Dec. 9 , ^ 905 - 
FOREST AND STREANI. 
467 
article of trade, and even the most experienced man 
could never foretell vhat a crowd of drink-Grazed 
Indians would do. 
The fort was barely completed when the Piegan 
Blackfeet arrived, and pitched their lodges in a long, 
wide bottom about a mile below us. I passed the 
greater part of my time down in their camp with a 
young married man named Weasel Tail, and another 
who bore a singular name: Talks-with-the-buffalo. 
These two were inseparable companions, and somehow 
they took a great liking to me, and I to them. Each 
• one had a fine new lodge, and a pretty young wife. 
I said to them once: “Since you think so much of 
each other, I do not understand why you do not live 
together in one lodge. It would save much packing, 
much wear of horses when traveling, much labor of 
gathering fire-wood, of setting up and breaking camp.” 
Talk-with-the-buffalo laughed heartily. “It is easy to 
see,” he replied, “that you have never been married. 
Know this, my good friend: Two men will live to- 
gether in quiet and lasting friendship, but two women 
1 ever; they will be quarreling about nothing in less 
than three nights, and will even try to drag their hus- 
bands into the row. That is the reason we live separ- 
rtely; to be at peace with our wives. As it is, they love 
each other even as my friend here and I love each 
ether, and thus, for the good of us all we have two 
lodges, two fires, two pack outfits, and enduring peace." 
Thinking the matter over, I realized that they were 
right. I knew two sisters once, white women — but 
that is another story. And after I married, and my wife 
and I took up our home with a friend and his wife for 
a time— but that is still another story. Oh, yes, the 
Indian knew whereof he spoke; neither white nor 
Indian married women can manage a common house- 
hold in peace and friendship. 
^ I enjoyed myself hugely in that great camp of seven 
k hundred lodges — some thirty-five hundred people. I 
[ learned to gamble with the wheel and arrows, and with 
I .the bit of bone Concealed in one or the other of the 
; player’s hands, and I even mastered the gambling song, 
: which is sung when the latter game is being played 
around the evening lodge fire. Also, I attended the 
; .dances, and even participated in the one that was 
.called “As-sin-ah' pes-ka” — Assinaboine dance. Re- 
unember that I was less than twenty years of age, just 
.a boy, but perhaps more foolish— more reckless than 
-.most youths. 
In this Assinaboine dance, only young unmarried 
;men and women participate. Their elders, their par- 
.ents and relatives, beat the drums and sing the dance 
;song, which is certainly a lively one, and of rather an 
;abandoned nature. The women sit on one side of the 
ilodge, the men on the other. The song begins, every 
(one joining in. The dancers arise, facing each other, 
(on their tip toes, and then sinking so as to bend the 
iknees. Thus they advance and meet, then retreat, again 
.-advance and retreat a number of times, all singing, all 
:smiling and looking coquettishly into each others’ eyes. 
Thus the dance continues, perhaps for several , hours, 
with frequent pauses for rest, or maybe to. . fea,st and 
smoke. But all the fun comes in toward the close of 
the festivities; the lines of men and women haVe ad-‘ 
vanced; suddenly a girl raises her robe or toga, casts 
it over her own and the head of the youth of her choice, 
and gives him a hearty kiss. The spectators shout with 
laughter, the drums are beaten louder than ever, the 
song increases in intensity. The lines retreat, the 
favored youth looking very much embarrassed, and all 
take their seats. For this kiss payment must be made 
on the morrow. If the young man thinks a great deal 
of the girl, he may present her with one or two horses; 
he must give her something, if only a copper bracelet 
or string of beads. I believe that I was an “easy 
mark” for those lively and, I fear, mercenary maidens, 
for I was captured with the toga, and kissed more often 
than any one else. And the next morning there would 
be three or four of them at the trading post with their 
mothers; and one must have numerous yards of bright 
prints; another some red trade cloth and beads; still 
another a blanket. They nearly broke me, but still I 
would join in when another dance was given. 
But if I danced, and gambled, and raced horses, my 
life in the camp was by no means a continual round of 
foolishness. I spent hours and hours with the medicine 
men and old warriors, learning their beliefs and tra- 
ditions, listening to their stories of the gods, their tales 
of war and the hunt. Also I attended the various re- 
ligious ceremonies; listened to the pathetic appeals of 
the medicine men to the Sun as they prayed for health, 
long life and happiness for the people. It was all ex- 
ceedingly interesting. 
Alas! Alas! why could not this simple life have con- 
tinued? Why must the railroads, and the swarms of 
settlers have invaded that wonderful land, and robbed 
its lords of all that made life worth living. They knew 
not care, nor hunger, nor want of any kind. From 
my window here I hear the roar of the great city, and 
see the crowds hurrying by. The day is bitterly cold, 
yet the majority of the pa.ssersby, \yoincn as well as 
inen, are thinly clad, and their laces are thm, and then- 
eyes express sad thoughts. Many of theni have ho 
warm shelter from the storm^ know nHt when they can 
get a little food, although they would gladly work for 
it with all their strength. They are “bound to the 
wheel,” and there is no escape from it except by death. 
