Dec. 22, 1906.I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
983 
of water. The captain of the San Jacinto, 
closely following, watched our passage through 
the reef, and thinking he could pass through the 
same channel, followed in our wake, when his 
vessel struck a rock with a crash, then slowly 
settled down amid the breakers. 
Wild exulting cheers went up from the deck 
of the Little Hattie as we glided along the shore 
greeted by the waving handkerchiefs of the 
citizens, who like ourselves, watched our enemies 
take to their life boats. The San Jacinto had 
scarcely settled on the reef before a small 
schooner pushed out from an island cove and 
made full sail toward her. As it passed by us, 
Armbrister shouted to them through a speaking 
trumpet in a vernacular peculiar to the wreckers 
of the West Indies, which has been handed down 
to them from Blackbeard and his followers. I 
was forcibly reminded of my dream by the prompt 
appearance of the schooner, \yhich went directly 
to the assistance of the San Jacinto, for which 
they were entitled to salvage. Whether they 
ever got the vessel afloat I never learned, for I 
heard of it no more. It had captured its last 
rebel. 
We anchored close to Green Turtle Key, which 
is a small island about a mile and a half in length 
and half a mile in breadth. It stands among a 
group of islands built up by coral insects, like 
all of the Bahamas which are composed of 
twenty-nine islands, six hundred and sixty-one 
cays, and two thousand three hundred and eighty- 
seven rocks, which make them such a dangerous 
group for mariners. Leaving this Isle of Beauty 
we set sail for Nassau, passing Elbow Key Light¬ 
house, then the Hole in the Wall, then glided on 
until we turned in by Hog Island to the beauti¬ 
ful bay that makes the Harbor of Nassau. 
Pious Jeems. 
Some Wild Animal Bogies. 
The passing of the big game from the more 
thickly settled districts has gradually turned 
the romance of sportsmanship into an indis¬ 
criminate slaughter of everything that lives 
by the young hero worshipper, who seems to 
imagine that the destruction of an inoffensive 
chipmunk in some mysterious way throws 
around his own shoulders the mantle of valor 
with which tradition clothes his ancestors. To 
round out these encounters into tales that bear 
the telling sometimes taxes the ingenuity of 
even those inventive young heroes; but their 
task is fortunately lightened by the activity 
with which the public swallows the most ludi¬ 
crous rumors that promise something of a 
neighborhood sensation. The recent killing 
of a pet cinnamon bear near Conneaut Lake, 
Pennsylvania, by a Grove City tyro is one 
more illustration of this senseless and un¬ 
reasoning panic, something in which the true 
hunter, with the courage of the forest upon 
him, is not prone to indulge. 
Some one, frightened perhaps by his own 
shadow, if cast among the shadows of sur¬ 
rounding trees, gives the cry of danger; a 
number of excitable residents hear, see or 
imagine an unusual presence; the local papers 
print a few columns of gush about the “wild 
animal” roaming through the neighborhood; 
then some wilder animal, gun in hand, too 
ignorant or too frightened to consider that a 
cinnamon bear, never a native of Pennsylvania, 
could only by any possibility be found therein 
through man’s agency or ownership; and two 
homeless wanderers are suddenly deprived of 
their pet companion and means of livelihood. 
Not all “scares” terminate in an animal 
tragedy that draws attention so entirely from 
the ludicrous side- Some years ago, almost in 
this same neighborhood, a young man had 
his nerves considerably shaken up one night 
by the sudden passage of a strange animal 
across the road before him—this where no 
larger wild animal was to be expected than 
a coon or fox. The story was hardly cred¬ 
ited at first, but during the next few weeks 
at least a dozen different people had a simi¬ 
lar experience either at night or, in a few 
instances, in broad daylight. Some recog¬ 
nized a mountain lion; others a South Ameri¬ 
can jaguar, while even the king of beasts was 
himself described with startling minuteness 
by one or two of the frightened witnesses. 
Some one finally missed a sheep. A dead 
calf that had been left unburied was found to 
be mutilated; then the carrying off of full- 
grown cattle was one of the strange visitor’s 
reported pastimes. 
With the possibility of such a visitant among 
them, even those who disbelieved the stories' 
became interested, especially as the group of 
witnesses included some of the most solid 
and conservative people. It seemed only the 
part of duty to rid the neighborhood of such 
a dangerous marauder, and an entire village, 
under the leadership of a good citizen who 
was familiar with the woodlot, said to be most 
frequently infested, started out one Sunday 
morning on an organized “wild animal” hunt. 
Some went because they considered it a duty; 
others out of curiosity; some because the rest 
were going; but in the crowd there were 
doubtless some who had a secret hope of re¬ 
turning with a full-grown African lion in their 
game bag or else a secret fear that they would 
see one at close quarters. Only a part of the 
array had guns or other efficient weapons, 
and only a few' of those who did were as 
dangerous to a wild animal as they were to 
their comrades. Needless to say, the greatest 
danger encountered was that from the boy or 
nervous man with a gun. A practical joker 
might, in a moment's outburst of misplaced 
enthusiasm, have furnished wholesale tragedy 
and more than one member of the hunting- 
party understood it. 
