Oct. 14, 19051 FOREST AND STREAM. S07 
■legant.WIien he was through with the first of -it Gharlie 
.old him that he had come in to settle up the -Case with 
lim, and he would prefer to do the talking in private, hot 
lefore a shopful of men. Peter wouldn’t listen to this 
It first, but finally he Consented to go inside, and talk the 
hing over. Annie was. at the telegraph instrument when 
.ve went in, and she never let on that she saw Charlie. 1 
lin't going to bother you with the details of the Case, but 
Peter’s story was that Charlie had sold him a dyed fox, 
tot a tree ItiaC: one. He had a dispatch from the fox 
farm in Aiaine, which he showed me, and it bore him 
utt all fight, When he’d done reading it Charlie said 
lothing, he just began to tap on the table with his jack- 
aiife, ‘tickety tack, tack, tickety tack, tack’ like an in- 
urumem when a dispatch is going over the line. He 
ladn’t been doing tliis tor a minute when Annie Sinclair 
Limped up with her pretty face as red as fire. ‘Father,’ 
>ays .she, ‘that ir.an has called me a fool and you a rogue,’ 
;ays she. ‘and I ain’t going to sit here and be insulted.’ 
“Peter tried to turn wdiilc, but he turned green instead. 
Do you mean to tell me you can work the telegraph?’ 
;ays he. 
■‘‘Work the telegraph?’ says Charlie. ‘Why, I was 
.vorking one wdien this girl of yours was a five-year-old 
ad. I heard every word that went over the wires while 
1 stayed here, how you sent word on that you had a 
hack fox to sell, and the answer was that they would 
jay $8oo for it if in good condition. Then when I sent 
ny dispatch this girl never transmitted it; she jtik wired 
lack that the price was too low. Then she called up the 
lead ofifice and asked for extra time, as the line was 
vanted for important business. Then she sends my mes- 
sage to Canso, saying there was no hurry about it, and 
'.vrites the answer herself, and then she gets word that 
he company would go one thousand if the animal was 
J. K. Pve got my dispatch offering me $200 for the pair, 
ind when it comes into court, along with the other ones, 
he Western Union will make things lively for you and 
our daughter. I don’t admit that there was anything 
■vrong with the fox, but I can prove that there’s some- 
hing mighty wrong with this office, and if you’re minded 
o take these civil paoer back and make the case a crim- 
nal one I’ll be willing to have it tried before any jury 
/'ou can scare up in Annapolis county.’ 
“Says Peter, ‘Give me them papers back. This man 
las bitten me once, but he’ll never do so again. I ain’t a 
>oing to have my daughter pulled into court on the word 
)f a worthless loafer, even if the devil has taught him to 
un a telegraph instrument.’ 
■‘I gave the papers back and Peter paid me my fees 
uid mileage, he also wrote me out a statement that the 
:ase was settled out of court. Charlie and I went out, 
ind drove down to the tavern at Hunt’s Brook, and put 
n the night there. In the morning Charlie paid both 
aur bills and offered me the fees over again, but I told 
rim that anyone who could get away from Peter Sinclair 
lad no right to pay twice over for doing so. What beats 
tie is how any man who knows how to run a telegraph 
lould be content to stay in the woods, like Charlie did. 
He cleared for the States a few days later, and I 'hear 
lie’s doing well in Denver, and I hope he is, for he’s a 
lecent little man, even if he lifted old Peter Sinclair. 
“I did not deem it necessary- or advisable to tell the 
dieriff that Charlie McConnell had confided his reasons 
for settling ‘back of Chalmers Grant’ to me, nor did I 
livLilge the fact that I had donated a couple of drachms 
if nitrate of silver to him, ‘to make hair-dye.’ I had 
first made Mr. McConnell’s acquaintance when he was 
icting as telegrapher and signalman at Herring Cove, 
near Halifax. I lent him the money to buy his bit of 
land back of Chalmers Grant, and in return for this he 
liad initiated me into the ways of the. woods, and given 
me much information as to the life the Canadian leads 
ivho enlists in the Imperial forces with the mistaken idea 
hat soldiering is ‘sodgering.’ I obtained the gentleman’s 
address in Denver, and in reply to my letter he was kind 
mougli to tell me his side of the ‘black fox’ story. Omit- 
ting perfectly personal news, his letter ran as follows : 
■‘‘You want to know how I got ahead of Peter Sin- 
:lair on the fox racket? It was this way. Two years or 
so before that he skinned me out of nearly $100 on a deal 
in minks. I lay low until I found a fox den; then I dug 
| :he pups out and brought them up tame. There were 
three dogs and two bitches, and along in the early rail 
1 blackened two of the dogs up, using the stuff you 
ihowed me how to make, and turned them down near 
Chalmers Grant. Of course, they raised Cain with the 
aens and things near, and several people saw them, but 
IS soon as the late fall came they shed their coats and 
urned red, just like they were before. 
