves, then letting the horse follow. I 
went first and had the Indian bring up the rear, the pack 
horse between us. I did not know if he would follow 
here without being driven, but he did. Getting down on 
the floor of the canon we rode about a mile straight 
across to the river and went into camp along with some 
men and a wagon. They were down here from Kansas 
after cottonwood sprouts to plant timber claims. They 
had a two-horse wagonload of them now, about 5,000 
sprouts they said. These sprouts were a foot or t\vo 
high and not many of them larger than a lead pencil. 
They grew here in the sandy soil and can be pulled by 
hand. A thousand could be got off an acre. 
I found a few lodges of Cheyennes and gave them 
their marching orders. I had already turned several 
bands of Indians that I overtook going west and told 
them to go into Supply and get chnek-a-way. The In- 
dian ate about half of what venison we had brought 
with us for his supper, he would most likely have eaten 
more had we brought more. I told him to eat it all. I 
did not want it. 
He left me the next- day and had to depend on his 
Springfield carbine for his rations oji_ his way home. If 
he could not do better shooting with it than I could, and 
I don’t think he could, he went home hungry. 
Next day we kept on up the river and about noon I 
met the second white man I had seen since I had left the 
troop. This man told me where the Pawnees were likely 
to be found. I had to laugh at the first man_ I had met. 
I gave him a bad scare. We saw him early in the fore- 
noon of the day before, we were riding west then across 
a level prairie when w'e saw him a mile or more away, 
coming east. 
He saw us, and turning around, went back at a gallop. 
I wanted to speak to him, so leaving my pack horse and 
the Indian, I went after him. I rode a horse that was not 
in the habit of letting cow ponies run_ away from him. 
I let him out now and the cow pony might as well stop; 
he did. The man, seeing that I was going to overtake 
him, got off his pony and getting behind him threw his 
Winchester over the saddle. I was going to have a fight. 
I was about 500 yards from him and pulled up. I began 
to swing my hat in a circle to my right. “D — a _man,” I 
thought, “who can’t tell an Indian from a white man 
fifty feet away. Why don’t he go back east and stay 
there?” Some of these fellows had Indian on the brain 
and were expecting to meet one or a dozen ten times a' 
day. 
The man came from behind his pony now and mount- 
ing him started to meet me. “I thought you were Indians,” 
he said, when he came up to me. “Is not your companion 
an Indian?” 
“We both are. He is a Cheyenne, I am a Comanche, 
but we are not on the warpath now. There are plenty of 
Indians out here, but most of them are as harmless as 
we are. Don’t run when you see an Indian. It would 
be labor thrown away on that pony of yours, and you 
will only let the Indian know that you are afraid of 
him. Let him come up. It will do no harm, though, if 
you keep your Winchester where you can get it when he 
does come up.” 
Late in the afternoon to-day I saw a smoke rising 
among a bunch of trees across the river, and as I was 
now within a few miles of White Deer Creek, there might 
be Indians here. 
I tied my pack horse here, then rode across toward the 
smoke. There were bushes on that side near the wafer, 
and a path had been cut through them lately, but a: squaw 
had not cut it, I knew that. They may be cowboys,^ I 
thought, but there were no cattle in this part of the 
canon. I followed the path into the camp in among some 
post oaks. A big fire was burning and a dozen saddles 
lay about, while every tree had halters, bridles, or lariat 
hung on it, but not a man was in sight. 
“Flello, the camp!” I called out, but got no answer. 
“These are no cowboys,” I said. “I guess I know what 
they are. I don’t need them,” and turning around I got 
out of that. I had made up my mind now that they were 
“rustlers,” that is, horse and cattle thieves. 
I got to White Deer Creek where it falls into the Cana- 
dian River, just before dark, and could see the Pawnees’ 
camp-fires ten miles away up this* creek. It was too far 
to go after dark, so I went into camp here, gathered a 
big lot of dry wood from the drift piles, and got supper 
after I had started a big fire. I expected to have a visit 
from those rustlers before morning, but I need not stand 
guard. My horse would do that and notify me when 
they came. • , , , , 
I had a hammer-headed sorrel horse which looked 
as if he hardly knew enough to eat when hungry, but his 
looks belied him. I never had a more intelligent one. I 
had been riding him for four years and rode him another 
year after this, and then turned him in only because I 
was leaving the troop. I had taught him to do about 
everything except speak, and he would try to do that 
sometimes, when I sat in camp talking to him. He and 
I had put in each winter for the last four years going it 
alone, as we were doing now. For the first two I had 
him with me along with a band of Comanches on their 
hunt. The past two winters we had not sent details out 
with most of these bands, but our troop had watched 
them from a central camp, while I had been kept going 
alone most of the time carrying dispatches or watching 
the Indians. I was sent because I knew the country, but 
I need not have gone alone, I could have got as many 
men and any particular man I asked for, but I woul 4 
