Oklahoma Miles. 
In the southeastern portion of the State of 
Oklahoma—a section which, until the admission 
of Oklahoma as a State, was a part of the In¬ 
dian Territory—there is a swift mountain stream 
called Little River. It runs through the. very 
heart of the Seven Devil Mountains and abounds 
with fish of nearly every kind that inhabit the 
streams of the Southwest. Large and small- 
mouth bass, bream, goggle-eye and channel cat 
are most abundant. The channel cat in this 
stream is very game and will take a troll al¬ 
most as readily as a small-mouth bass. Along 
this river deer and turkeys are plentiful, while 
bobcats, bears and panthers are found with very 
little trouble in the mountains. 
It is just the place to go for an outing—just 
the place to get close to nature far from the 
"madding crowd”; just the place to pitch a tent 
under the great pine trees on the bank of the 
stream where the water, with its rush and roar, 
lulls you to sleep as you listen to the "voices of 
the night,” song of whippoorw'ill and lonesome 
hoot of owl calling to his mate on the mountain 
side. Then on the first peep of the dawn to be 
called back from dreamland by a thousand golden 
throats opened wide in songs of thanksgiving for 
a new day. I am satisfied that down there there 
are more wild song birds than in any place I 
have ever been. Can you who love the woods 
and hills, the forest and stream, where “every 
prospect pleases and only man is vile," imagine 
a more perfect place to go for a rest—a rest 
such as hard mountain climbing, with gun on 
shoulder, or wading up and down the riffles 
with fly-rod or troll, or pulling a boat all day 
long, can give him who has been cooped up in 
an office for a whole year? I cannot. 
There are a few choice spirits of McAlester 
who think alike, and we make annual pilgrim¬ 
ages to this delightful section of the State and 
revel in the deep woods, seeking places "where 
the foot of white man has never trod, and 
studying the habits and haunts of the wild creat¬ 
ures. While there we feast on the fat of the 
land. Just think of your camp table groaning 
under this kind of a load. Turtle soup—genuine 
turtle soup—venison roast, stew or steak, roast 
young wild turkey, stewed squirrel with dump¬ 
lings, black bass or channel cat fried or baked 
with a strip of bacon or made into a chowder, 
broiled quail, wild honey taken from the tree, 
for wild bees are plentiful, and—but what is the 
use of piling it up? Are you not getting hun¬ 
gry? I am. 
Our party consisted of Judge. Doc, Jim, Fletch, 
Bill and myself, six of us, all nature lovers, con¬ 
genial spirits and fast friends. Judge is one of 
the great lawyers of the Southwest, a man of 
wide reading, with a poet’s heart and instincts. 
He is a true sportsman and a fisherman that can¬ 
not be excelled. He loves to wander off by 
himself and talk to his finny friends as he uses 
all his blandishments to induce them to take the 
lure. I said he is a genuine sportsman. On one 
of our trips a messenger found us after a two- 
days’ search bearing a telegram to the judge 
that called him to Oklahoma City at once in a 
case where the fee would have been at least 
$500. The judge is not wealthy, but for him 
there are other things besides money, and one 
of these other things is our annual Little River 
outing. The messenger was sent back with the 
answer that "owing to a previous engagement 
it would be impossible for him to be in Okla¬ 
homa City on the day mentioned.” 
Doc is an old Texas cowpuncher and ex-chief 
of Indian police among the Kiowas and Coman- 
ches in the Fort Sill country during its palmy 
days. It is said that in his youth he could bust 
a bronco, brand a maverick, or shoot up a town 
with the best or worst of them. He is now a 
rapidly rising surgeon, a good scout, and my 
partner. Fletch is big, fat, lazy and good- 
natured. a prince of good fellows, but constitu¬ 
tionally opposed to doing any kind of camp 
work. Jim is long, lean and lank, and can walk 
further in a day than most anybody. He'is the 
judge’s partner and is also a very fine lawyer. 
He is a splendid fellow and a good companion. 
Bill is, a little dried-up, dark-skinned fellow, 
wiry and full of life and energy. He was on 
the road in his younger days with a minstrel 
show, and is as full of song as a mocking bird. 
We call him our camp melodion. Bill can some¬ 
times be heard a mile from camp singing an old 
time ballad, or making the woods ring with 
some old negro melody he used to sing to enthu¬ 
siastic audiences when behind the footlights. 
