FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 4, 1906. 
I 70 
The Story of a Man. 
A crowded excursion steamer on Lake Maxin- 
kuckee was coming up to the pier at Culver, 
Indiana, at about 6:30 P. M., on Sunday, July 
9, 1906, four days ago. The passengers crowded 
to the gangway, and when about 100 yards from 
the pierhead an eight-year-old boy was crowded 
off the boat and sank in twenty feet of water. 
As sometimes happens, there were no swimmers 
at hand, and, as I say, the boy sank. His 
mother was on the boat. 
Now there was a certain man living at Culver 
who worked in the Lake View Hotel as a dish¬ 
washer. Part of his work consisted in going to 
the spring at the Culver cottage for the drink¬ 
ing water used at the hotel, and thus he became 
known to the ladies of the Culver family sum¬ 
mering at the cottage, one of whom said o her 
husband one day, “Do you know, Harry, I 
think that is a good man. He told me he has 
three languages, and that he received a good 
education in Germany. He said, ‘I ought to 
be ashamed to be washing dishes, but it was the 
best thing I could get to do. I will not be do¬ 
ing it long.’ ” 
And he was not. 
When the outcry began at the lake shore, this 
man was in the act of carrying a heavily loaded 
tray of dishes in the kitchen, and the chef, who 
knew that he had been a swimming instructor 
in Germany, said: “John, there's something 
doing down at the lake. If I were you. I’d 
hurry down there.” Crash! He dropped the 
dishes and was out of the house almost before 
they landed on the floor. The distance from the 
hotel to the lake is 400 yards. The three or 
four hundred people gathered and gathering 
there were waiting, for what they hardly knew; 
but it was for this man, and all at once they be¬ 
gan to make room for his flying figure. He had 
started from the kitchen in slippers, perhaps, and 
trousers and shirt, but as he aoproached he had 
literally torn his clothing off him. The men 
and women opened a pathway for him on the 
pier through which he ran and leaped head 
first into the water. No one thought of him as 
a naked man, but only as a sort of disembodied, 
lion-like spirit cleaving its way to its work. 
He swam a few strokes after coming to the 
surface, then lay on the water gasping for 
breath. He was “all out,” as athletes say. He 
had run 400 yards in record time and swam 
perhaps twenty. In ten seconds or so the 
people pointed out the spot where the boy had 
gone down, and he then swam to it, guided by 
the shouts of those on shore. Then he went 
down. He was gone so long that the people 
thought lie was lost. Then he came up for air. 
As he afterward explained, he was under water 
one minute. He had not found the boy. He 
went down again, and that time lie thought he 
saw far off on the bottom something white. He 
barely managed to reach it and to touch some 
article of the boy’s clothing, when he realized 
that he had to go up again for air. It seemed 
a long way to the surface, and he thought he 
would never win his way to the air again, but 
he did. He now fought his way downward 
through the twenty feet of water once more, 
and when he came up he had the body of the 
boy. and swam to the shore with it, 150 yards. 
1 he boy had been under water seven minutes, 
and apparently was dead; but willing hands went 
to work the instant the swimmer and his burden 
could be reached to try to bring him to. It was 
twenty minutes before physicians could be pro¬ 
cured. When they arrived, Dr. Parker and Dr. 
Rea, they felt the boy’s pulse, examined his 
heart and exclaimed, “There are no signs of 
life remaining. He seems to be dead; but we 
must keep on trying to bring him back.” 
The treatment was continued just as the others 
had begun it, excepting that under the direction 
of the physicians it was made much more severe. 
It consisted in having placed the body head 
downward, at an angle of 45 degrees, then bring¬ 
ing the arms outward and up over the top of his 
head (or, rather, below the head, the head being 
down), and then bringing them back to the 
sides and pressing them violently against the 
chest, and all hands pressing inward the ribs 
and stomach, literally squeezing the water out 
of the body through the nose and mouth, and 
keeping this up at regular intervals. They also 
applied hot water bottles to the body and 
wrapped it in thick blankets. At the end of an 
hour of such treatment the boy was still, to all 
appearances, dead. “And, in fact,” as Mr. 
Culver expressed it. “he was dead.” He was 
down in the mud and water holding his head, 
and then, at the end of that time, he thought 
he detected a faint gasp. It was hardly per¬ 
ceptible, and hardly credible, but it sufficed to 
encourage the sweating, panting men in their 
efforts. After a while there was another gasp, 
and then others at intervals, until once he began 
to breathe, when the men stopped working his 
arms. So lie stopped breathing again. “Start 
up those arms!" the Doctor cried, and the work 
was resumed. He was given stimulants, whiskey 
and water, at intervals, and soon became able 
to moan and cry a little when they squeezed 
him. In an hour and a half after being taken 
from the water the boy was back to life and out 
of danger, was in bed by 11 o’clock, and the 
next morning was able to get up and go home 
with his mother to Chicago. 
Culver, as many of us know, is not only a 
summer resort, but the seat of the Culver Mili¬ 
tary Academy and Summer Naval School, so 
named in honor of its founder, Mr. H. H. 
Culver. Sr., and since his death enlarged and 
carried on, still in his honor, by his sons, one 
of whom, the one who held the boy’s head, said 
to the man.when it was over: 
“You are through washing dishes. We need 
you over at the school.” 
Hats off. 
