June, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAIM 
309 
E. D. STEARNS 
HERE died a few 
weeks ago in the 
Wyoming Rockies, a 
man who was in a 
way as much a mar- 
tyr to duty as was 
almost any soldier 
in the trenches. 
Probably most of 
our readers are 
aware of the fact 
that Uncle Sam 
maintains a small 
band of wolf-hunters, under the direction 
of the Bureau of Biological Survey. The 
deceased, E. D. Stearns, was one of these. 
His beat was on the headwaters of the 
Gros Venere River, a tributory of the 
Snake, south of and near to Yellowstone 
Park. It is a picked body of men, and 
the best of them are on duty the year 
round. Summer is glorious in that 
region, but winter is almost arctic in 
severity. Temperatures drop to a min- 
imum of nearly fifty below, and the snow 
in the foothills and higher may be any- 
thing up to twenty feet deep. It is here 
that the elk are making their last stand ; 
the wonder is that any still survive the 
winters, without regard to the wolves 
and coyotes. 
In summer, Stearns did his work 
chiefly with traps, running a line of them 
25 miles long every day on horseback. 
And, except to go for supplies, or to a 
distant post office for orders, he never 
missed a day. But winter is a sterner 
proposition. Traps are then almost use- 
less, owing to their being so speedily 
covered with snow. Nothing suffices but 
to track the wolves on snowshoes. Pick- 
ing up a fresh trail, Stearns would fol- 
low wherever it led, hoping for and often 
getting a shot, and he was a marksman, 
indeed. Of necessity, he carried the 
scantiest of equipment, aside from his 
rifle, bacon, rice, coimmeal, tea, a few 
ounces only of each ; a tin can or two 
for utensils and bedding which aggre- 
gated in weight exactly nine pounds. 
Whenever night overtook him, there 
he camped, under the first spruce tree 
that was handy. And he kept this up 
day after day, visiting some one of his 
string of remote log huts, only to replen- 
ish food or cartridges. It is strenuous 
work indeed and it tells on all who fol- 
low it. When illness (influenza) came 
it found an easy victim. He died in the 
performance of his duty. 
The work will go on as before, of 
course. What man has done, man will 
do again. But the service has no more 
faithful, modest servant than the man 
whose little story is here recorded. 
Upon this peg, it will do no harm, per- 
haps to hang a plea for the Bureau of 
Biological Survey itself. That part of 
its annual appropriation which it can de- 
vote to game refugees is only $30,000, 
a beggarly pittance, considering the field 
it is expected to cover. Half that, or 
near it, ought to go to the feeding of 
the elk alone south of Yellowstone Park. 
And there are many bird refugees and 
game sanctuaries, some of which have 
had to be left practically or wholly with- 
out attention. The prayer of the righteous 
availeth much, but a letter from every 
subscriber would be more to the point. 
Always carry a DAYLO for hunting and trapping 
Inspecting Traps, Dead Falls 
and Snares with a Daylo 
W ITH a Daylo to help, you can pick out tracks 
and signs that an Indian would miss — 
— Inside of hollow logs and trees. 
— Under big tangles of roots or driftwood. 
— Under banks covered with overhanging grass and 
brush. 
— And even down in the home holes and dens of the 
fur bearers themselves. 
No successful trapper should cover a trap line without an 
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