Oct. 18, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
48? 
One warm Sunday everybody was resting, 
writing home, cleaning guns and such when 
Johnnie borrowed the writer’s light boat and 
started exploring, saying by way of apology, “it’s 
tiresome doing nothing, and I want to look 
around.” 
In an unfrequented corner he came upon 
a whole congregation of alligators, all sleeping- 
on a sunny bank. The last one was father of 
the flock, a bull over fourteen feet long. Some 
reptile, that! 
To the boy this patriarch looked of mam¬ 
moth size, considerably larger than he was, and 
his skin was wanted—much wanted—to be taken 
North and shown admiring friends. But how 
get it? Well, he would see. The boat was 
quietly backed away and for half an hour Johnnie 
watched and studied. At last he decided on tak¬ 
ing a chance. ‘'Nothing risked nothing gained.” 
The pocket knife was opened. Its large blade, 
always sharp, was given a razor edge with a 
pocket whetstone, then turning in toward the 
bank, he sneaked along very quietly. Smaller 
’gators paid no attention-, just lay in the sun with 
eyes closed. Soon the big fellow was reached. 
He was as sleepy as the rest, and Johnnie, who 
was something of an athlete, gave.a quick spring 
and landed on his back. Now, in all the long- 
years he had lived, this alligator never experi¬ 
enced such treatment. He either was very slow 
to think, or too surprised to act. for before he 
could snap, strike or dive, the steel had found 
the one weak spot in his armor, and he was 
helpless, the same as dead, and his hide was 
added to the collection. 
For weeks peace reigned on the lake. The 
Happy Four had compromised with the local 
shooters and were buying their ducks, paying 
better than Galveston prices at the schooner’s 
side. This entailed a heavy loss on puddle ducks 
which the profits on canvasback didn't quite make 
up, but that was no matter, and things were 
going on nicely until one day Jim Bailey—this 
wasn’t his name, it will do, though—went to 
Galveston and sold his two-days’ kill for enough 
to bring back a jag and a jug. He celebrated 
his return by taking a pot shot at one of the 
four and declaring war on the whole outfit. 
"The best thing for you fellows to do,” ad¬ 
vised Bud, who was friendly to the party, “is 
to try marsh shooting for a few days. Jim won't 
follow you there; at least, I hardly think he 
will, but if he runs across any of you on the 
lake while he’s drunk—and he'll be drunk as long 
as the whisky lasts, which may be a day or so 
more—there will be a killing sure, either one of 
you, or he.” 
This seemed sound advice. There were miles 
and miles of marsh and plenty of ducks such as 
they were. Next morning all except the writer 
thought the day would be too still and hot for 
good shooting, and guessed they would remain 
aboard, but he with a few rubber decoys was 
set ashore and struck out after puddle ducks. 
The flooded prairie or marsh was apparently 
boundless, with teal, spoonies, gadwall, sprig 
and mallard by the tens of thousands. A wide 
shallow pond with a heavy border of cane and 
grass was found, decoys thrown out, and the 
birds commenced working. Soon after noon 
Charlie came bringing lunch, a small box to 
sit on, and word that Jim, drunker than ever, 
had left the lake and was on the warpath, look¬ 
ing for the writer’s scalp. This information 
came from Bud, who further advised, “Stay 
where you are; don’t run, but be careful.” 
The boy wished to remain, but it was neces¬ 
sary to get the morning's kill on ice, and he 
was sent back with all the birds he could carry. 
He was hardly gone before way to windward 
something commenced disturbing the ducks. 
Flock after flock rose, circled and settled down 
again. It was the kind of a day when sound 
travels a long distance over water if helped by 
a faint breeze. So, soon came noise of some¬ 
one walking a mile away. Splash! Splash! 
Splash ! Then the voice of a man talking to him¬ 
self. It was Jim, ablazing and aboiling. Pres¬ 
ently words could be distinguished: "The 
blankety, blank, blank. It's his blood or mine, 
killing all our ducks. I'll nail his ears to the 
shanty door. I’ll tend to his case.” 
Nice fix for a stranger to be in! If he 
shot first, a local jury would hang him; that is, 
unless some of Jim’s friends saved them the 
trouble. If it was left to Jim, there would be 
nothing for judge, jury or friends to do, for 
he boasted of a record and his friends said was 
a regular man-eater. 
He didn’t know just where to find his quarry 
but kept coming, filling the air with his sulphur¬ 
ous conversation, until he blundered almost on 
the very spot where the writer was concealed. 
