May 2, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
ing, and when he saw me, said: “Jewhillikens! 
did you kill the whole flock?" 
No, I had not killed the whole flock, but 
enough for one day. It was a red-letter day, 
and George and I talked over all the little de¬ 
tails again, as well as those of many other 
pleasant days we had together, before I left him. 
How pleasant are these recollections, and how 
vividly they come up in one's memory, proving 
that a good day (or a bad one. for that matter) 
is never finished, but can be gone over and over 
again with pleasure or pain as the case may be 
all through one’s life. I have spent many days 
in the woods when I killed nothing, some of 
which are cjnite as pleasant to recall now as 
others on which I had killed turkeys, but they 
did not appeal to me just that way then. We 
see things in a different light when we get older. 
Chas. C. Rife. 
California Jacksnipe. 
Los Angeles, Cal., April 20. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: The jacksnipe season closed 
March 31 . The season was as good as can be 
expected when it is remembered that snipe were 
included in the law only a couple of seasons 
ago, and were without protection at all previous 
to that time. The growing scarcity of these 
birds hereabouts has been a source of sincere 
sorrow among sportsmen, many of whom rate 
the jacksnipe at the head of the list. Not en¬ 
tirely is the market hunter blamed. The recla¬ 
mation of vast areas of marsh land for agricul¬ 
tural purposes has had its effect also, tending 
to concentrate the birds which come here on 
comparatively small areas from which they are 
quickly driven out. That means leaving the 
country, as there is nowhere else to go. A 
remedy is not in sight. The present law is about 
as good as is necessary, provided it be so 
amended as to remove a conflict which practi¬ 
cally invalidates it. In one clause all birds of 
the order Limicolce are protected; in another 
the jacksnipe season is extended a month and 
a half, and in consequence most of the wardens 
say they would hardly care to make any arrests 
for shooting any kind of snipe during the sea¬ 
son when they are here, owing to the disposi¬ 
tion of the average justice of the peace to excuse 
a game law violator when there is a reasonable 
certainty that he did not knowingly violate any 
law. 
Southern California is especially well favored 
in Deputy Fish Commissioner H. L. Pritchard, 
who is an uncompromising enemy to the illegal 
dealers in game, and is cordially hated by all 
market hunters in consequence. 
One of Pritchard’s latest captures was in 
Bakersfield where a hotel proprietor attempted 
to serve game under its right name. 
The appropriation for game protection is 
ridiculously small in this end of the State, hut 
on the whole the laws are well observed. 
Most of the ducks have left us now on their 
northward journey. Plenty of quail were left 
over this year, and they seem to have naired off. 
Ernv. L. Hedderly. 
May. 
Tne sun is now brighter, the zephyrs are lighter, 
The birds’ happy singing commences at morn; 
The farmer is growling and drinking hard cider. 
And cussing the crows that are pulling his corn. 
On the Head of Moose River. 
As usual the deer season opened unfavorably. 
The first few days there was no snow and, 
though there had been heavy rains until the last 
few days, and all marshes and low places were 
brimming with water, the leaves in the woods 
had dried rapidly under two days of bright sun, 
and had become so crisp and noisy that the 
progress of a hunter through the timber was 
heralded in advance by rustling leaves and the 
crash of dry branches. This put successful 
hunting out of the question. With the excep¬ 
tion of one small deer, which came out in the 
open meadow at midday and was brought down 
by a long scratch shot from the camp door, we 
were likely to depend on partridges and rabbits 
to supply the larder, or to send to the nearest 
town to replenish it. There was no lack of this 
small game, however, and the situation was more, 
vexing than anything else. 
Again we had planned an expedition on the 
river, not yet frozen, and had made appoint¬ 
ments to meet, which required starting before 
daylight in the morning. When we got out in 
the morning the ground was covered with about 
CONTENTMENT. 