“ ‘The two hitch pups and the other dog I kept. When 
-he spring came and the foxes were dogging I took and 
lyed him black, and if I say so myself, only an expert 
:ould have told he wasn’t genuine. The, fox farm people 
were crazy to get hold of a black dog-fox, and I wrote 
hem, and they said they would pay anywhere from $500 
m $1,000 for one. I dropped Peter a hint of this, and he 
:aught on. and wrote them— the rest you know as well 
IS I do.’” 
Two wrongs do not make a right, and the fact that 
Peter Sinclair swindled Charlie McConnell on a deal in 
minks might not justify the proceedings being reversed 
when it came to a deal in foxes, but I have always had 
1 sympathy with the “under dog,” and in this particular 
instance I was rejoiced to hear that the would-be biter 
had been most severe!}" bitten. 
Edmund F. L. Jenner. 
Stfiped Bass in the Hudson. 
I Ossining, N. Y., Oct. 7 . — Editor Forest and Stream: 
pThe season is now on here for striped bass. There has 
: been some very fair fishing during the last few weeks, 
most of the fish being caught on the Croton Point and 
Northwest Point reefs. The best catches have been made 
by Capt. “Jack” Aitchison and his parties trolling with 
spinner and sand worms. This morning a Mr. Rothschild, 
who was with him, caught several beauties, one of which 
weighed ii pounds 12 ounces. Shortly after;:Gatchmg- the 
large one they hooked on to what must have been the 
daddy of them all, for he broke an eight-5trand -snell and 
got away. C. G, B; _ , 
Forest and Stream Medicine Chest. 
Early in. the present year a suggestion of the writer 
, brought to the Forest, and Stream a number of contribu- 
tions from a number of m.edical and surgical members of 
it.s, family, namely, Messrs. Robert T, Morris, Edward 
h'rench, Lewis H. Rose, J, - E. Bulkley and last hut not 
least, the anonymous writer of !a.«t week, upon the sub- 
ject of sickness and accident in camp, how to- care for 
- the same and the means and appliances needful therefor. 
It is safe to say that never before has the subject been so 
ably presented to lay readers of a secular paper. And as 
the articles appeared from time to time it seemed to me 
that I mi, ght with propriety venture to acknowledge the 
personal benefit, of the information thus imparted, as well 
as to give some account of the medicine chest which I 
have had made and stocked from the lists and directions 
given. The lists given so nearly agreed as to disclose to 
the layman that the science of medicine in so far as it re- 
lates to the treatment of common ailments has become 
greatly simplified and compacted of late years, and that 
minor surgery has become almost wholly a matter of 
cleanliness, surgically speaking, and of natural reparative 
procedure. And inasmuch as the camper is liable to meet 
with sickness and accidents in places without the reach of 
professional aid, it is possible, because of this comparative 
simplicity and compactness of means and appliances to 
provide him with a ir>cdicine chest and instructions for 
its use sufficient for ahnost any medical or surgical emer- 
gency. Such provision may serve to tide over matters 
to a recovery and, perhaps, save life. 
The instances hi which the respective lists differed were 
found to be in minor particulars, such, for instance, as 
the preference of one gentleman for cliloranodyne, and 
of another for Sejuibb’s cholera mixture; and matters of 
similar import. One gentleman told of the Steinhoffer 
bandage and the Esmarch suspenders, the latter used by 
the soldiers of the German army, and both articles “made 
in Germany.” When I asked the large surgical supply 
house man, who made my medicine chest, about these 
articles it was a poser for him ; he had never heard of 
them. It is a wonder that the American soldier has not 
at least procured the Esmarch suspenders from his cousin 
German, for they would seem to be an article of double 
value. Another writer rather deprecated placing the hypo- 
dermic syringe and its concomitants in the hands of lay- 
men, remarking that not one case of snake bite in ten 
thousand is fatal — to grown and healthy men. It may be 
remarked in this connection that the next week’s issue 
of Forest and Stream gave the account of the death, 
within an hour of being bitten by a rattler, of the curator 
of the Los Angeles Zoological Garden. Other gentlemen 
advised its being included, and I did so in the chest in 
question. I have noticed often that the kind of trouble 
you don’t have is the kind you are prepared for, and I 
don’t want any snake bites. As for its use, I admit it re- 
quires careful study and very careful handling, but it is 
not nearly so dangerous as a heart that wants to stop 
heating. The very first trip of the new medicine chest 
furnished some very significant though not very exciting 
arguments in favor of the hypodermic equipment, of 
which I will speak later on. 
