464 
FOREST AND STREAM 
plaintive whistle rippling across the fields or 
longer watch for that circling blot of gray 
against the horizon and over the distant woods, 
then gradually turning to that yellowish hue of 
the waning dog days. The golden-rod is fad¬ 
ing and the sumach reddening in the shadowy 
gulch and remote fence corner. Then is the 
time for patience. The uplands have gone, but 
autumn, that most jocund season of all, is com¬ 
ing. In a few more weeks the woods and the 
fields, the crested lake and murmuring stream 
will form one great hunter’s elysium. With the 
cool night and cooler mornings, with the sere 
prairies, gray sandhills and gayly tinted river 
valleys, comes the vanguard of those quacking 
hordes that will one more start the sportsmen’s 
heart to beating and make him forget the mel¬ 
ancholy but plaintive “tur-wheetle ! tur-wheetle !” 
of the upland plover. 
Now for our leading proposition: 
The term upland shooting is used not to dis¬ 
tinguish the sport of the highlands from that of 
the low, but that of the inland country, from 
that along the sea-coasts. The phrase includes 
a large variety of game, both birds and animals, 
all those that find habitat in our fields and wood¬ 
land, on our mountain tops, hillsides and in our 
lowlands; the birds of lake, marsh, streams and 
lagoons; the long-legged denizens of the stubble, 
corn-field, prairie and tangled copse and thicket. 
In other words, we understand by upland 
shooting, all that is sought by the aid of the 
dog and the fowling-piece, as opposed to that 
pursued in boats or over decoys on the lake, the 
bay or estuary. 
It is the cream of all sport, although there are 
thousands of the gun’s votaries, and I am one of 
them, who deem duck shooting the most fasci¬ 
nating, the most exciting and pleasurable of 
all, but on the uplands is required a greater com¬ 
bination of the qualities which go to make up 
the skilled and successful sportsman. He must 
know just how to handle his gun, must thor¬ 
oughly understand the habits and haunts of the 
particular variety of game he seeks, must know 
how to manage his dog, must have a keen eye, 
perfect hearing, good nerves and an inexhaust¬ 
ible stock of perseverance, patience and physical 
endurance and determination. 
It is a stupendous job, a day’s tramp, under 
the broiling September sun, over our broad, 
grassy prairies and cloggy sandhills, and through 
seas of hot standing corn, after chicken; a he¬ 
roic task to force one’s way through the net¬ 
work of vines and interlacing briar and bramble, 
through tiresome stubble, up hill and down dale, 
through the woods and across the meadow, after 
quail; a struggle to wade through the boggy 
marsh and quaking mire, tussocked to the belt, 
and full of treacherous sink holes, hidden be¬ 
neath a sheet of muddy water, over ditches and 
drains, and back again, after the elusive jack. 
To do this one must be endowed with the bod¬ 
ily vigor of perfect health, and must have in his 
veins the inherited blood of a sportsman. He 
must know all the signs of the weather and de¬ 
pend on his own sure foot and sturdy leg, as 
well as his keen eye, to keep pace with his tire¬ 
less four-footed friend; upon his own knowledge 
of the likely places his wary quarry may lurk, 
and his own skill to secure the booty when once 
the keen sc ent of his canine ally has located it 
and it cute the-'air iivits whirring effort to escape. 
We have many great field shots and success¬ 
ful hunters in Nebraska, in fact, the whole state 
is a veritable sportsman’s home. The wildest 
and wariest, the fleetest and sharpest flying of all 
game birds, and the choicest, from an epicurean 
standpoint, too, is to be found here in exhilarat¬ 
ing abundance. And then our timbered river 
valleys are full of squirrels and the creeks 
courses veritable rabbit warrens from source to 
mouth. And our waters, too, are full of gamy 
fishes, and our marshes the haunts of myriads of 
wild fowl, from the king of the sky and the 
R AIN, wind and cold; salt pork, misery and 
desolation, and all the et ceteras that 
help to make life in a seven-foot tent 
uncomfortable. However, rainy days are good 
for something, for then we mend our ragged cor¬ 
duroys, clean our guns, look over and repair our 
fishing tackle, and plan future excursions. Rainy 
days are also days of letter-writing, and as I 
want to ask Forest and Stream a few questions 
I will at the same time try and give those who 
have not “been there” a notion of roughing it in 
the Canadian backwoods. 