Photographed from life by William J. Ehrich. 
fdur inches of snow which was still falling; a 
deep noiseless snow with quite a gale of wind, 
which makes a hunter dream of a perfect day 
for deer hunting. But the first ambition of 
honest people is to meet appointments once 
made, and we turned to the river intending to 
return at the earliest possible moment and make 
the most of the situation. Returning two days 
later, we started into the woods where we had 
been keeping tab on a hunch of five or six deer, 
waiting for the time to ripen for warlike demon¬ 
strations. Alas! for our anticipations; we found 
the woods dotted and cross-hatched with the 
tracks of hunters, not deer! Pot-hunters they 
must have been, for had they been true sports¬ 
men they would have eliminated themselves 
from the face of earth rather than to have in¬ 
terfered with our plans. Later we found the 
crimsoned snow where two of our deer had 
been killed. It was too late to try another field 
that day and the next it was snowing heavily 
.again. It snowed until two feet deen. The 
next favorable spot for deer was three miles 
away, beyond a half mile of marsh, and to cross 
it with two feet of snow hiding the treacherous 
places was impossible. 
Day after day we loitered and speculated on 
what to do until the season was nearing its end. 
We had spent much time here on the borders 
of the great wilderness to the north and heard 
many vague rumors of it, but of actual ex¬ 
695 
perience we had none. We had also heard of 
a lone hunter who lived in its fastnesses, remote 
from settlement. He was also said to be a 
gentleman of unusual qualities. He kept a 
horse, hence had stable and hay. We could take 
in our double sleigh, bedding for ourselves, tent, 
stove, provisions and grain for the horses, but 
to stop over in the winter with two feet of 
snow on the ground it was necessary to strike 
some kind of a shack, for aside from the dis¬ 
agreeable feature of digging out a place in the 
snow to pitch our tent we had to have stabling 
and hay. We settled on an impromptu call on 
Mr. I.inart Lidman, hunter, gentleman and 
citizen of the world. 
I here was a well broken road for forty miles 
to the crossing of Moose River, and then we 
turned up Moose River five miles, taking an old 
logging road, recrossing on an old lumbering 
bridge and following up another five miles to 
a deserted logging camp and stable. A short 
distance from this was Lidman’s shack. Such 
were the directions we received, and forty-five 
miles of the road was entirely unknown to us. 
We had decided that we could reach the de¬ 
serted lumber camp the first day and took hay 
enough for the first night’s feed. From there 
we could look Lidman’s up the next morning at 
our leisure, as the logging road we were follow¬ 
ing ended at the camp. 
This upper country is quite a big game dis¬ 
trict, and during the early part of the dav we 
met several parties coming out with deer, though 
not all the hunters had been successful. Yet 
there were enough horned heads to put us in 
good humor* with ourselves for having started. 
At sunset we crossed the Moose River forty 
miles out, where we left the main road of all 
that wilderness with ten miles of unbroken trail 
still ahead of us. There were many old de¬ 
serted trails diverging, but we took those on the 
river side and pushed steadily on. The road 
led out over the hills and out of sight of the 
river which we coidd only guess was there by 
having kept the trail furthest to that side. The 
five miles to the second crossing of the Moose 
seemed interminable, and we were about giving 
up in despair when, suddenly rounding a thicket, 
the deep narrow valley of the river lay before 
us, the snow in valley and on hillside beyond 
glittering under the light of a full moon. 
It was a weird yet cheering view, for now 
we knew we were right. As we glided along 
we saw numerous tracks where deer had crossed 
the trail and it seemed there could be no lack 
of game. Again the miles stretched wearily on 
and on until we almost began to look for day¬ 
break in the east. The miles of an unknown 
road seem strangely long, especially by night, 
but at last we came to a clearing, in the center of 
which the walls of the old log camp frowned 
darkly. And lo ! “there was a sound of revelry 
by night,” and light streamed from within and 
glanced along the snow like the flash of a duck- 
shooter’s gun after dusk. We had been fore¬ 
stalled. We drove up and found a party of 
hunters had taken possession. Sportsmen they 
should have been from their dress and accoutre¬ 
ments, but when we explained our mission, the 
shoulder they gave us was colder than a skinned 
saddle of venison that has hung in the shadow 
of the pines all winter. We were not to be 
bluffed under the circumstances, however, and 
crowded in. There was one large room in this 