When Jim was within twenty yards the 
writer stood up with his gun in position for a 
quick shot and hailed him. “Hullo, Bailey. What 
are you doing here? You look warm. Set your 
gun down and come over and help finish a quart 
of beer.” 
Jim was taken aback, started to raise his 
gun, but was stopped with a sharp, “No, none 
of that; I said put it down.” 
Pie hesitated, bent over some cane, laid the 
gun across it, splashed over, drank the beer, 
asked ‘Plow's shooting?” and returned the way 
he came, flushing and scaring the birds as he 
went, but all he said was: “Better feller than 
I thought. Could have killed me and nobody 
would have known it.” 
The writer didn't wait for some drunken 
whim to make the man change his mind. He 
picked up and went to the schooner. There 
things were stewing and everybody excited. The 
captain was cleaning his big old-fashioned rifle 
and remarked, “There’s blood on the moon, war 
is declared, and I am getting ready.” 
A White Paint for Boats. 
A government formula for a white paint to 
use on the outside of a boat is as follows: The 
proportions of the pigment and fluids are varied 
to suit the requirements. The formula is given 
for the first coat, which is the thickest. White 
lead in oil. 7 pounds: zinc white in oil, 7 pounds; 
raw linseed oil. 2 quarts; turpentine, 2 gills, and 
japan drier, 1 gill. This will make 1 gallon of 
paint. If too thin, add more lead and zinc, and 
if too thick, add more liquids. 
In the open yellow pine forests of Wash¬ 
ington and Oregon a collapsible plow is being 
used in digging fire lines to stop surface fires. 
The plow can be dismantled and folded into a 
compact form, so that it can be packed on 
horseback, and weighs only forty pounds. When 
in use, one man with a horse can do the work of 
twenty or more men working with shovels. 
Campers Use Up Pasturage. 
The number of persons who spend their 
summer vacations within the national forests is 
growing so rapidly, says the Forest Service, that 
the question of providing suitable pasturage for 
their saddle and pack animals is becoming a 
problem. Campers naturally seek the spots where 
water is close at hand, and where horse food is 
abundant in the hope that their stock will not be 
tempted to steal away in the night in search of 
more tempting pasturage. In order to provide 
such spots, the Forest Service must set aside 
limited areas from which sheep and cattle are 
excluded. 
In many instances, particularly in the State 
of California, the Forest Service and the stock 
growers have co-operated in constructing small 
pastures for the use of tourists, who have thus 
been enabled to hold their stock on choice food 
within inclosures without any cost or incon¬ 
venience. The aggregate acreage of forest land 
set aside for the use of campers is considerable, 
and it appreciably reduces the amount of land 
available for the pasturage of sheep and cattle, 
but presumably the loss is more than offset by 
the added enjoyment of the visitors to the 
forests. There is this difference, however: 
Stock growers pay a fee for grazing their sheep 
or cattle, while the campers secure free pastur¬ 
age. 
But with the construction of pastures for 
campers’ use, a new difficulty has arisen. The 
campers display a tendency to concentrate in the 
neighborhood of the pastures, and to hold their 
stock within the fenced areas until the inclosures 
are entirely denuded of vegetation. In some in¬ 
stances it is pointed out that large parties occupy 
choice meadow pastures and remain there until 
the food is completely exhausted, thus depriving 
later visitors of opportunity to use the pastures. 
While the Forest Service is reluctant to impose 
any unnecessary restrictions upon the free use 
of the pastures, forest officers are beginning to 
think that some form of regulation will have 
to be required. 
The Preservation of Fishes. 
Kill the fish in the preserving fluid—n 
solution of one part of Formaldehyde (Form¬ 
alin) and from twenty to thirty parts of water. 
A small amount of Formalin should then be in¬ 
jected into the body cavity of fishes over six 
inches in length, or a slit should be made on 
the ventral surface. The Formalin injected should 
be diluted with from four to ten times its 
volume. If kept cool, the Formalin, penetrates 
rapidly, and quite large specimens can be pre¬ 
served without injection on the ventral slit. 
Formalin can be had in almost every drug-store. 
For temporary work it is better than alcohol, 
is cheaper and is much more easy to handle. 
If fishes die in water, and remain in it some 
time afterwards, they do not make good speci¬ 
mens. To ship specimens of fishes, they should 
each be wrapped with muslin or cheese-cloth, 
to prevent their rubbing each other or being 
rubbed by the container. If the fish is once 
cured, it can be shipped without any preserva¬ 
tive, but it must be so packed that it will not 
become dry in transit. 
In changing address, the old as well as the 
new should be given. 
