Aug. 27, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
337 
West Virginia Shooting Outlook. 
Terra Alta, W. Va., Aug. 15 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: West Virginia sportsmen look 
forward to the opening of the best game season 
known to the State for many years. The game 
laws enacted two years ago have worked well. 
Game is increasing, but what is more, the 
passage of the laws has aroused discussion with¬ 
in all classes, and the public intelligence has been 
awakened and it is coming to understand the 
need of protecting game and fish. 
In the Alleghany Mountain section ruffed 
grouse are very plentiful. The almost impene¬ 
trable laurel thickets of the mountain sides, 
however, afford them such security that the local 
sportsmen who hunt fairly do not anticipate get¬ 
ting more than their share. And the fellow with 
the dog that trees them has no incentive to seek 
them, for their sale is prohibited. 
Reports from the valleys and lowlands indicate 
that quail have had an excellent breeding season 
and are more numerous than they have been 
since the market hunters practically wiped them 
out several years ago. In the breeding season 
there are quail in large numbers on the moun¬ 
tains, but when the mercury drops through the 
tribe and the wind conies howling over the high 
hills, the birds beat a retreat to the warmer com¬ 
munities. West Virginia farmers are not giving 
written hunting permits to every duffer with a 
gun, but so far as we know, no legitimate 
sportsman is without plenty of ground to hunt 
over. We think the permit system is working- 
well. In time it may have effects not now gen¬ 
erally lpoked for, but we are willing to take our 
chances. 
The gray squirrel season opens Sept. 1. 
Squirrels are rather scarce, but the coming of 
the time to go after them gives a chance to get 
out with the guns, and such opportunities are 
not to be trifled with. It will take several thou¬ 
sand years to convince West Virginians that 
squirrels are not to be hunted and eaten. 
R. Morris. 
The Forest Fires. 
Under clear skies that hold no promise of sav¬ 
ing showers, and. fanned by strong breezes, the 
forest fires are rushing through the mountains of 
Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and West¬ 
ern Montana, leaving death, disaster and suffer¬ 
ing behind them, while in Oregon and Northern 
California fires that would at other times be re¬ 
garded as alarming are destroying valuable 
timber. 
Wild rumors of large loss of life have been 
circulated, and it is probably true that many per¬ 
sons have been trapped and killed. Relief trains 
have been stalled by the burning of bridges and 
the blocking of the tracks. Wallace, Idaho, has 
been partially destroyed and several other towns 
in the Coeur d’Alene district are threatened. The 
property loss in Wallace is large, and a number of 
its citizens are maimed or blinded. Many of the 
fire fighters were trapped and painfully injured, 
the list of missing men is growing and cannot be 
checked up with accuracy. In one case only part 
of a force of fire fighters working near Wallace 
escaped when their camp was burned. 
Although the Forest Service, a large number 
of regular soldiers and volunteers have been 
back firing and ditching, as well as doing rescue 
work, the situation is very grave. It is each day 
being rendered still more difficult to handle 
through the destruction of telegraph and tele¬ 
phone lines and the cutting off of railway travel, 
while shifting winds hamper the work p f the 
men and start new fires. Ranchmen and farmers 
have in scores of cases lost everything, while 
the loss of game of all kinds, and in some cases 
of fish, is large. Passenger trains on the trunk 
lines, heavily loaded, have in some cases been in 
great danger, and, as always in great disasters, 
vandals have destroyed what the fires left behind. 
In Montana villages, railway stations and 
bridges, homesteads and ranches have been de¬ 
stroyed, and near Thompson a fire miles in 
length is sweeping everything before it. Near 
Missoula a fire twenty miles long is reported, 
and in the Bitter Root Valley other fires are 
burning. Refugees fill all the towns near the de¬ 
vastated areas. 
The situation in the Crater National Forest in 
Oregon is grave, and elsewhere in that State im¬ 
portant fires are burning. Some of these, it is 
claimed, were started purposely. 
President Taft has asked the Governors of the 
States affected for the assistance of State troops. 
Men are needed in many places, not only to fight 
fresh fires, but to replace those who have become 
exhausted or disabled by fire, heat and continu¬ 
ous exposure for many days. 
In many districts it is conceded that the fires 
cannot be controlled by man, and that, lacking- 
rain, the loss will be appalling. 
New Publications. 
The Indian and His Problem, by Francis E. 
