33 ° 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 2, 1907. 
the buffalo chips which were to be used to 
prepare the evening meal. All the early books 
speak of the use of this fuel, and mention its 
excellence as a matter of curiosity and inter¬ 
est; yet it is by no means peculiar to America. 
On the high plateaus of Tartary and Thibet 
the dung of camels and of yaks has been used 
for the same purpose time out of mind. It will 
be remembered that the Abbe Hue, one of the 
first European missionaries to penetrate 
Thibet, speaks with enthusiasm of the excel¬ 
lence of this fuel, there called argols, and of 
the satisfaction had in gathering them and in 
securing those of especial excellence. A simi¬ 
lar feeling has been had by many a Western 
traveler, and it was not uncommon for a man 
to exhibit with great pride some specimen of 
peculiar size and substance. 
Abbe Hue says: “Each of us hung a bag 
from his shoulder and went in different direc¬ 
tions to seek argols for fuel. Those who had 
never led a nomadic life will of course find it 
difficult to understand how this 'occupation 
could possibly develop any enjoyment. Yet, 
when one is lucky enough to find, half con¬ 
cealed among the grass, an argol, recommend- 
able for its size and dryness, there comes over 
the heart a gentle joy, one of those sudden 
emotions which create a transient happiness. 
The pleasure at finding a fine argol is cognate 
with that which the hunter feels when he dis¬ 
covers the track of game, the linnet’s nest he 
has long sought; with which the fisherman sees 
quivering at the end of his line a fine large 
fish; nay, if we may compare small things with 
great, one might even compare this pleasure 
with the enthusiasm of a Leverrier when he 
has discovered a new planet. 
“Our sack once filled with argols, we re¬ 
turned, and piled the contents with pride at 
the entrance of the tent; then we struck a 
light and set the fire in movement; and while 
the tea was boiling in the pot, pounded the 
meat and put some cakes to bake in the ashes. 
The repast, it is observable, was simple and 
modest, but it was always extremely delicious, 
first, because we had prepared it ourselves, 
and secondly, because our appetites provided 
most efficient seasoning.” 
In dry weather no better fuel could be found 
than the buffalo chip, but if the weather had 
long been damp, or, worse still, if there had 
been a heavy rainstorm, the kindling of a fire 
of buffalo chips was a difficult, sometimes an im¬ 
possible, task. Without this fuel the difficul¬ 
ties of old-time travel over the Western plains 
would have been many times multiplied. It 
furnished heat with which to prepare warm 
and nourishing food, often at critical times, 
and often gave the fire which kept men from 
perishing through cold. 
By the Indians of the plains the buffalo was 
esteemed sacred above all other animals, and 
naturally so, since it furnished them with, 
food and shelter and clothing. They also held 
the buffalo chip sacred. In many of their 
ceremonies it was used sometimes to typify 
the buffalo, sometimes as a support to keep 
some sacred object from resting upon the 
ground. A sacred pipe might be placed upon 
a buffalo chip, and other sacred objects were 
often put upon it, sometimes the chip itself 
resting on a bed of stems of the white sage. 
The study of the buffalo chip is not without 
interest. Within a short time I have seen on 
the plains of northern Montana, where buffalo 
have not been known for twenty-four years, a 
buffalo chip which held the imprint of the hoof 
of a buffalo cow and another marked with 
the trail of two toes that had been dragged 
across it. These tracks, seen where buffalo had 
been so long absent, made wonderfully vivid 
to my mind their ancient presence in these 
rough hills. 
It nas been thought by many that the buf¬ 
falo chip had long ago disappeared, and that 
the chips seen on the prairie to-day are all 
made by the domestic cattle; but this is far 
from true. To-day there are—and for years 
yet there will be—these relics of the buffalo 
scattered all over that northern country where 
once the great beasts were so abundant. 
G. B. G. 
Camp Don’t Hurry. 
XII —Terry’s Misfortune. 
When, like all weeks, old Billy’s week had 
come to an end, he gave us each a good shak¬ 
ing up and went home. Henry and I were going 
to remain for a time and give our families an 
outing, now that the summer vacations at the 
schools had begun. In my case “the family” 
meant a wife and small boy. In Henry’s case 
it was the boy to whom, since the first break 
in the circle of our schoolmates at the Academy, 
he had been both father and mother. 
Somehow a camp is a comfortable place 
whether there are few or many in it, if the few 
or many have been well Chosen. Henry and I 
enjoyed it when there were more there, but we 
were far from not enjoying it when we were 
alone. He was more prone to wander about 
with a gun, although there were nothing but 
woodchucks to shoot, or at least nothing but 
woodchucks which he would shoot. He claimed 
to feel himself a sort of public benefactor when 
he ridded the farmers of this nuisance. I tried 
playing Daniel Webster upon him sometimes, 
but he said he believed Mr. Webster’s verdict 
would have been reversed had the case gone to 
a higher court, and that he had always" felt a 
warm sympathy for Ezekiel. 
