12 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 6, 1912. 
We proceeded through the great forest of ash, 
cottonwood, pecan, hickory, oak and the ever 
present cypress. Here and there we saw signs 
of turkeys working in the willow oak flats, but 
not one of the wary fellows was within our 
scope of vision. We must have gone over an 
hour without seeing game, when the sun became 
obscured behind a nebulous blanket of gray, and 
the extensive timber area became all alike; the 
trees and slashes almost indistinguishable one 
from the other. 
I motioned to the Governor and said: “It’s 
going to be dark soon, and we don’t want to 
be caught in these swamps. See this long de¬ 
pression? It’s Sand Slough and if followed will 
lead us to within 200 yards of camp.” He con¬ 
sented to bear homeward, though I could see he 
was chagrined at his failure to see game, but he 
made no comment. The slough had been a dense 
canebrake a year previous, but Are had killed its 
growth. It had fallen and lay lapped in tiers, 
rotting in the humid atmosphere. It crackled 
like the noise of many rifles as we floundered 
knee-deep in it. 
“Well, of all the noise,” exclaimed my com¬ 
panion, “this beats anything I ever saw. Why, 
a fellow couldn't get within a mile of game 
with this racket going on.” Just then a series 
of “Put-put-puts,” and the thundering beat of 
pinions disturbed the serenity of the swamp as 
a large flock of turkeys that had already sensed 
the graying signs of evening, pitched from their 
roost in a big pecan tree and scattered at random 
in the dense tangles of switch cane. It was al¬ 
most too dark to shoot, and too dark to try any 
experiments in getting turned away from camp. 
“What a gang of them,” my friend said; “let’s 
go after them.” 
I disliked very much to hasten him to camp, 
but knew the necessity of it and answered: 
“No, it’s too late; you can’t do anything but get 
lost. Still, you can consider one of those turkeys 
yours. They are scattered well and we will get 
here just before daybreak and call them to¬ 
gether.” 
He hated to give up pursuit, though he saw 
the wisdom of the course, but he could not re¬ 
frain from asking, “They won’t get away, will 
they?” 
“No, they will be crazy to get together in the 
morning. It’s such a big flock and has never 
been shot into, that they will come to call easily.” 
Deliberately he drew his small axe and made 
a deep cut in the trunk of a broken-topped cot¬ 
tonwood to remind him where the birds had 
gone. Would he see the hack in the dark of 
morn, I mused ? I think his anxiety to get 
among the turkeys robbed him of the thought. 
We came back to camp empty-handed, but the 
signs of game everywhere keyed us up for the 
next day. A hot supper awaited us, and our 
negro by a short stay in the wilds had developed 
into a model servant, and if my suggestions had 
not had a calming effect, the dismal hoot of the 
great horned owl and the continuous flight of 
the mallards overhead in the clear moonlight air, 
intimations of invisible spirits hovering over the 
camp, would have alone effected it. 
“Do you know,” said the Governor after sup¬ 
per, as he stared into the soft bright rad'ance 
of the heaped sweet gum logs, “that I have 
never seen a case of buck fever and never had 
that peculiar sensation myself.”' 
“It’s not the buck fever that is so exasperat¬ 
ing when taking the novice in the woods; there’s 
nothing dangerous about that. It’s over-anxiety 
that’s the worst bother. A fellow so afflicted 
wants to kill game at unseemly distances, can’t 
keep in the cover, wants to do it all himself, and 
generally gets only a glimpse of the game instead 
of a good opportunity to kill.” 
“He agreed with me and continued incessantly 
to surmise whether the turkeys would be there 
in the morning. 
I had a hard time awaking him at 4 o’clock 
in the morning, but finally succeeded and we 
wended our way to our chosen p'ace of observa¬ 
tion, awaiting the first streak of day to appear 
in the east. I placed the Governor in a nice 
cover of switch cane from which he could view 
the open area of woods for 200 yards. We felt 
the smarting bite of early frost and shivered in 
our hiding place. Finally light broke in the east 
and the spreading tops of the hardwoods rustled 
in the warm glow of their crimson bath. Then 
came the shrill staccato of the pileated wood¬ 
pecker, as it shrieked maledictions at an un¬ 
usually tough shaft of rotting ash. Gray and 
fox squirrels began their morning play and food¬ 
seeking. Occasionally one spied us. ran in haste 
to the fork of a tree, peering with mouse-like 
little eyes at us, and failing to conceive the rea¬ 
son of our inaction, entertained us with his muffled 
bark which soon turned to a defiant chatter. It 
was time to give our attention to the turkeys. 