The complete list, without any duplicates or alternative 
remedies, includes more than thirty articles or kinds of 
articles, and the question of the size of the chest was the 
first problem to be solved. This was solved or resolved 
in favor of a chest large enough to contain substantial 
supplies of the various medicines, accordingly most of 
them are in the original packages or bottles, an added ad- 
vantage of this being that the labels are printed, as well 
as the doses and formula. The case, therefore, was made 
about ten inches m length, six inches wide and five inches 
high, made of hard wood and exceedingly strong, with 
stiff compartments for each bottle, leather lined, and 
hound and covered with black grain leather having a 
leather handle and a strong clasp and lock and key, as it 
is not the sort of thiiior for children and fools to get into. 
It will be seen that it can fall out of a wagon and not 
have anything within it break. Within it is a separate 
liocketbook case containing the instruments, needles and 
silks. The nitrate of silver is in a hard rubber tube, and 
the boracic acid powder in a hard rubber bottle with a 
screw off cap on each end, one end revealing a pepper- 
box shaker. The corrosive sublimate tablets are in a 
blue bottle, plainly marked and labeled “poison.” I have 
not yet done so, but it is my intention to prepare and have 
printed a pamphlet containing the Forest and Stream 
articles of the gentlemen above mentioned, and a list of 
the contents of the chest, careful directions for the snake- 
bite treatmen||»etc,, to go in the chest. Oh, yes, it cost 
me something. ' I think I hear some one say “how much?” 
So I will anticipate the question. Sixteen dollars in 
money, and about a dozen visits to the man. (The retail 
price of the medicine alone _would be about $10, to say 
nothing of the instruments and case.) But I felt well 
- repaid for my trouble and expense when I started off with 
the children on a camping trip with the, chest in the trunk 
and the feeling that I was prepared for trouble. And we 
came within about ten inches of trouble, too. We were 
going in a “pisen snake” country, to a beautiful river, 
one of the. best in the world for small-mouth black bass 
fly-fishing. The children rode off from the railroad wifli 
- Mrs. A. in the first wagon, and Mr. A. and I followed 
on the other wagon with the camp things. He is a great 
walker and soon jumped out and started ahead of me, 
following the first wagon closely. Two miles down in 
the hills a rattlesnake lay coiled within, as I say, ten 
inches of the wheel track. The mules passed it without 
being struck. It did not rattle. Then Mr. A. walked past 
it in the wagon track and it neither rattled nor struck at 
him. He said it could have reached him. too. As he 
passed it that something which makes a fellow look at 
a snake drew his eye around to his right and he saw it. 
He struck it with a rock, and then it rattled, but it was 
disabled. He smashed its head the first throw. It was 
still trying to rattle when he threw it into the hind end 
of our wagon. It had eight rattles, was about four feet 
long and as thick in the rniddle as a man’s wrist is wide. 
It was in a brand new skin and brightly marked, save at 
its tail, where it was a velvety black. I do not remember 
t to have noticed the black marking at the tail before. 
Three days after that he and I were making an out- 
house near the tents when he turned over a log within 
A ten feet thereof and jumped back and exclaimed; “Here’s 
anolher snake!” This time it was a copperhead, the cop- 
per markings- of which were very dark, like old copper, 
possibly because he lived under that old log in the day 
time. I : shudder yet to think of the children going out 
there about dusk, the time when copperheads begin to 
Stir. We each got a long stick and when I said I was 
ready A. pulled the log off him,, as he had run under it 
again, and we killed him, or rather A. did so, for my 
blow landed on a rock and did no execution. A day or 
so after that I was reading in the hammock, and the chil- 
dren were under the dining room awning, where Mrs. 
Morgan, the. camp cook, whom we had procured in the 
neighborhood, exclaimed ; “There goes a bug that is as 
poisonous as any rattlesnake. It’s a rattlesnake ant. 
They kill cattle when they sting them. Killed a good 
many after that dry year, and the way we know it aroutld 
here is, one of them bit a cow in the foot, down the river 
here about a couple of miles, and its leg swelled up and 
it finally died, and when they looked where the swelling 
started they found one of them. Its stinger wouldn’t 
come out, and so it stayed there and died along with the 
cow.” 
