610 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 21, 1911. 
of the Calamus on our way to the grove, the 
wind so fierce and so laden with sand as to 
render it nearly impossible to face the blast. 
Near a wild plum thicket on the river bank 
the dog gave signs of game and finally drew up 
on a stiff point. Just ahead of her was a bevy 
of quail, scarcely half grown, and as there is a 
close season on quail in Nebraska, we called the 
dog off and passed around the thicket on oppo¬ 
site sides from each other, George next to the 
river. We had hardly parted when I heard him 
get into action with his repeater, and on reach¬ 
ing the river saw four green-wing teal floating 
down stream. The dog would not retrieve, so 
we lost two of the ducks. 
Beyond the thicket we flushed three or four 
grouse out of range, but on going out on the 
prairie the dog pointed again and a fine covey 
rose from some willows and high grass. Three 
fell to our shots and we marked the rest down 
on the banks of a small creek coming into the 
Calamus from the north. We each killed one 
bird as they rose, and then the dog pointed square 
into the wind, and on ground which had been 
mowed. As we stepped up to her, three birds 
rose right into the wind, and as soon as they 
were six feet from the ground, whirled over 
our heads down wind. Now, George is quick 
with a gun, and I can “get on” about as speedily 
as the average, but before we could turn and 
cover those wind-driven birds, they were more 
than a hundred yards away, and increasing speed 
with every wing beat, sailed down the valley at 
a clip that would make an aviator sick with envy. 
We examined our birds and found them about 
two-thirds grown, evidently a late covey, as this 
was Oct. 18 and all other grouse seen on the 
trip were full size. We went to the house, and 
after breakfast hitched up and started for a 
small house away up the river, the habitation 
of a homesteader who was not living on his 
claim, and who had given 11s leave to camp there. 
We were accompanied on our way by a young 
man named Bragg, better known by the name of 
“Toots,” who rode a fine saddle horse. The 
wind blew harder than ever, snow and hail fell, 
and these combined with the drifting sand made 
our progress slow and sore. George and I 
hunted along the river, shot a few jacksnipe and 
once jumped an old cock grouse almost under 
our feet, missed him twice each and watched 
him sail away. 
About 3 p. m. we approached the house we 
were headed for, but it was on the opposite side 
of the river. Now, the Calamus is not a wide 
stream, neither is it deep in all places, but its 
ever shifting sands render it mighty uncertain. 
We approached the ford, took a look at the 
swift water and could see on the opposite side 
a deep washout next the bank. We drove in, 
the wagon went smoothly along on the hard 
bottom until about thirty feet from the opposite 
shore the wheels dropped into a hole, the mules 
sunk to their bellies and Arthur plied the whip 
and yelled like one of the Pawnee warriors who 
used to inhabit the country. The mules laid into 
the collars in earnest, water poured into the 
wagon, we all yelled, the mu’es emerged safely 
from the ordeal, and so did the wagon. Beyond 
a slight dampening of the blankets and some of 
the provisions, nothing was hurt, and we were 
soon at the house. There the mules were put in 
the sod stable, minus a roof, and we turned our 
attention to the wants of man. 
There was a cook stove, a kitchen table, two 
chairs, a bedstead and mattress in the house and 
a lot of loose plaster on the floor which had 
fallen from ceding and walls. We cleared out 
the stove and started a fire, but the smoke 
poured into the room and it was evident there 
was something wrong with the pipe. Efforts 
to locate the trouble in the house proved un¬ 
availing, so we went outdoors and gazed at the 
pipe which protruded through the roof, and 
from which no smoke came. “Toots” mounted 
my shoulders, stepped from there to my head, 
the human ladder groaned, but stood firm, and 
with a spring Toots landed on the eaves of the 
roof, cooned his way to the ridge pole and 
yanked the stove pipe into shape. The stove 
drew, the fire of hay and cow chips roared, 
Arthur got out his pans and kettles, I dressed 
birds, George swept the floor, the dogs curled 
up behind the stove, and the place looked like 
home to us. 
The dressed birds were placed in a deep cast 
iron frying-pan on top of numerous slices of 
bacon; more bacon was placed on top of the 
birds, and the pan put in the oven. The kettle 
was on with a dozen Nebraska potatoes in its 
interior, the coffee pot began to simmer, and 
odors of cooking permeated the atmosphere and 
made the slow minutes of waiting torture to 
hungry men. 
Toots declined an invitation to stay to supper 
and rode away into the hills toward his ranch. 
Arthur inspected the various pots and pans on 
the stove and said: “Set the table; supper is 
about ready.” The grub was piled on, and all 
of us ate in silence for a few minutes, when 
George remarked: “I didn’t know I was so 
hungry.” Poor man, he came into the hills with 
no appetite, and at and after this meal ate like 
a wolf and gained a pound a day during our 
stay and hunted and tramped through the hills 
every day. 
