FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 7, 1908. 
734 
at Moose Jaw they told me of an Indian who, 
with his blanket and buffalo robe, creeps into 
the darkness well out on a point of land jutting 
far into the lake, and there he lies motionless 
until the dimmest ray of light appears. He had 
a six-bore gun and charged it with more powder 
and shot than any sportsman would risk. Lying 
with geese all about him, when the proper time 
comes, he fires the first barrel. They rise; the 
second—marvelous'flying shot — his bag numbers 
thirty-six killed and wounded. 
Fellow sportsmen, let me beg of you—though 
you may have shot driven grouse in Scotland, 
nearly frozen in a sink box in the Chesapeake 
or had some glorious pass shooting at canvas- 
backs and redheads around Devil’s Lake in 
Dakota—if you want the acme of sport go into 
Assiniboia and you will find that the Canada 
honkers, flying like 
the wind from Buf¬ 
falo Lake, will give 
you sport, rest and 
relaxation that your 
memory will always 
recall with greatest 
pleasure, and you 
will only wish for 
. another brown Octo¬ 
ber to roll around. 
Russell Bellamy. 
Adirondack 
Game. 
Little Falls, N. 
Y., Nov. 2 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: 
Hard hunting in the 
region bounded on 
the east by Piseco 
Lake, on the west by 
the West Canada 
Creek and on the 
north by the Indian 
River country, re¬ 
vealed plenty of deer 
tracks, more ruffed 
grouse than I have 
ever seen before 
while deer hunting, considerable bear signs and 
unprecedented drouth. The streams are exceed¬ 
ingly low, and judging from brooks coming 
from green timber, loggers are not entirely to 
blame for the low water—in the Mohawk River, 
for instance. 
Fortunately, the West Canada Creek valley 
has been comparatively free from fires. I know 
of only one, and that was fought in the town 
of Wilmurt and subdued by a score of men at 
night. This fire started about 2 o’clock in the 
afternoon. When its serious nature was ob¬ 
served, the men were called out and spruce 
branches were used to pound out the flames, 
180 acres were burned over. 
The work of the Forest, Fish and Game Com¬ 
mission in fighting the Adirondack fires has been 
of a most severe and trying character, nature 
rendering but little assistance. It seems remark¬ 
able that the woods have not been swept from 
end to end, for there is nothing to stop the 
drive of the fire except the long, and neces¬ 
sarily thin, lines established by the fire-fighters. 
The task of preventing fires along the rail¬ 
roads has been the worst feature of the trouble. 
I doubt very much if many fires have been set 
by vengeful woodsmen. I have long expected 
they would set fires in revenge on private pre¬ 
serve owners, but it does not appear that these 
preserves have suffered more than other forest 
lands. 
Woodsmen tell me the preserves are not en¬ 
forcing the trespass laws. One preserve that 
I know has not even put a watcher where the 
hunters are daily seeking deer on posted lands. 
The fact is, on large preserves, there are pockets 
of game and good game country beyond the 
sphere gone over by hunters from club camps. 
These pockets supply the club lands far and 
near, and to some extent surrounding territory. 
I doubt very much now whether woodsmen and 
preserve owners will come much in conflict. 
The exception will, if any, be in outlying pre¬ 
THE camera’s STORY.—II. 
Photograph by J. H. Babcock. 
serves, as Rockefeller’s, on the northwest side 
of the mountains, where there are more hunters 
than deer, and where even the most remote parts 
of the preserve are not distant from towns of 
considerable size. 
All the hunters I have seen agree that deer 
are unusually plentiful up the West Canada this 
fall. Some think it is because fires drove them 
from the railroad districts, and others think it 
is because the deer are really more numerous. 
Certainly, when one can see ten or twelve deer 
in square still-hunting in a week with dry leaves 
six inches deep and footsteps audible eighty rods 
distant, as I did between Oct. 12 and 19, one 
cannot kick. Not half as many deer have been 
killed this year as usual, I feel certain. The 
hunters have been obliged to resort almost ex¬ 
clusively to “driving”—posting men on hillside 
runways and beating the brush from the oppo¬ 
site hillside over the tops of ridges. This 
method is used with more and more success 
now, and as a result a curious condition of 
affairs seems to be indicated. Man-driven deer 
take to water now more than they used to, I 
am told. Certainly, I have heard of more deer 
crossing lakes and streams than in past years. 
I should like to know if this observation is mere 
coincidence, or whether deer in the Adiron- 
dacks are actually changing their habits. 
One thing about shortening the deer season 
and cutting out November hunting is worth men¬ 
tioning. It takes a good deal more skill to kill 
a deer in leafy, dry October than in open-woods,, 
wet November. The meat hunters know this,|l 
and they make a shout of anger at the thought! 
of being obliged to hunt in the hardest huntingjl 
time, but they hunt more carefully, become morel 
skillful, and usually get their xleer, though not] 
in such numbers as formerly. I think the Sep-I 
tember hunting is a mistake, for it must en-j 
courage or tempt to jacking, but with the in-1 
creasing fear of wardens upon them, jackers are! 
becoming scarcer. The elimination of jackers I 
and hounders isl 
slow, of course, but I 
even without arrests I 
I know of one or I 
two localities where! 
hounding has become! 
almost extinct, if not! 
quite so, simply be-1 
cause hunters will! 
not take the chances.j| 
Besides, man-driving 
grows more success¬ 
ful, as the hunters 
learn how. The breed 
of hounds is running 
out. 
I was talking with 
a man on the train 
a few days ago. He 
made a suggestive! 
remark, saying, “I’m I 
going bear hunting! 
in November.” Ini 
itself this sounds! 
suspicious, for one is] 
much more likely tel 
see and shoot deeil 
than he is bears! 
whatever time of the I 
year he goes into the] 
woods, rifle in hand 
Nevertheless, 1 have just that thought in mind—: 
why not go hunting bears in the early snows:I 
Of course, a hunter has only a chance in a dozer:, 
of even sighting a bear in a week in the Adiron-ji 
dacks. 
Bears are plentiful now compared to whai I 
they were in the old trapping days. Four havtl 
been killed in Wilmurt since the season opened j 
deer hunters having the luck. Bert Conklin was 1 
sitting down one day when he heard bears com¬ 
ing, grunting and shuffling along. He saw three j 
come over the ridge near Cotton Lake, on Little I 
Black Creek, tie shot at one and she started* 
straight toward him. Bert is an old bear hun¬ 
ter. and he tried to shoot the other two bears, 1 
too, but as he tells the story he was watching 
the coming bear while he turned his gun on the 
others, with the result that the two got away 
The one that charged dropped dead about twenty 
feet from the hunter, hit again. “If I hadn’t 
been excited I’d got all three,” Bert says. Such j 
trees as yield beech nuts show bear rootings IP 
the leaves beneath. 
A local paper complains about the result oi 
the timber case, The People vs. Bennett, at Johns- 