As for me, the longer I stayed by the Esopus 
the more I wanted to fish, so between the two 
of us the water and the land were pretty well 
explored. I almost never came in for supper 
until pitch dark, and my memory’s gallery does 
not hold a more charming picture than tine ap¬ 
proach to the camp those nights. As, tired and 
hungry, I groped my way through the darkness, 
under the young maples on the sandy flat, I 
could see the light of the fire shine out from 
the bluff into the tops of the trees. At the first 
sound of my steps the dogs would come and 
be silhouetted on the edge of the ridge while 
they peered into the blackness and growled sav¬ 
agely, lest they welcome the wrong comer. Then 
as I came up the sharp rise, holding the rod and 
flies above ihe reach of their welcoming antics, 
I would find Henry moving about, preparing the 
evening meal, in the cheering light of the crack¬ 
ling fire. 
There was one big trout that positively ob¬ 
jected to taking any fly which we had, no mat¬ 
ter what the time of day or how careful the 
cast. He almost never failed to rise but always 
failed to be hooked. Finally Henry suggested 
that if the fish should see a fly of my own tying 
he might be sufficiently astonished to be thrown 
off his guard for a time, and so be taken. It 
seemed rather a forlorn hope, but as it was all 
the chance there was left, I undertook to make 
the fly. The work went glibly on until I was 
ready for some brown hackle from Terry’s 
back. I picked up the scissors and whistled, 
but no Terry responded. I repeated the call 
a little louder, and Lassie came rubbing against me. 
“Go find Terry," I commanded, and she ran 
around a little among the nearest undergrowth 
and came back. That bothered me, for fit was 
not her habit. Often I had told her to bring 
him, and she had searched through the brush 
until she found his sleepy head pillowed upon 
the dry leaves, and woke him. A sharper com¬ 
mand brought no better result; in fact, she did 
not go so far. 
I remembered having seen the two dogs start 
down toward the stream; a thing they did a 
dozen times a day, but I could not recall having 
seen them come back, only I knew that Lassie 
had been there for some time. Henry had seen 
the same thing, but only then remembered that 
Terry had not been around for an hour. Search¬ 
ing and whistling through the woods and along 
the banks of the creek brought no results. Once 
or twice he had strayed to the village, so I 
started for there while Henry followed the rail¬ 
road track for a mile or two above the camp. 
All the time there kept running in my mind 
the fact that the water was low enough in the 
main stream, so that he could have crossed easily 
in certain spots and might be in the mad-dog 
district. It was not a very pleasant thought, 
and quickened my pace, as inquiry at one after 
another of the places we frequented in Unasego 
brought no news of the pup. On my way back 
to camp I learned that our milk boy had gone 
to spend the afternoon in the woods up on the 
side of the mountain. He and Terry were good 
chums, and it did not take me long to figure 
out that they had met somewhere and were 
together. It was a case of a healthy boy going 
for a romp in the woods, and a healthy pup 
wanting to go along." Of course the boy knew 
it was against the rules, but the rules would not 
have to be faced until evening, and that was a 
long way off. Such a thing had happened on 
short trips before, and I whistled a little tune 
as 1 thought how severe I should have to be. 
The question being thus disposed of and the 
matter explained to Henry, I went for the usual 
afternoon and evening fishing, thinking no more 
about it. When it was too late to fish longer, 
and I groped my way through the woods to the 
foot of the bluff and was looking up at the light 
from the fire, the whole incident of the after¬ 
noon returned to me with a sickening conscious¬ 
ness of reality, for there was but one voice in 
the barking. At the top of the ridge Henry was 
waiting to tell me that the boy had just been 
there and reported that he had not seen Terry. 
I blamed myself for having been so certain 
of the conclusion I had formed about his being 
with the lad, and heartily wished I had spent 
my time in a further search. Of course there 
was not time to do anything that night, except 
to go to the village and fruitlessly inquire of all 
who chanced to be about. Henry and I sat up 
late discussing the best method to pursue as 
soon as it should again come daylight. When 
we did finally go to bed, I made very poor head¬ 
way getting to sleep. 
Of course there was the chance that Terry 
might return during the night, and at every 
stir of the dry leaves I listened carefully. But 
most of the time visions of his being chased 
and scared in the mad-dog district until per¬ 
haps he would show signs of the distemper 
himself, haunted me. Occasionally I thought 
of his possibly having been killed upon the 
railroad tracks, or been stolen; but the mad 
dogs worried me more than the other chances 
of harm. What little sleep I had was miser¬ 
ably feverish and dreamy. 
He had grown so large that his habit of 
sleeping under my bed had been abandoned, 
and I had made for him a nest in a bunch of 
excelsior under some slanting boards near the 
cooking arch. As I awoke long before day¬ 
light, the moon shone on the white excelsior, 
but the hole which his weight had made in it 
was :n a shadow. Certainly there was a dark 
spot there; that I could plainly see fVom my 
bed. It might be Terry, or it might be only 
the hole where he had lain. I did not like to 
go and examine it for fear of being disap¬ 
pointed. I must have watched that spot an 
hour, and sometimes it seemed as if I surely 
saw a movement there. At length the pale 
light of the slowly approaching day showed 
beyond a doubt that I had been watching only 
a vacant spot. 