If this is not backwoods, where is it? Look¬ 
ing out of the tent door this same rainy day, 
one sees a small lake with very black water, 
weeds and a few pike and dore. The surround¬ 
ing country is brule—forests of dead and black¬ 
ened spruces and windfall and second growth, 
hills and valleys of sand, the valleys usually oc¬ 
cupied by lakes, with here and there a mountain 
of the old Laurentian gneisses showing his head 
up through the remains of a forest that partly 
clothes him, as though he were not ashamed of 
his ugliness. When a cold wind is blowing, sky 
clouded, and heavy rain falling, such a “bit” 
does not send a matter-of-fact individual into 
ecstasy over the beauty of the country. But to 
the country’s credit be it said that it is not at 
all like this. There are beautiful lakes among 
these old hills; and they are the more charming 
to the sportsman who, as he begins to put his 
rod in order, sees many a large trout break the 
surface into ripples. 
What to call this particular region I have not 
decided—“Land of Rocks and Lakes,” “Paddle 
and Portage,” or “Land of the Mosquito and 
Blackfly.” A mixture or combination would 
suit it best, I think, for all the above are in 
strong force, and the two last will not allow 
themselves to be left out of the program. 
Here I sit in my tent, and the musical mos¬ 
quito takes his dinner while I wait for mine. 
.The blackfly contributes his quota to the gen¬ 
eral amusement, and though he will vanish at 
sunset his place will be ably supplied by the 
brulot or midge. I don’t know who first orig¬ 
inated the yarn, but yarn there is, that the black¬ 
fly goes to his long home in the middle of July, 
and that when their feet are white they are go¬ 
ing to leave. I say I don’t know who was the 
inventor of this bit of natural history, but if I 
main, the swan, to geese and ducks and crane 
and waders of all kinds and varieties. 
From the above intimations it will be an easy 
matter for any sportsman to determine what 
game comes under the head of upland shooting— 
the grouse family, quail, jack snipe, plover, and 
several varieties of the waders, all the wild fowl 
family, when shot on passes and not over de¬ 
coys, doves, and squirrels and rabbits. Thus it 
will be seen that all upland shooting is not neces¬ 
sarily found on the uplands, and the term is only 
used to divide the sport from that found on the 
sea and sea-coasts. 
had him here, provided he were a small man, 
I would inflict severe corporal punishment, and 
the “injun” fashion, tie him to a tree in his bare 
pelt and let the flies at him. ‘Why, the blackfly 
bites until the frosts come. I have seen them, 
yea, and felt them in October and three days af¬ 
ter winter set in. Very like a fish story, but true. 
But to the country. Around us stretches for 
miles a vast wilderness—it is little better—of 
lake, rock forest and brule; lakes abounding in 
trout or bass or pike and dore, supporting broods 
of ducks, and so naturalists say, producing all 
kinds of blood-thirsty flies; river-valleys well 
stocked with grouse, ruffed and Canada, hares, 
beaver, otter, mink and lynx, for small game; and 
moose, caribou and black bear for large. But I 
have forgotten the muskrat, or musquash, an un¬ 
pardonable fault, for many a meal of savory 
bouillon of that same “rat” have I eaten by the 
camp fire, and though of course one would pre¬ 
fer deer, bear, or beaver, rat is not to be de¬ 
spised when there is nothing but “cookoosh” 
(salt pork) in camp. 
In spite of these numerous attractions in the 
way of game we are not likely to be overrun by 
sportsmen from the cities for a few years, as 
there are grounds more accessible. However, 
the country will keep, and will not spoil by keep¬ 
ing, either, as far as settlement is concerned. It* 
offers no attraction to the farmer, as none of 
that class with the average amount of sense 
would came in here. There have been found as 
yet no minerals of importance, so that mining is 
not likely to be an enterprise, and to the chas¬ 
seur and trapper does it belong. Lumbermen 
have had a share in it, but not much is done in 
that line. 
Of course, in such a country things are done 
in a different style from on the Western plains 
where it was a saying that a horse and buckboard 
can go anywhere. Here roads do not exist in 
summer, and to travel with a horse in these 
mountains would be as absurd to attempt as im¬ 
possible to accomplish. Canoeing and portaging 
are the only means of transport in summer, and 
every pound of outfit that comes into camp 
comes on a man’s back a great part of the way; 
so little is taken on a long trip save necessities 
that no fellow can do without. 
I think I should have been a six-footer if I 
had not taken to the tump line, and firmly be- 
(Continued on page 491.) 
In The Real Original Wilderness 
Amid Rain, Wind, Cold, Salt Pork, Misery and Desolation a Correspon 
dent sends a Brilliant Little Article 
