57 ® 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. io, 1908. 
two lakes is dark in color, being stained by the 
water of numerous brooks which filter through 
deep beds of moss. At the outlet of Beaver 
Lake a crude beaver dam raises the water a few 
inches. This outlet (Beaver Creek) is a rapid 
stream half a mile long which empties into the 
largest lake of the chain nearly opposite that 
lake’s outlet. A cascade in Beaver Creek neces¬ 
sitates a portage of 300 yards. 
We called the largest lake after our guide, 
who was probably the first white man to ex¬ 
plore it. It is nine miles long and half a mile 
across at its northern end, widening to a mile 
at the southern end. The outlet is a consider¬ 
able river with a rocky rapid a few yards from 
the lake. No one knew where the outlet of this 
river was. We were reasonably sure that it 
was not on the eastern side of the island. The 
coast survey chart indicated the mouths of sev¬ 
eral streams along Chatham Strait on the west¬ 
ern shore, but gave no clue to the probable out¬ 
let. Miss Alexander resolved to find out where 
the outlet was, and, when we had finished work 
at Mole Harbor, started in the canoe with a 
week’s provisions and a light camp outfit, ac¬ 
companied by D. and Hasselborg. They found 
the rapids numerous, necessitating several por¬ 
tages. They found Hasselborg River about ten 
miles in length and after two days’ hard work 
came out on Mitchell Bay, near Killisnoo, where 
the launch picked them up. A short distance 
from the mouth were the highest falls encountered. 
The water in the lakes is usually deep. The 
mountains surrounding the north end of Hassel¬ 
borg Lake are highest. I climbed one on the 
west side near the north end. My aneroid regis¬ 
tered 2,600 feet on its summit. A little further 
northwest were summits at least a thousand feet 
higher. A few points of scraggy hemlocks ex¬ 
tended nearly to the summit of the peak I 
climbed. A few rock ptarmigan live on these 
summits, but birds of all kinds were scarce. 
The male ptarmigans were still in the white 
winter plumage, but Hasselborg saw one brown 
ptarmigan, probably a female, as they moult 
first. Waterfowl were scarce on the lakes, 
though it appeared a fine breeding locality. The 
female of a pair of harlequin ducks that I shot 
on a beaver pond near the north end of the lake 
would have bred in a few days and probably 
near where I shot them. Deer were plentiful. 
Brown bears were common, but wary and re¬ 
mained principally above the timber. On our 
way up the mountain we saw three on the snow 
across the lake and next day Hasselborg killed 
one. There are some beavers and they had been 
so little disturbed by trappers that they were 
abroad in daylight, morning and evening. We 
saw several in the lake and in ponds made by 
damming small streams. There are a few minks, 
martens and weasels, but no squirrels, foxes or 
wolves. 
[to be concluded.] 
but they possess also great medicine power, are 
able to accomplish many marvelous things, and 
especially have the power of healing and curing 
themselves or those whom they favor when 
wounded. Often a part of the operation of heal¬ 
ing is said to consist in blowing out from the 
nostrils dust of various colors, or in disgorging 
earth of different colors. Here is a story of 
the curing of a wounded cow by a buffalo bull, 
told in absolute good faith by Two Crows, a 
man now over sixty, and so old enough to have 
taken part in many of the fightings of forty 
years ago. 
Two Crows was in Tall Bull’s camp at the 
time when General Carr captured it, and killed 
so many of the Dog Soldiers, breaking forever 
the power of that stern and headstrong organi¬ 
zation. 
Two Crows said: “It was in the summer 
many years ago (summer of 1872) that I came 
back from the North. I was traveling south 
with several young men who had left the North¬ 
ern Cheyenne. The Southern Cheyenne were 
camped on the Cimmaron River. We met a 
young Southern Cheyenne who told us where 
the camp was. 
“When we were about ready to start one morn¬ 
ing, I said to my friends that I would go on 
ahead, and I picked up a gun and powder horn 
belonging to one of the party and walked off. 
On my way I saw a herd of buffalo close to 
the bank of a deep ravine and went around and 
into the ravine and shot a buffalo cow that was 
very close to me. She ran a little way and fell 
down. 
