FOREST AND STREAM. 
55 
July ii, 1908.] 
Lead circled south, running like mad, with 
nostrils to the ground, and Bess turned about 
and struck the trail where the fox got upon the 
log. 
Fully ten minutes had elapsed from the time 
the fox quit his bed until Bess located the track." 
It was interesting to w r atch her perform after 
she got in his wake. She left the thicket and 
circled north, and crossing the trail, she burst 
out into a joyful bark. Every dog in hearing 
went to her, for he or she knew that Bess had 
hit a warm track. Something about her voice 
i told them. Lead, among the first to get to her, 
caught up the scent and swept on, calling 
vigorously. 
“They are off now!” said Williamson. “If 
that fox had gone out on the far side he would 
have been dead by this time. Cry would have 
given him such a race from the jump that he 
would have broken him down in the first ten 
minutes.” 
At the expiration of an hour and a quarter, 
after a hard driving race, with Lead doing the 
honors, the fox was forced to take a tree. Be¬ 
ing merciful, we blew off the hounds and went 
home, leaving him for another day. 
H. E. C. Bryant. 
Where to Hunt in British Columbia. 
Montreal, Can., July 1 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The fall will soon be upon us, and 
though the time of falling leaves heralds the 
coming of winter, yet it is the best loved period 
to many, and especially to those whose recre¬ 
ation is hunting. 
Year after year an increasing stream of sports¬ 
men go across the continent into British Colum¬ 
bia, and with good reason, for game is not only 
more plentiful, but found in greater variety than 
elsewhere, and the following has been written 
with the hope that the information may guide 
fellow sportsmen to a region unsurpassed as a 
game center. 
In the southeast corner of British Columbia, 
close to the Alberta boundary, you will find 1 
small town situated on the “Crow’s Nest” branch 
; of the Canadian Pacific Railway, called Michel. 
Here is your starting point. There is a first 
class hotel where you will enjoy every comfort 
while making final preparations. 
The guides located at Michel are reliable and 
know their business. Perhaps the only difficulty 
that would be encountered is the horse question. 
Until lately this magnificent section of the Pro¬ 
vince has to a certain extent been neglected, the 
business offering not being large enough to war¬ 
rant many horses being kept, so that it is well 
to give one’s guides as long notice as possible 
in order to enable them to secure good beasts. 
! The fact of horses being scarce is a sort of 
recommendation, as it proves that the country 
has not been over-hunted. 
To those who can spare the time, an ideal 
trip, and one which with ordinary luck would 
supply a specimen of every variety of game, 
would be to visit the Elk and Bull River conn- 
tries early in the season (the season opens on 
Sept. 1), coming out with the first snow to try 
for whitetail at say, Jaffrav, or in fact almost 
any point along the railway. The deer are very 
numerous during the early winter months, going 
1 south only when the deeper snows drive them. 
It would be ■ well nigh impossible to give ail 
idea of the extent of the hunting grounds that 
are reached from Michel. Elk River with its 
tributaries could scarcely be traveled over in a 
single season, as each creek valley is a hunting 
ground in itself. 
The heads of nearly all the side streams con¬ 
sist of large basins surrounded by precipitous 
cliffs, the homes of myriads of goats and sheep. 
Of course no guide will guarantee a kill of 
any kind—he is at the mercy of his employer's 
capacity or otherwise with the rifle. Moreover, 
the mountain sheep is the wariest of all wild 
creatures, and circumstances often unforeseen 
cause disappointments w r hen one is hunting 
sheep. At one time bad shooting is the cause, 
at another a shift of wind has carried the taint 
of an enemy to that keenest of all keen noses; 
A SUMMER SCENE IN YELLOWSTONE PARK. 
Photographed by Samuel W. Lippmcott. 
but should the sportsman take a reasonable view 
of things all will go well, for a guide can always 
get within easy distance of a goat. Then there 
may be a bear, for it often happens that one 
meets bruin when he is least expected, his range 
being identical with that of sheep and goats. 
This applies to grizzly, brown and black. 
Then there comes the elk or wapiti. It has 
been stated that elk were practically extinct in 
this part of the Province, but this is quite false, 
the elk being still plentiful, but the explanation 
of the statements of extinction is probably this: 
that the elk were still on their summer range 
when the writers visited this country, for elk 
are migratory in their habits. 
The chance of getting a mountain lion is a 
trifle remote, as the actual shooting of a cougar 
is a rare event, though tracks are often seen. 
A good wagon trail leads from Michel up the 
Elk River for nearly forty miles. Of course 
pack horses are a necessity, for once the wagon 
trail is left behind one has the unbroken wilder¬ 
ness to contend with, the faint tracks called 
trails by courtesy, being only negotiable by 
means of sure-footed ponies. However, this is 
a feature no sportsman will grumble at, and 
though progress at times will be slow the fre¬ 
quent stops to adjust packs, etc., afford oppor¬ 
tunities of bagging grouse that are numerous 
beyond belief. There are three t r arieties: the 
Franklin grouse, the willow grouse and the large 
blue grouse. This latter bird is, like the ptar¬ 
migan, usually found on the summits. 
Another feature is the trout fishing. The 
upper waters of the Elk are the finest in the 
Province, if not on the continent, and the fish 
rise readily to the fly. As to scenery no pen 
can describe its unique grandeur, and from the 
summit between the Bull and Elk rivers a vista 
of mountain tops can be seen surpassing in 
beauty and magnificence any view in the Swiss 
Alps. From September to the end of October 
the weather is generally perfect, clear frosty 
mornings being succeeded by warm sunshiny 
days. 
Taken all in all, perhaps no finer holiday could 
be conceived than this trip in southern British 
Columbia. Every condition required for per¬ 
fect enjoyment is fulfilled, game galore, scenery 
superb, weather and climate ideal. 
Needless to say, it is not necessary to spend 
the whole fall in such a hunt, and those whose 
time is limited will have to be content with less 
than we have described. 
Many other localities which abound in game 
are known, and there are doubtless others again 
which have never yet been shot over, but none 
that I have heard of surpass the country men¬ 
tioned. 
The Canadian Pacific Railway sent a represen¬ 
tative into British Columbia last year solely to 
report upon the sporting possibilities, and the 
information thus obtained will be furnished to 
anyone who will take the trouble to write. 
C. F. Lane. 
John G. Heckscher Dead. 
Mr. John G. Heckscher, one of New York’s 
old sportsmen, died on Saturday last at his‘home 
in this city. 
Mr. Heckscher was the son of Gen. Chas. A. 
Heckscher and served through the Civil War. 
His first wife was a grand daughter of old 
Stephen Whitney, his second wife a daughter 
of Wm. R. Travers, and in October, 1905, Mr. 
Heckscher married a Miss Otis, a young woman 
and a noted beauty of Charleston, S. C. Two 
daughters of Mr. Heckscher married Mayor 
McClellan, and Mr. Egerton Winthrop, Jr. Mr. 
Hecksher belonged to that group of passed away 
and forgotten sportsmen which included Shep¬ 
pard F. Knapp, John Draper, August Belmont 
the elder, Winnie Gray, Carrol Livingston, the 
Jeromes and J. G. Bennett. He was long a 
member of the South Side Club and a good 
sportsman. He was a man of great personal 
charm and had many warm friends. 
A Well Known Angler Dead. 
PIomer Down, who died suddenly in his fish¬ 
ing boat on Lake Garfield on June 28. was a 
famous angler. His favorite sport was fishing 
for pickerel in western Massachusetts, and last 
year, according to report, he caught more than 
u.otxuOf them. His age was seventy-nine years. 