It was dark before we were through supper, 
and when we finished there was not enough left 
from our repast to feed the dogs, so we cooked 
mush for them, fed the mules, washed the dishes, 
brought in hay for a bed and chips for the morn¬ 
ing’s fire, made the beds and turned in. The 
wind died down, and no sound broke the still¬ 
ness outdoors except the scamper of mice across 
the floor and the yapping of a coyote which 
wailed and howded his torments to the moon. 
The dogs found soft places in the hay, the fleas 
took toll of us all, but we were tired, full of 
good food and hope for the morrow, and so in 
spite of fleas and mice and the coyote’s mourn¬ 
ful serenade, we slept. The peace of night was 
unbroken except for the noise attendant on a 
fight between the dogs for the best place on 
the floor. I arbitrated the matter with a boot 
and restored quiet. 
Morning broke fair and calm. There was a 
chill in the air that presaged winter in the sand¬ 
hills. Ice had formed in the trough at the well, 
the quiet water on the bayou below the ford 
was frozen over, and a fire of chips in the cook 
stove was grateful in its warmth as well as use¬ 
ful for cooking breakfast. Pancakes, bacon, 
eggs and coffee constituted the meal, and after 
washing dishes, feeding the mules and slicking 
up the house, we set out for a hunt along the 
river, George going dowm stream and Arthur and 
I in the opposite direction. As we neared the 
stream a mallard jumped from the water’s edge 
and flashed through the tops of the willows, 
twisting and turning like a woodcock until 
Arthur with a snapshot tumbled her into the 
river. At the shot a flock of teal arose from 
a large slough, once a part of the river bed, and 
climbed into view over the high bank to my 
right, a long shot away, but I was fortunate 
enough to drop one with each barrel, the birds 
falling on the bank. Arthur’s duck floated 
ashore at a nearby bend and was retrieved. 
We separated and I went up on the high bluff 
west of the house, and passing over its summit 
was soon out of sight of human habitation. The 
sun was about half way to the meridian, the sky 
clear and blue, unflecked by cloud. I climbed 
a sandhill and sat down on the edge of a blow¬ 
out near its top. Far to the north the Calamus 
stretched its winding course. To the west wave 
upon wave, the billowing sandhills rolled un¬ 
broken, brown and siient. To the east lay the 
river flats and beyond those the hills. To the 
south the river wound its tortuous course, with 
here and there a bunch of willows showing green 
in the bends where the moisture of the low 
ground nourished them and kept the prairie fires 
at bay. Aside from these no tree was in sight, 
and sitting there it was no great stretch of 
fancy to plant here and there where the buffalo 
grass grew the shaggy herds, or to hear the 
thunder of 10,000 hoofs on the hard ground as 
the Pawnees, the wolf people, bore down upon 
their prey on their swift ponies; to see them 
dash among the scattered herd and hear the 
twang of the bowstring and the yell of the rider 
as the arrow was driven home. Then the hunt¬ 
ers riding leisurely back over the ground dotted 
here and there with the huge carcasses, laugh¬ 
ing, talking, gesticulating, calling attention to 
some particular kill, or feature of the hunt; the 
squaws, on their more sober mounts, riding to 
meet the hunters and to skin and cut up the 
meat, then the whole savage cavalcade making 
their way to camp with their spoils, to feast, to 
dry the meat and cure the skins. 
It is perhaps no greater stretch of time than 
of fancy to spread this panorama before the 
mind's eye, for less than a long lifetime ago the 
scenes depicted in fancy now were real then, 
and when on rising from my seat in the blow¬ 
out, a few steps brought me within view of the 
settlements down the river and showed civil za- 
tion with its farms, houses, villages and rail¬ 
roads, civilization hard, matter of fact, remorse¬ 
less and come to stay, it seemed beyond belief 
that within the brief space of a man’s life, a 
people, with all the animal life that supplied its 
wants and ministered to its existence should 
have been swept from the earth. 
Descending to the flats I hunted along the 
slough where the teal arose and found a few 
jacksnipe, two of which I killed. George was 
visible a long way down the river, and I saw 
him hurry to cover in the tall grass and willows 
as a flock of snow geese, or as they are locally 
known, white brant, came into view. The geese 
were coming up the river, low and directly to¬ 
ward George. I sat down at the end of a hay¬ 
stack and awaited the outcome. Slowly the geese 
came on and just as I was expecting to see 
George make havoc with the flock, a Bohemian 
arose from the grass on the river bank and fired 
at the geese, which were at least a hundred 
yards away, and they wheeled and turned back 
down the river. These were the only geese seen 
