632 
mate part of public school work.” We may well 
believe the day is not far distant when, by reason 
of increased knowledge of birds and animals, 
there will be increased appreciation of them. 
One of the comparatively young fish and game 
protective clubs of the State is that in Groveland, 
and the work it has done is worthy of record. 
President Nelson writes that since its incorpora- 
tion in 1902 it has caused to be planted in the 
brooks of the town 3,000 fingerling trout and 
some 35,000 fry. As a shelter spot for pheasants 
planted by the State, the club got the owners of 
about 500 acres of land to post it. But, he says, 
the pheasants worked away toward the coast and 
it has become a great breeding place for par- 
tridges and quail. 
The club has a house on Bald Pate Pond, in 
Boxford, which Mr. Nelson thinks is the only 
body of water in the vicinity adapted to lake 
trout, having a depth ranging from forty to sev- 
enty feet. 
A new club has recent!y been organized in 
Brookfield with seventeen charter members, and 
Hon. T. C. Bates has been chosen president. Put 
a live club in every important center of pcpula- 
tion and more will be accomplished toward fur- 
thering fish and game interests than by any other 
agency. Such clubs properly managed are a 
terror to evil-doers. In many communities they 
have completely put an end to the vicious prac- 
tices of ferreting and snaring, and men who are 
not fishermen or hunters recognize the benefits 
resulting from them. They become centers of 
knowledge in reference to fish, bird and animal 
life and the influence they exert is of great 
benefit to the owners and tillers of the land. 
H. H. KIMsatt. 
The Solitary Hunter. 
Amona big-game hunters and those persons 
who collect volumes on outdoor life, there are 
few works that are more highly esteemed than 
Palliser’s “The Solitary Hunter; or Sporting 
Adventures in the Prairie.” This is not strange, 
for it is a charming book, simply written, and 
dealing with old times. The author, leaving 
England nearly sixty years ago, pushed his way 
out to the Far West, up the Missouri, almost 
to the head of navigation, at a time when in the 
country there were no white men except the fur 
traders and their engagees. Even if no dates 
were given, we could fix the time, for the pages 
are crowded with evidence of just when it was, 
such names as those of old Mr. Kipp, Larpen- 
ter, Chardon, Mackenzie and others occur fre- 
quently, and carry the mind back to the days 
not very long after Catlin. Then he speaks of 
hunting—not the mountain sheep nor the big- 
horn, but—the grosse-corne, whence, of course, 
came later the word bighorn. His story is 
simply told, straightforward and downright. He 
does not talk largely of his own feelings, but 
narrates what he saw and did and experienced. 
He was a man with a sense of humor, too, and 
so far as we know, the familiar tale, which since 
has been related of many times and places, was 
original with Palliser. This is it: 
“IT rejoined my hunting companions of the 
morning at supper, at the Planters’ House, which 
was my hotel. They were surprised to hear of 
my afternoon’s adventure, as they fancied I had 
gone home long before. We spent a noisy 
evening, toward the termination of which a 
most singular bet was made. Old Mr. Cohen 
was universally considered a great talker, so 
much so that he even admitted it himself; but 
this evening a formidable rival appeared against 
him in the person of a strange character from 
Kentucky, who fairly met him on his own 
ground, and after supper evinced such unceas- 
ing powers of conversation that old Mr. Cohen 
was unable to get in a word, and was fain to 
claim a hearing. ‘Let me speak! Let me 
speak!’ he gasped several times, but with no 
avail, till at last the fool’s argument was re- 
sorted to, and a bet made which should talk 
the longest. An umpire was chosen to deter- 
mine which of the two loquacious combatants 
should be the winner; but, as might naturally 
be supposed, none of us had the patience to sit 
out the contest, so we went off to bed, leaving 
a plentiful supply of brandy, sugar and iced 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
water. Next morning, at a quarter past 5, vic- 
tory was declared for Missouri, the umpire re- 
turning at that hour and finding the Kentucky 
man asleep in his arm chair, and old Mr. Cohen 
sitting up close beside him whispering in his 
Cakes 
It was in 1847 that Palliser crossed from 
England to Boston in the ship Cambria, and as 
fellow passenger he had Gen. Tom Thumb— 
once a famous person in the world, but un- 
known to the present generation. From New 
York by the way of Baltimore and Wheeling, 
he reached the headwaters of the Ohio River 
and proceeded to New Orleans. From there 
he worked his way up the Mississippi, hunting 
birds and deer, and at last found his way to 
Independence, where he joined Mr. Kipp and a 
party, who were starting overland for Fort 
Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone. The 
green Englishman had much to see during the 
{ong trip, and had his fill of hunting. He win- 
tered at Fort. Union, and as his horses had be- 
come very much run down from the long ride, 
much of his hunting during the winter was done 
on foot. 