Nothing was killed, however; not even the 
story. For weeks that mysterious animal was 
forced to appear at all sorts of inconvenient 
hours and places, not infrequently at the call 
of intelligent citizens, whose sincerity was 
not to be doubted. Many a child went to and 
from school, an active sufferer from the stories 
it had heard, while not a few mothers saw 
their children start out from their homes with 
pangs of uncertainty not unlike those experi¬ 
enced in pioneer days. 
The animal was never found; the story never 
killed. It finally lasted longer and traveled 
further than is usual, and grew a little with 
each mile of travel. « 
Not always is the error found on this side 
of the ledger. Some years ago a party of 
young men brought a coon they had been fol¬ 
lowing to bay somewhere within the ample 
shades of a big poplar out in the open field. 
Knowing that the owner of the tree would not 
permit them to cut it, they sat down under it 
and patiently waited unil morning, when they 
could see to shoot. Great was their surprise 
\yhen the break of day revealed to them the 
fact that they had over their heads not a 
coon, but a wildcat of undoubted .genuineness 
and generous proportions. The owner of the 
tree afterward assured them that he would 
gladly have permitted them to cut it for the 
sake of seeing what would have happened 
when that wildcat dropped among them. 
Doubtless the residents of a certain hamlet 
in northern Mercer county, Pennsylvania, still 
remember the excitement produced by a bear 
seen a number of times in the vicinity of a 
notoriously timid man’s house. Usually the 
apparition came to him at night, but the 
tracks never failed to remain in the road 
where it had crossed, vivid daylight remind¬ 
ers. Once or twice, when unarmed, he en¬ 
countered and was chased by the animal in 
the day time. Only a small part of the peo¬ 
ple who heard the story knew at the time, 
perhaps it may be news to some of them even 
now, that the marauder was a fake bear, ar¬ 
ranged and manipulated by a young man and 
a few confederates. 
In the midst of a mild “wild animal” epi¬ 
demic a prosperous farmer heard a noise at 
his barn one night, and hurrying on his boots, 
went out to investigate. Just outside the door 
a gust of wind extinguished his lantern, and 
setting it down, he stepped inside and swung 
the door shut after him, intending to feel his 
way to the stables, which would be moderately 
well lighted by the moon shining through the 
windows. Almost the first step sent him head¬ 
long into the middle of the barn floor; he 
had tripped over some animal crouching 
where no animal had any right to be. There 
was a rush and scurry of feet, in which the 
farmer took a vigorous part, never stopping 
until he tumbled out into the open air and 
banged the door shut after him. Then he 
shouted to his family to bring a light and a 
gun; he wanted to save his stock from the 
intruder. 
The gun reached him first, and impatient lest 
the beast should escape or do further damage 
before the light arrived, he cautiously opened 
the door and took careful aim, midway be¬ 
tween the two eyes he could see glaring at 
-him in the half light across the floor. Just 
as he was about to pull the trigger the light 
of a lantern fell upon the crouching beast 
and revealed—one of his own colts that had 
slipped its halter, and tired of its investiga¬ 
tions, finally laid down where its master soon 
afterward stumbled upon it. Needless to say, 
the colt was as badly frightened as the farmer 
by the encounter, but of course little knew 
the peril it was in while the old man was 
planning its destruction. 
Xeno W. Putnam. 
The British Columbia Season. 
Vancouver, B. C., Dec. 10 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I dare say it would interest some of 
your readers to hear what sort of . sport has been 
had in the Cassiar district of British Columbia 
this year by nonresident sportsmen. 
In all there were twenty-one visiting sports¬ 
men, most of whom were from the United States, 
one from Germany, and a few from England. 
The total head of big game killed by those few 
people amounted to 13 moose, 29 caribou, 53 sheep 
(Ovis stonei ), 17 goats, 5 grizzly bears, and II 
black bear, one black fox and a number of red 
fox and wolves. 
The big game shooting opened on Sept. 1 and 
everybody is back now, so taking into considera¬ 
tion the time taken in getting out very few 
actually hunted for more than a month or at the 
most five weeks. 
Of the moose one head went over sixty inches, 
and two’went fifty-seven. The caribou were ex¬ 
ceptionally fine, and though I have no authentic 
measurements I am told that they were a mag¬ 
nificent lot. The sheep were nearly all good, the 
best head went 38 inches in length. 29 inches 
spread and 16 inches circumference, an exception¬ 
ally fine head for that variety. 
The weather was most unusually cold and wet 
and not all suitable for successful hunting. How¬ 
ever. I believe that everybody was thoroughly 
pleased with- their trip and that .there was not 
a single man who had not some trophies to take 
home with him. 
A. Bryan Williams, 
Provincial Game and Forest Warden. 
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