I admonished the Governor: “Don’t stir; 
don’t shoot until the game is near, and you will 
surely get several.” I drew from my pocket 
a small frail cedar box with an opening at one 
end. I saw the Governor watching my every 
action and drew the vibrant cedar with short 
strokes against my rifle barrel. “Keouk, keouk,” 
went through the woods, the sound apparently sub¬ 
dued in the density of cane. I desisted ; no answer. 
Again I began the appealing call. Far off to 
the northeast, modestly at first, but still distin¬ 
guishable, came a faint response. The cold tang 
of morn had lost its power of chilling, the first 
answer had warmed the Governor’s blood, and 
beads of perspiration peeped from his cap band. 
I repeated the call and two well-defined re- 
spofises came from the opposite direction. I 
cautioned, “Keep in the cane; don’t move until 
they get to this side of that big black oak log.” 
I began calling again, but anxiously added: “For 
the Lord’s sake keep down. They won’t eat you; 
you can see them well from where you are.” 
M y fishing for trout, both brook and rain¬ 
bow, has been confined to the streams of 
Western North Carolina. I can, how¬ 
ever, conceive of no more beautiful trout streams 
than this favored mountain country abounds 
with. There are many of them, all beautiful, 
all as clear as crystal, bounding over rocks and 
through deep gorges, here and there occasional 
stretches through fields cultivated or abandoned, 
then again through the forests. Remember, too, 
that Western North Carolina has a greater 
variety of flowers and plants than any part of 
He was trembling and afterward confessed 
that no game had ever affected him as his first' 
turkey. Straight ahead I saw five coming de¬ 
liberately to our hiding place. They were young, 
but full grown lusty mast-fed rascals. They 
stopped an instant, trying to locate the call. 
Feebly the box emitted the enticing “Keouk, 
keouk.” The Governor was stirring uneasily in 
the cane. I whispered, “Keep cool and let them 
get fifty yards closer.” 
As I spoke a huge gobbler parted the frost- 
stricken growth of ironweed at our left and 
posed in the slough. I began to take on some 
of the sensations of my companion, but the box 
nerved me to duty, and I wailed plaintively 
again the gathering call. The big fellow gave 
a leap and landed in the center of the slough. 
Another jump, keen-eyed, alert, but unapprehen¬ 
sive of danger, he mounted the monster dead 
log. What a magnificent fellow he was. His 
long beard, rounded chest, gorgeous plumage, 
illumined with a bronze metallic sheen as the 
sun centered him on the log, held us spell bound. 
His sudden appearance amazed us, but only for 
a second. 
I turned as slowly as I could, as I saw the 
gobbler trying to descry something out of the 
ordinary in our patch of cane, and said: “Now’s 
your chance; get him !” 
Then came the sharp crack of my friend’s .25, 
and the fall of the king from the log. 
“Sit down,” I commanded, as he started for 
his prize. “Sit still, and you’ll get the other.® ” 
“But he’ll get away!” 
“The others will get away,” I returned, “if 
you don’t keep silent. If you keep perfectly 
quiet they will surely come.” 
But pleadings were useless, the flapping of the 
turkey goaded him on. He rushed for the bird. 
Though I tried ineffectively to hold him, he 
seized it, but not before the other five had seen 
him and waddled away ungracefully in the cover 
of cane and elbow brush. 
He held his turkey high, so I could see it in 
all its immensity, and with a pride I never ex¬ 
pected to see in the eyes of a big-game hunter. 
“You got him,” I said sarcastically, “and let 
the main bunch get away.” 
He looked at me for an instant, thinking of an 
excuse to condone his fault, then laughed and 
responded with ready good humor. “Can’t you, 
for goodness sake, make exceptions for a big 
boy and his first turkey?” 
the United States, the ferns in great variety and 
profusion among the very many, and this plant 
covers varieties, including the Hartford and the 
walking fern ; rhododendrons of several kinds and 
then the kalmia with blooms from white to pink; 
the famous pink beds in the George W. Vander¬ 
bilt estate below Mount Pisgah, being named 
after this kalmia, which covers the little valley 
of its name. 
Imagine, then, a stream of clear transparent 
water rushing through a forest of trees of 
greater variety than in any other part of our 
Fly-Fishing in North Carolina 
By ERNEST L. EWBANK 