And this is civilization! I, -for one, maintain that there 
is no satisfaction, no happiness in it. The Indians of 
the plains back in those days of which I write, alone 
knew what was perfect content and happiness, and that, 
we are told, is the chief end and aim of men, to be free 
from want, and worry, and care. Civilization will never 
furnish it, except to the very, very few. 
Walter B. Anderson. 
[to be continued.] 
Growth of Forestry in Seven Years. 
The annual report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 
just published, presents a striking resume of the growth 
of forestry in the past seven years, and of the part m 
this growth which has been taken by the Forest Service. 
“During the past year,” writes the Secretary, the 
Government work in forestry entered upon a new 
phase. Practical work in the actual introduction of 
forestry began in 189S. But it was not until Peb. i, 
1905, when the care of the National forest reserves was 
transferred to the Department of Agriculture, that the 
Forest Service became an administrative organization. 
“This transfer was a logical outcoriie of the recent 
work of the Service. During the last six or seven years 
it has passed through a remarkable development, 
which has followed but not kept pace with its demon- 
stration of capacity for public usefulness. On July i, 
1898, the Division of Forestry employed eleven persons, 
of whom six filled clerical or other subordinate 
positions and five belonged to the scientific staff. Of 
the latter, two were professional foresters. 
“At the opening of the present fiscal year the em- 
ployees of the Forest Service numbered 821, of whom 
153 were professional trained foresters. Field work 
was going on in twenty-seven States and Territories, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to 
Mexico. Over 900,000 acres of private forests were 
under management recommended by the Service, and 
applications on file for advice from owners contem- 
plating management covered 2,000,000 acres more. 
During the year nearly 62,000 letters were sent out 
from the offices at Washington, the majority of them 
in reply to requests for information and advice from 
the public, of a kind which could not be met by printed 
information. 
“This contrast imperfectly indicates the full extent of 
the change which has taken place and the progress 
which has been made. Seven years ago there were in 
the whole United States less than ten professional 
foresters. Neither a science nor a literature of Amer- 
ican forestry was in existence, nor could an education 
in the subject be obtained in this country. Systematic 
forestry was in operation on the estate of a single 
owner, honorably desirous of furnishing an object 
lesson in an unknown field. Lumbermen and forest 
owners were skeptical of the success of forest manage- 
ment, and largely hostile to its introduction. Among 
the public at large a feeling in favor of forest preserva- 
tion, largely on sentimental grounds, was fairly wide- 
spread, but almost wholly misinformed. ' It confounded 
use with destruction, shade-tree planting with forestry. 
“The real need of forestry was urgent, A time had 
come which presented at once great opportunity and 
a dangerous crisis. Forest destructiofi had’ reached 
a point where sagacious men — most of all, sagacious 
lumbermen — could plainly discern the nOt distant end. 
The lumber industry, vital to the nation at large, was 
rushing to its own extinction, j'et with , no avenue of 
escape apparent, until forest management for future 
crops should be forced by famine prices. Meanwhile, 
however, the ruin would have been wrought already. 
“Timberland owners were selling their holdings or 
their .stumpage with little evidence of an understanding 
of their future value, and lumbermen were compelled 
by business competition to keep down the cost of 
operation to the lowest terms, or market their product 
at a loss. 
“Forestry was both an evident economic need and an 
apparent economic impossibility. Few well-informed 
persons believed that the obstacles to its introduction 
could be overcome sufficiently to bring it into com- 
mon practice among private owners during the lives 
of the present generation. 
“That the whole situation is profoundly altered is 
directly and chiefly due to the work of the Forest 
Service. With its offer of practical assistance to forest 
owners made in the fall of 1898, its field of action 
shifted from the desk to the woods. The lumberman 
was met on his own ground. Uncertain speculations 
were converted into business propositions, and untried 
theories into practical rules. Actual management for 
purely commercial ends has been taken up and applied 
on their own holdings by some of the best-known lum- 
bermen in the country. What lumbermen as a body 
now think of forestry is illustrated by the recent effec- 
tive movement in their national association to endow 
a chair of lumbering at one of the forest schools. 
“Public opinion generally has experienced an equal 
change, and a sound national sentiment has been 
created. The great and varied interests dependent upon 
the forest have been awakened to the urgent need of 
making provision for the future. States have been 
led to enact wise laws and enter upon a well-con- 
sidered forest policy. 
“Forestry is a matter of immediate interest to every 
household in the land. Forest destruction is no 
imaginary danger of a distant ffiture. If it is not 
speedily checked its effects will sooner or later be left 
in every industry and every home. To make these 
facts known is a national duty. The work of educa- 
tion must continue until public opinion will not tolerate 
h^Jless waste or injudicious laws.” 
When the Sharptail Grouse Were 
Plentiful. 
