Forest aed Stream 
Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Months,F.$l.50. 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1906. 
( VOL. LXVII. 
I No. 346 Broadwav 
Terms, $3 a 
Six 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
Objects, Announcement in first number of 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14,1873. 
TO WEEKLY PURCHASERS. 
Owing to a change in the method of distribut¬ 
ing the Forest and Stream, readers who are ac¬ 
customed to purchase the paper of newsdealers, 
at news stands, in book shops, and elsewhere, 
are advised to leave with the dealer from whom 
they buy a standing advance order to supply them 
regularly. If any reader has difficulty in pro¬ 
curing the paper, he is requested to communicate 
with the publishers. 
THE BLACKFEET. 
We print this week the last chapter of the story 
“In the Lodges of the Blackfeet.” The manifest 
truthfulness of the tale and its simple human 
nature have made a strong impression. Inci¬ 
dentally, the story has awakened a lively interest 
in the Piegan Indians, who now occupy a small 
reservation in northwestern Montana. The Pie- 
gans, or, as they are officially known, the Black¬ 
feet Indians, had been buffalo eaters ever since 
they entered and conquered the lands where the 
white man found them. Their troubles began 
when the buffalo were exterminated. The story 
that we have printed practically ends with the 
starvation winter which followed the disappear¬ 
ance of the buffalo. 
For a few years after that time the Indians sub¬ 
sisted on the rations issued to them by the Gov¬ 
ernment. In 1887 they surrendered to the United 
States by treaty a great part of their territory in 
northern Montana, and in 1895 they sold a further 
tract of their mountains, which was supposed to 
contain valuable mineral deposits. 
From time to time, cattle have been issued to 
these Indians, and their herds at one time num¬ 
bered more than 20,000. Through the inefficiency 
of a number of their agents, their herds became 
greatly reduced. A little later the Government 
cut off their rations, and this obliged the Indians 
to part with their horses and cattle in order to 
pay the bills that they had run up at the trader’s 
store. The Indian traders have a practical 
monopoly of store-keeping on the reservation, 
and they are said to have come together and 
agreed to charge prices from one-third to one- 
half higher than are charged for the same goods 
by traders living off the reservation. 
On an Indian reservation, money is a very 
scarce article. There is little or no opportunity 
for the Indians to hire out for wages, and they 
can thus get no cash. Their rations have been 
cut off; they can live only by purchasing food 
from the traders; and their sole means of pur¬ 
chasing such food is by selling their horses and 
their cattle. The consequence is that the herds of 
the Blackfeet have, in large measure, passed over 
into the hands of the Indian traders, and when 
their horses and their cattle shall have all dis¬ 
appeared, the prospect will be dark for them. 
On the other hand, the reclamation service is 
about to build through the Blackfeet Reservation 
an irrigation ditch, which will give work to a 
number of Indians, and it is understood that a 
few men and teams have gone to work on this 
within the present month. Nevertheless, in that 
country, it is impossible for any Indian, even if 
he should have work during the three or four 
months when work is possible—between July 1 
and the winter—to earn enough to support his 
family through the year. They must depend on 
their cattle. 
At the last session of Congress a bill was passed 
providing for the allotment of their lands to the 
Blackfeet, but as the bill made no adequate pro¬ 
vision for protecting the water rights of the In¬ 
dians, it was vetoed by President Roosevelt. It is 
probable that at the next session of Congress the 
matter will come up again, and if an allotment bill 
is passed it should protect the Indians in their 
water rights, and should give them an acreage 
of land greatly in excess of that provided for by 
the general allotment act. The Blackfeet Reserva¬ 
tion lies far to the north, and is between four 
thousand and five thousand feet above the sea 
level. It is a bleak, arid country, fit for grazing 
and for nothing else. Snows fall until July; 
frosts occur every month in the year; oats sel¬ 
dom ripen; potatoes do not give a crop one year 
in four. Cattle raising must be the sole industry 
by which these people live, and cattle cannot be 
raised without land to graze on. The bill provid¬ 
ing for the allotment of the Blackfeet Indians 
should give to each individual not less than three 
hundred and twenty acres of land. 
As for the Blackfoot life of the present, it is 
much like that of white people. Mr. Anderson’s 
story covers the transition period of the Indians 
from a wild tribe to a community adapting itself 
as best it may to the ways of civilization. The 
lodges of the Blackfeet have disappeared; in their 
stead are furnished wooden houses. The altered 
type of dwelling epitomizes the changed condi¬ 
tions, and tells in a word the passing from the 
old to the new. 
MIDSUMMER. 
The whitening tops of the chestnut trees tell 
us that midsummer is here, and indeed this is the 
first of the signs—which a little later will be many 
—to tell us that the year is rolling along, and that 
before we know it, the shooting season will open, 
frost will come, then snow, and at last winter. 
Except for the hoary crown of the chestnut 
trees, there is little now to suggest cold weather. 
In many of the meadows the grass still grows 
rank and tall, though already it is falling before 
—No. 3. 
, New York. 
the machines drawn by the patient animals which 
walk to and fro' in the meadows and gradually cut 
it off, and a few days later we see only the brown 
close-shaven stubble, over which robins, crows 
and the red-winged blackbirds search for food. 
The rye has turned yellow and is being cut, and 
over much of the broad west the harvests are 
in progress, or have even ended. Yet the field 
corn has months more to grow before its tassels 
bend to the breeze and its silk grows brown be¬ 
neath the .sun. 
The birds have reared their brood, and on the 
lawns and along the woods roads the first flocks 
of robins have got together. The birds of the 
earliest hatching have already lost their spots, 
yet other broods are coming along, and one may 
still find nests which contain eggs. Long ago 
the first litters of gray squirrels, rabbits and 
woodchucks were abroad, and the early hay 
makers capture not a few young rabbits, while 
the farm dog, knowing that for him the wood¬ 
chuck season has opened, spends much of his 
time about the lots, craftily plotting how he may 
capture the young woodchucks whose innocence 
too often renders them his easy prey. 
Within a month from this time many species of 
birds will be gathered into flocks, preparing for 
the autumnal migration, and a little later, as the 
heads of the wild rice grow heavier and begin to 
turn yellow, the rail shooting will begin. Then 
we shall think that autumn is at hand. 
Among the officers selected for the General 
Staff of the Army, in place of those whose detail 
has expired, is Col. Geo. S. Anderson of the 6th 
Cavalry. To the readers of Forest and Stream 
Col. Anderson’s name is familiar, since for seven 
years he was the Superintendent of the Yellow¬ 
stone National Park, where he did a wonderful 
work in building up and protecting the reserva¬ 
tion. During the Spanish War, Col. Anderson 
served in Cuba with great distinction, and sub¬ 
sequently commanded a volunteer regiment in the 
Philippines, which did great work in pacifying 
the country. The regiment, largely recruited 
from Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, con¬ 
sisted almost wholly of huge men from the moun¬ 
tains of those States, and it was perhaps quite 
as much the moral effect of their size as their 
superb fighting qualities and their endurance 
which led to the speedy quieting of the district in 
which the regiment served. 
Of old time it was said of the eagle, “It goeth 
forth to prey about noon, when men are gone 
home out of the fields.” Not less sagacious are 
the deer of Massachusetts, judging from the ob¬ 
served action of the Haverhill buck, as related by 
our Boston correspondent. The wise creature 
hangs around outside a garden, waiting until it 
sees the owmer safely aboard a trolley for Bos¬ 
ton; then jumps the fence and makes free with 
the cabbages. 