The man is named John Schaller. He is five 
feet and ten inches, weighs 165 pounds, and is 
the very beau ideal of an athlete, as indeed, he 
had to be to have thus performed what I am sure 
no man will dispute was one of the greatest 
feats of human endurance and human courage 
ever known. 
George Kennedy, 
opportunity. 
Master of human destinies am I. 
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait, 
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late, 
I knock unbidden once at every gate. 
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 
I turn away. It is the hour of fate. 
And they who follow me reach every state 
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 
Save death; hut those who doubt or hesitate, 
Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore— 
I answer not, and I return no more. 
—John James Ingalls. 
S. Frank Dexter. 
Oakland, Cal., July 18. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Mr. S. Frank Dexter, who died in Lbs 
Angeles on July 11, was one of the few remain¬ 
ing ones whose connection as a reader and oc¬ 
casional contributor to the Forest and Stream 
anti-dated my own; indeed it was through his 
instrumentality that I was introduced into its 
circle of writers. A grandson of the founder of 
the well-known Dexter cotton yarn manufact¬ 
ory, he was its manager for several years and 
was the last of his name connected with that in¬ 
dustry. Retiring he settled in Oakland, but his 
active life had unfitted him for lotos eating, and 
he was soon engaged in real estate and mining, 
being at the time of his death president of a large 
group of mines in the Searchlight district. An 
ardent sportsman and lover of nature in its 
primeval beauty, a man of stainless character, 
of a genial and magnetic temperament, he was 
for forty years my warmest personal friend, and 
his companionship during my first visit to the 
southern Sierras four years ago. made it one of 
the most cherished memories of my later years. 
One by one they go to join Nessmuk, Robinson, 
Mather and other bright spirits who gathered 
around the Forest and Stream table in its in¬ 
fancy and stayed with it until their death. 
Forked Deer. 
The Adirondack Forest Again. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Most of us have to stand for many things we 
do not like without making much noise. This is 
partly because we cannot make graceful state¬ 
ments of our creeds, and partly, because we know 
how little ice our words cut. Yet once in a while 
talk comes easier than silence. 
The question now up, is the recurring one of 
the last days of the Adirondack forest remnant. 
Recent comments on the subject, looked for in 
Forest and Stream, did not get there this time, 
so I venture a few. 
Perhaps one of the latest moves should give 
us a faint whiff of encouragement along with the 
added promise of evil. Two months ago, there 
appeared press notice to the effect that a meas¬ 
ure had passed the Legislature, practically with¬ 
out opposition, preliminary to a change in the 
constitution that will permit flooding of State 
lands. This is doubtless true. It was also stated 
that no one objected to having this done, except a 
few millionaires, and this is not quite as true. Very 
definite objections have been announced, though 
perhaps not in the Legislature, by several who 
are not so very far from ten hundred thousand 
short of reaching that influential class. My at¬ 
tention was first called to the views by one of 
them, a working engineer. 
The possible whiff of encouragement comes 
from the fact that someone thinks it necessary, 
or perhaps more convenient, to get lawful per¬ 
mission to destroy. This regard for others’ 
property, especially for that part of the North 
Woods belonging to all the people, has not been 
always very evident. 
Not quite ten years ago, there was a try for 
permission to manipulate the State forests. Al¬ 
though the amendment was quietly brought up 
while the many good people were temporarily in¬ 
sane in their haste to get the proper tag on the 
White House (these things always seem to be 
offered at a Presidental election) there was a 
vote of three to one against it. For this result, 
some plain and very timely editorials in Forest 
and Stream were largely responsible. Commenting 
on the result of the vote, Forest and Stream 
said, “We should think that even the president 
of the Forest Commission himself might now 
have some slight inkling of how the people regard 
their forest possessions, and how they mean to 
defend these possessions. * * * The question of 
who is to own, occupy, control and enjoy the 
Forest Preserve, may now be considered settled 
for this generation at least.” 
About four years afterward, a dam was built 
at State expense on the outlet of Sixth Lake of 
the Fultain Chain, or rather a dam of earlier 
date was repaired and built several feet higher. 
Again a year or two ago, this dam was partly or 
mostly reconstructed. The water held by this 
dam did much injury. The shores of Sixth 
and Seventh Lakes were flooded as well as con¬ 
siderable low land between the lakes and a large 
area of public land at the Jiead of Seventh Lake. 
Most of the killing of the forest came a year or 
so afterward, chiefly in 1902 and 1903. For the 
flooding of private lands, several camp owners 
and others entered damage claims, though compen¬ 
sation is more than likely. But fo/r the destruction 
on the public lands, the hopelessness of any possible 
compensation has become absolute. There has 
not been even the satisfaction that a costly lesson 
would teach the people to protect what was left. 
The destruction is known to hundreds, but it has 
not awakened the interest of anyone of influence. 
It was said that this dam was enlarged for the 
benefit of men who wanted more water for powder 
without the expense of storing it. This is only 
hearsay, though the common report was never 
questioned. But of the destruction caused, there 
are many eye witnesses. Five or six years ago, 
there was a stretch of level land in dense forest 
extending practically across the head of Seventh 
Lake, fronting for three-fourths of a mile or 
more on a sand beach. Near the edge of the 
forest were many small open spots large enough 
for tents. Superior opportunities for bathing 
made it a favorite camping ground. There was 
then room for a hundred tents. (Before the dam 
was first built a regiment could have camped 
along shore with room to spare, but the one-time 