Now a rattlesnake ant was a new one on me, so I went 
around the tent to where they were and asked to see it, 
and Mrs. Morgan told me it had run under a leaf, which 
she pointed out to me. I found it to be an insect about 
the length of a humble bee, but not quite so stockily 
built, being more like a wasp or an ant, having no wings, 
but being a fast runner, marked with bars of orange or 
gold, like a bumblebee. I caught it and it repeatedly tried 
to sting my knife-blade, with a stinger that is at least a 
half inch in length, disclosing on its point each time it 
thrust a tiny globule of amber colored fluid. Mrs. M. 
remarked that it eould stick its “hypodermic needle” into 
soft wood so far it couldn’t pull it out. I do not know 
what it is, as I say, but I conclude it is the king bee of 
all the venomous insects in this country, judging from 
the length of its stinger and the looks of that tiny globule 
of amber colored liquid. I inclose it herewith, and it may 
be that the wise man at the Forest and Stream office 
can tell us more about it. 
But I fear this article is becoming too toxic. Too 
redolent of unpleasant things. Nevertheless I cannot re- 
sist adding that one night I woke up, doubtless because 
of a strong odor of polecat which pervaded the tent, and 
which I soon found had awakened the children also, as 
well as those in the other tent. ' I remembered that A. 
had a coach candle on a stake just outside liis tent flap, 
and at my suggestion he set it aflame. We didn’t want 
any polecats loafing around there, and thought we would 
try the lighted candle as a sort of gentle persuader — the 
only kind of persuasion it is worth while to institute 
under such circumstances. It worked like a charm, al- 
most immediately we could perceive a diminution of the 
presence of polecat, and when we dropped off to sleep 
again it was not discernible at all. Verb. sap. 
As a matter of fact, the only real uses of the .contents 
of the medicine chest were, as one of the medicail gentle- 
men predicted, in cases of mosquito bites and juvenile 
sour stomachs, which were promptly relieyed by the oxide 
and resorcin and the soda mints, for both of which the 
children give the gentlemen thanks. We ran some safe 
rapids, to the delight of the, children, had a delightful 
swim each day at 4 o’clock— and then, before A. and I 
began to “run the river” and fly-fish in earnest, a sad 
happening at-home called my regretful and tearful little 
girls and myself back; hut it is a beautiful river, and it 
is fine to record that A. ran it twice and caught no small- 
mouth black bass, a decent proportion of which were re- 
turned unhurt, landing three doubles, having his rods 
bent in all sorts of shapes, and coming home ready to 
acknowledge that I was right when I promised him he 
would see the prettiest river he ever threw. a fly over. 
George Kennedy. 
Looting the Woods. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Reading Raymond S. Spears on floating down the 
Mississippi, reminds one that the great river is indeed 
great. Mr. Spears’ tales of experiences on the mighty 
waterway come, to us here on the banks of that same 
stream as stories of a' remote land and of a strange 
people. One can scarcely conceive that the waters that 
carried him on his voyage in that far land are the same 
waters that pass our door every day. Yet, follow the 
tortuously crooked line down across the map, and we find 
it really continuous to the very same places where Mr. 
Spears exploited. 
We remember, too, that we have river people here as 
well as in the far-renovened Southland; but how differ- 
ent is the lumber jack of the North Woods from the 
shanty boatman and fisherman of the south end of this 
great artery of nature. Petty thieving is little known in 
the land of the lumber jack. Miscellaneous property 
left lying about loose is seldom missed when called for. 
A branded pw log may lie neglected on the river bank 
till it rots; it will not be touched by any but the proper 
parties. But when it comes to maverick or a standing 
tree, all is changed. Stealing timber off State lands is 
a business almost as legitimate as banking, provided it 
is done on large enough scale. Many a haughty million- 
aire owes his rise to getting in right on public timber 
lands, and in very, very many cases a Government 
official was the means of getting in, right. The State 
Government is very modest where it catches a large 
operator helping himself to State timber, which it does 
on rare occasions when outsiders interfere. It very 
politely asks the trespassers to pay the value of the 
timber taken, there is an argument, and the offender is 
allowed to settle at what he thinks he has got. Think 
of it, you toiling bank burglars! If you only had a 
pull like this! Nor has the general Government been 
the least bit stingy in helping to get away with booty. 
For twenty-five years it has been pouring money into 
the upper wilderness to build reservoirs, dredge chan- 
nels and otherwise facilitate the work of bringing out 
the spoils. 
I think Mr. Spears could find no parallel, though, to 
the case of the settlers along the upper river. He tells 
of millions expended by the Government in building 
levees and improving waterways to. protect the planta- 
tions along the river from floods. Hero the order is 