Leupp, formerly United States Commissioner 
of Indian Affairs. New York, Charles Scrib¬ 
ner’s Sons. Price, $2. 
Many men have attacked the Indian problem, 
but not one of them has been so well fitted to 
discuss it as Mr. Leupp. He has had a long- 
intercourse with Indians, and with those who 
have charge of the race—the Indian Bureau. He 
understands the Indian and the white character, 
and he views with sympathy the difficulties met 
with by wards and by guardians. Generally the 
Indian Bureau has regarded its duties seriously 
and has conscientiously and painstakingly tried 
to perform them. Too often it has not suc¬ 
ceeded very well, but this was not always the 
fault of the Bureau, because the Indian prob¬ 
lem was constantly changing and because the 
problem was never quite the same at any two 
points that one might select on the map. Most 
people have thought that whether he chased 
whales in the delta of the Mackenzie River or 
manatees in Central America, an Indian was al¬ 
ways an Indian. In one sense this is true, yet 
no people are more susceptible to the influences 
of their environment. Mr. Leupp understands 
that from the point of view of lifting up the 
race all Indians are not alike. 
The first thing that he considers in this book 
of more than 360 pages is the Indian as he was. 
Stone age people the Indians were when the 
white man found them, and to all intents and 
purposes stone age people they are to-day, though 
ready enough to adopt sheet iron arrow heads 
or flint lock guns, or even smokeless powder, or 
to talk over the telephone when they understand 
what wonders may be accomplished by this 
“medicine” of the white race. 
Mr. Leupp knows that the Indian is a natural 
man, a humorist, shy in the presence of 
strangers, good-natured, honest, generous, mak¬ 
ing his wife bear the burdens of the day’s march 
for the excellent reason that he himself carries 
the arms and must be light and able to get about 
quickly, so as to fight any enemies that might 
attack them. He discusses some of their old 
customs, marriage, the council, sport and respect 
for elders. Of all these old ways Mr. Leupp 
understands much, and he realizes—as who 
should not who has given the matter a little 
thought—that it is not in one generation nor 
yet in two that the Indian can be taught to look 
at things as the white man looks at them. In¬ 
dians are above all things conservative, and far 
greater than the conservatism of the Indian man 
is that of the women, who in many cases rule 
the camp and whose advice the men are prone 
to take. On the other hand, it is often the fact 
that women decline to bother themselves about 
various matters which they regard as outside 
of their province and on which they decline to 
advise. 
Mr. Leupp’s book is in fact, though not in 
name, a history of Indian affairs for the last 
seventy or eighty years^-a history written by the 
man who probably knows more about govern¬ 
ment management of the Indians than anyone in 
the country. 
Here is the conclusion of the whole matter, 
although Mr. Leupp does not in so many words 
say so. Teach the Indian to understand his re¬ 
sponsibilities. Give him such simple common 
school education as will enable him to read and 
cipher as well as his neighbor, let him rub up 
against the whitei man as much as possible, and 
learn from him by actual contact how the white 
man thinks and lives, for it is in that same way 
that the Indian must think and mu^t live. And 
what will be the end of'all this? Obviously the 
disappearance of the Indian race, which at best 
must disappear sooner or later and be absorbed 
by the whites. It is impossible to lift up a race 
and kindly and tenderly transfer its people from 
barbarism to civilization. These Indians must 
learn the lesson of civilization by the suffering 
and sorrow through which all other peoples have 
learned it. In going through the transition stage 
a very large proportion of them must inevitably 
perish, and a few generations will witness the 
disappearance of the last Indian. 
No book has been written on this subject which 
is at once so sensible, so sympathetic and so just 
as this one by Mr. Leupp. It may be read with 
profit by all those who have been saddened by 
the hardships that the true Americans have been 
facing for more than three centuries. 
Swimming, by Edwin Tenney Brewster. Cloth. 
93 pages, $1.00 net. Boston, Houghton Mif¬ 
flin Company. 
For any one who wants to learn to swim, to 
swim better, or to teach some one else to swim, 
this little handbook will be of unique helpfulness. 
It is a compact and well-arranged manual, giving 
instructions so clearly and entertainingly that the 
reader, given the opportunity for practice, can 
scarcely fail to acquire the art of swimming in 
all its branches in a short space of time. A par¬ 
ticularly useful section of the book is that which 
presents the best method for teaching very small 
children to swim. 