Indian Camp-Fire Tales 
II.—A Snapper on the War Path. 
In 1850 a war party of Cheyennes had started 
out on foot to take horses and had got as far 
south as Black Butte Creek—perhaps Big Creek 
of the whites—which runs into the Smoky Hill 
River from the north, near where Fort Larned 
afterward stood. 
They had come to the banks of this stream 
and were sitting there resting, some of them 
drinking water, others lying down in the grass 
and sleeping. As they sat there one of the men 
saw coming over the prairie a coyote, slowly 
trotting toward the stream. It acted as if it 
smelt something. 
Now, it is the law that when people are on 
the war path they must not kill or injure either 
wolf or coyote, so no one thought of harming 
this animal, and the men sat there and looked 
at it, and one said to the others, “Sit still, now; 
do not frighten it; let us see what it will 
do.” 
The coyote trotted along slowly until it had 
come to a sand bank at the edge of the water, 
and there, after smelling about a little, it began 
to dig, and presently had partly uncovered the 
eggs of a snapping turtle and was beginning 
to eat them. But close by, lying on the sand, 
was a big snapping turtle, the mother that had 
laid these eggs. She saw the coyote and com¬ 
menced slowly to walk toward him. The coyote 
had his head down in the hole busily devour¬ 
ing the eggs and saw and heard nothing, and 
in a moment or two the turtle was close to it, 
and darting out its long neck seized him by the 
cheek and the ear, closing her jaws on him with 
a grip that nothing could loosen. The coyote 
yelled dismally and tried to pull away, but could 
not. The turtle was big and strong, and she 
began to back slowly toward the stream. The 
coyote, howling with pain, pulled back as hard 
as he could and struggled desperately, trying 
to shake himself free, but the turtle held on 
and marched steadily backward until she got 
into the water and dragged the miserable coyote 
after her. Gradually the water got deeper and 
deeper, until it had reached the coyote’s body, 
and then presently his head disappeared, and the 
last the Indians saw of him was his tail and 
his hind legs waving in the air. 
For some time the Indians sat there looking 
at the water and talking over what had hap¬ 
pened, and at length they saw the body of the 
coyote rise to the surface and float away down 
the stream. 
So the old turtle protected her young ones. 
Ill—The Buffalo Bull and the Coyote 
Man. 
The Indians believe that the bear and the 
buffalo are two of the most powerful animals 
found on the prairie or the mountains. They 
are not only two of the largest and strongest, 
“I walked up to the cow to take some meat 
from her and the other buffalo ran off. One 
young bull stopped about fifty yards off and 
looked at me. Just as I had reached the cow, 
the bull started back and charged me. There 
was a little cottonwood tree standing nearby. I 
dropped my gun and ran for the tree and jumped 
up into it. As I did so the bull struck the stem 
of the tree and nearly knocked me out of the 
tree. I sat down on a branch. 
“The buffalo bull went back to where the cow 
was lying, walked around her, pawed the ground 
and bellowed. Then he lifted the cow off the 
ground with his horns. Then the cow and the 
bull walked off together. It was the greatest 
mystery I ever saw. 
“I waited in the tree a long time before I went 
back for my gun again, and then started back 
to where I had left my party, walking along 
the edge of the ravine where I had shot the cow. 
“At the head of the ravine there was some 
tall grass, and I looked down in it and saw there 
a little old man lying on the ground, smoking. 
He had an old robe about him and his old flint 
and steel bag in front of him. I watched him 
for a long time, but he never looked up; just 
kept on smoking quietly. All at once he got up 
suddenly and made a jump for the bank. As 
he did so, he turned into a coyote and stood 
on the bank looking at me. I have always been 
sorry that I did not put out my hands to him 
to thank him for showing himself to me. 
“When I got back to the camp everyone said 
I should have thanked the coyote man, for his 
letting me see him showed me I would live 
to be an old man. 
“This is a true story. I am getting old now 
and it would not do for me to tell a lie.” 
Geo Bird Grinnell. 