The days of the sharptailed grouse and prairie 
chicken in Minnesota and the Dakotas are drawing td 
a close. The bags grow smaller year after year, arid iri 
fact, some sections, heretofore the best of chickfen and 
grouse ground, yield no returns at all. No more do the 
wild chickens of the prairie appear among the domes- 
tic fowl at feeding time in the barnyard. The day has 
gone when the farmer can shoot prairie chickens from 
his front porch. The prairie chicken and grouse are 
going the way of their former horned and woolly 
friend of the plains, and in a very short time specimens 
can be seen only in the museums. 
No bird has given the huntsman such royal sport as 
the prairie chicken and the sharp-tailed grouse. What 
days those must have been when in August the prairie 
grass sheltered covey after covey, so close together that 
the marking down of a flushed or scattered covey was 
unthought of! These birds in their plentitude impressed 
one as did the millions of buffalo — extermination was 
impossible. 
Fifteen years ago early in September I went north 
from St. Paul and crossed over into Canada at Pem- 
bina after sharptail grouse. We put up at a wheat 
farmer’s and lived for a few days within a sea of golden 
stubble. 
Great was the shooting. A stroll before breakfast 
around the confines of the farm fences on the edge of 
the wheat fields, without even a dog, would yield half 
a dozen fine birds. Up from the stubble the great 
birds would flush with a coo-coo-coo. as they sailed 
away like overgrown quail. 
Our banner day came during one afternoon. Ahead 
of us was a long, narrow patch of stubble perhaps half 
a mile in length. We could see the birds scattered 
through this field feeding upon the scattered grain. 
Calling the dogs to heel, we spread out across the 
field, and began to walk them up. The old birds gen- 
erally flushed before we got within gunshot, but the 
younger ones remained, flushing perhaps twenty-five to 
forty yards ahead of us, giving us ideal shooting. 
We noticed that the birds which flushed out of gun- 
shot and those that escaped our aim flew straight down 
the field and pitched iiito what looked like a brush lot 
as we neared it. Really it was a patch of wheat, uncut 
because the weeds and sumach bushes had made too 
much headway. Affording magnificent cover and feed- 
ing opportunities as well, the birds selected this spot as 
their harbor of refuge. And when we had cleaned up 
the stubble field, and , approaching the cover, hied our 
dogs in, the fun commenced. 
The dogs stood on the edge of the cover and pointed. 
As a bird flushed and was killed, it flushed others as it 
hit the ground. And we shot until we felt we had 
enough, and quit. With the aid of the dogs we found 
our dead birds and secured the crippled ones. 
The nights were cold',- %nd our birds, hung on the 
north side of the house, -were in fine shape when we 
started for the train. Every, bird was fresh and sweet 
when we arrived at home* and with them we made our 
friends and neighbors happy. 
We did well to waiti, until September and cooler 
weather. The opening day of the season, Aug. 15, had 
been hot and sultry. It -was told us that some officers 
at Fort Pembina had shpt over the Ridge, a famous 
sharptail grouse range, ,op the opening day. It is said 
that they killed 90.0, sharptail grouse. By the time 
they were ready to send the birds to their friends, only 
300 were fit to start fgr the depot, and when these 
reached their destination they were too far gone for 
any use. This story was told in a commonplace way as 
an ordinary piece of news, and the truth of it I cannot 
vouch for. 
During the night previous to the morning of our 
departure two or three inches of snow had fallen, and 
during our early morning long ride over the prairies 
and across the stubble fields toward the depot, I can 
remember how' much in evidence the birds were. Every 
grain stack had its quota of birds perched on top, pick- 
ing away at. the grain in the ear. The wheat in the 
shock, but not yet stacked, was liberally patronized, 
one. or two great plump birds feeding on the top of 
every shock. Only those quite close to the road would 
fly away with a coo-coo-coo, as we got close by. But 
we were through with our shooting. Our shells and 
guns were stowed away, and we were bent on making 
time over the sticky, snowy prairie roads, intent on 
catching our train. So with contented and placid minds 
we jogged along, enjoying the sight of the feeding 
grouse at every wheat field we passed, until well within 
sight of our destination. And nowadays, when one 
■ reads of the smallness of the kill and the complaints 
about the scarcity of the birds, it is a pleasure to look 
back to the ride across the prairies when each snow- 
capped stack and shock harbored the hungry birds in 
plain sight, and many of them, within easy shot from 
our wagon seat. Charles Cristadoro. 
Solid Comfort,” 
I PRESUME you have little idea how much solid comfort 
I have got from Forest and Stream during the years I 
have not been permitted to enjoy field sports. Long ac- 
quaintance with it has got me to looking for its arrival 
as I would for the coming of a most valued friend. 
While it has from the first number been always a good 
paper, the last six months have been superb. I note with 
sorrow the dropping off of the old and valued contribu- 
tors, but there have new ones come on, all of whose 
articles are very good and some of them are intensely 
interesting. “The Log of a Sea Angler” is an account 
of a trip that has been one of the dreams of my life, and 
is written in such graphic style that I feel that I ’have 
had the trip, and had it without any of the annoyances 
in the way of mosquitoes and other pests that would be 
a part of the real trip. I mourn the loss of Cabia Blanco 
as a friend whom I had never seen but hoped some day 
to take by the hand and tell him how much pleasure he 
had given. O. H. Hampton. 