{ft was:during this winter that old Bill Wil- 
liams, celebrated in Ruxton’s books of the 
West, and more recently mentioned in Mr. W. 
T. Hamilton’s “My Sixty Years on the Plains,” 
turned up at Fort Union, to the great astonish- 
ment of every one. Williams had been one of 
a party surprised by the Blackfeet a long time 
before, and everybody supposed that he had 
been killed; but instead, he had escaped, being 
the only survivor of the party. 
Not only was there much hunting, but occa- 
sionally Palliser found himself in situations 
where he was expected to take part in Indian 
fighting. It was on one such occasion that the 
Sioux, angered perhaps because the white men 
would not help them against the Assinaboines, 
shot a lot of the cattle belonging to the fort, 
and among them a bull which Palliser has im- 
mortalized. This animal, after having been shot 
with arrows, walked across the river, bleeding 
as he came, and up to the foot of the flagstaff 
of the fort and there sank down and expired. 
“The loss of this handsome, noble animal was 
universally regretted by the fort, for, besides 
his great value as their only means of continuing 
the breed of domestic cattle in that remote region, 
he proved most useful in drawing many a heavy 
load of meat, and much of the wood for the 
fuel in the fort. As a tribute to his memory, I 
must here record a single combat of his with a 
sison, which, according to the description of his 
keeper, “Black Joseph,’ must have been truly 
Homeric. 
“About three months previous to my arrival 
at Fort Union, and in the height of the buffalo 
[APRIL 21, 1906. 
breeding season, when their bulls are sometimes 
very fierce, Joe was taking the Fort Union 
bull, with a cart, into a point on the river above 
the fort, in order to draw home a load of wood, 
which had been previously cut and piled ready 
for transportation the day before, when a very 
large old bison bull stood right in the cart 
track, pawing up the earth and roaring, ready 
to dispute the passage with him. On a nearer 
approach, instead of flying at the sight of the 
man that acompanied the cart, the bison made 
a headlong charge. Joe had barely time to re- 
move his bull’s head stall and escape up a tree, 
being utterly unable to assist his four-footed 
friend, whom he left to his own _ resources. 
Bison and bull, now in mortal combat, met 
midway with a shock that made the earth 
tremble. Our previously docile, gentle animal 
suddenly became transformed into a furious 
beast, springing from side to side, whirling round 
as the buffalo attempted to take him in flank, 
alternately upsetting and righting the cart 
again, which he banged from side to side, and 
whirled about as if it had been a band-box. 
Joe, safe out of harm’s way, looked down from 
the tree at his champion’s proceedings, at first 
deploring the apparent disadvantage he labored 
under from being harnessed to a cart; but when 
the fight had lasted long and furious, and it 
was evident that both combatants had deter- 
mined that one or other of them must fall, his 
eyes were opened to the value of the protec- 
tion afforded by the harness, and especially by 
the thick, strong shafts of the cart against the 
short horns of the bison, who, although he 
bore him over and over again down on his 
haunches, could not wound him severely. On 
the other hand, the long, sharp horns of the 
brave Fort Union bull began to tell on the fur- 
rowed sides of his antagonist, until the final 
charge brought the bison with a furious bound 
dead under our hero’s feet, whose long, fine 
drawn horn was deep driven into his adver- 
sary’s heart. With a cheer that made the woods 
ring again, down clambered Joe, and while tri- 
umphantly caressing, also carefully examined 
his chivalrous companion, who, although 
bruised, blown and covered with foam, had 
escaped injury. 
“Tt required all Joe’s nigger eloquence to per- 
suade the bull to leave the slain antagonist, over 
whom he long stood, watching, evidently ex- 
pecting him to get up again to renew the com- 
bat, Joe all the while coaxing him forward with 
‘Him dear good bull, htm go home now, and do 
no more work to-day, which prospect Black 
Joe, in common with all his sable brethren, con- 
sidered as the acme of sublunary felicity.” 
Wolf shooting near Fort Union gave Palliser 
much amusement, and practiced in the dead of 

























































ISHMAH. 