One season we had camped at Donica’s Spring 
where the hunting, arid fishing were fine, and we 
were all as happy and care-free as children. We 
had not yet had a turtle, and the only way to 
get one was to rig a trot line and set it in one 
of the deep holes of the river. We rigged up 
a line and set up an old canvas boat that had 
been doing service for several years, and was 
now pretty well worn and rotten, and the canvas 
full of holes. The river made almost a com¬ 
plete circuit around our camp, forming a kind 
of horseshoe, our camp being about a quarter 
of a mile from the upper caulk of the shoe, the 
river at that point turning almost directly to¬ 
ward the east and away from the camp. 
After setting up the boat Fletch ^and Bill put 
it upon their shoulders, Fletch leading and Bill 
following, and started with it for the river at 
the upper caulk of the bend, Doc to follow with 
the oars as soon as he could rig some tackle. 
The boat was then to be taken to the lower 
caulk of the bend to the hole that we had 
selected for the trot line. When Doc was ready, 
he started for the river, following Fletch and 
Bill who were out of sight. Judge and I went 
to the- river below, about three-quarters of a 
mile from camp, carrying our rods and the trot 
line bait. By the stream it was a mile and a 
half, perhaps two miles, from where we were 
to the place where Fletch and Bill were to 
launch the boat, and between the two points the 
bank of the river on one side was a mat of 
green briers and dense underbrush, while on the 
other it was very steep and broken and practi¬ 
cally an impassable bluff all the way, the moun¬ 
tain coming down to the river’s edge. 
Judge and I reached the river about 8 o’clock„ 
and began to fish. We soon had a fine string of 
bass and were looking ever\' moment to see 
Fletch and Bill come around the bend. Three 
hours went by, but they did not come. Finally 
we heard tearing in the brush up the river and 
expected to see a bear appear. However, as the 
sound came closer we heard' language mingled 
with the tearing and knew that it was not a 
bear. Finally Doc emerged from the tangled 
mass of vines and undergrowth, still carrying 
both oars, his minnow bucket and his rod. He 
was hot, tired and mad. His clothes, hands, 
arms and faqe were torn and lacerated by the 
briers. His first words were, “Where are Fletch 
and Bill ? They’ve both got to fight me or give 
a mighty good excuse for running off and leav¬ 
ing me to carry these infernal oars through those 
green briers.” We told Doc that we had not 
seen them since they left camp with the boat 
and suggested that he had passed them on the 
way down. He did not think that he had, but 
we waited for them until 12 o'clock, and then 
went back to camp and found dinner ready. We 
told the colored boys not to serve dinner until 
Fletch and Bill came and waited, but an hour 
went by, 1 o'clock came and still no Fletch and 
Bill. We tried to eat dinner, but could not. 
We began to be very much alarmed. Judge 
suggested that it was possible that they had both 
got into the old boat, and that Fletch, being 
heavy and clumsy, had put his foot through the 
bottom, and the boat had sunk with them and 
that they were both drowned. Finally Judge 
said that he could not eat until he knew where 
the boys were, and got up from the table and 
started to the cabin of a nester named Murray, 
who lived close to camp and had a patch of 
corn on the river near where the boys were to 
launch the boat. Judge intended to find out if 
he could get a boat in which to look for the 
missing ones. He explained to the nester what 
he wanted and why. Murray replied: 
“Wall, now, 1 don’t believe I’d be onduly ex¬ 
cited about it if I was you, because when I 
turned out for dinner, about half past twelve, 
or maybe one, I went down to the river to water 
me mule, and while I were there I heerd some¬ 
thing coming down the bank of the river, and 
on lookin’ up I saw a great big fat feller with 
a awful red face, and sweatin’ considerably, 
coinin’ down the bank, and a little lean, skinny 
black feller, in the funniest lookin’ boat I ever 
seed, follerin’ along in the river. The big fat 
feller says to me, says he: ‘How fur is it to 
Johnson’s Ford?’ And I says, says I, ‘It’s about 
five mile.’ Then the little black feller in the 
boat says: ‘Why, Fleshy, we’ve done come five 
mile already.’ Then the big fat feller says, ‘How 
fur is it to Donica’s Spring?’ And I says, says 
I, ‘About a quarter of a mile right back there/ 
p’intin’ to it. Then the little black feller said 
something strong, and then they both went on 
down the river and I come home.” 
We understood of course.. They were all 
