^ V °o ^zu&s ft o % *>^S§^V Jy o 'sew*,* <\ s • • -0 0*0 M o " a "W Wj N J? o » o • * "> % a K $ * THE AUTHOR. HE SHADOW of A GUN BY H. CLAY MERRITT CHICAGO: The F. T. Peterson Company 1904 5 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received OCT 31 I9U4 ^Copyrigwt tntfy CLjGs the end of the season, and we regained the loss which we sustained in former sales through commission men. About this time, while we were coursing along the lower end of the Big Slough, and near the end of the season for snipe, we saw a tall man approaching from the northeast, making his way down the center of the marsh and shooting as he approached. As he came near he informed me who he was, where he lived, up the Slough two or three miles, and that he and his boys were good shots and, whenever they could, made their living by hunting, and suggested that I buy his birds. I had seen him in the edge of the winter the year before, had been in his house for a few minutes, but was not personally acquainted with him. I agreed to do as he asked, and that man's name was Nelson Joles, who, if he did not kill so many birds himself, was instrumental in bringing me more game than any party in Henry County. One of his sons had married the daughter of George Beers, and they were all capital fellows, and for fifteen or twenty years continued to bring in more birds than I received from any other partv. Mr. Joles at that time was past the prime of life 64 NELSON JOLES. but straight as an arrow, and his family, whom I had the pleasure of visiting very many times afterward, was of a very sociable disposition. The boys were all desperately fond of hunting as soon as they could Man of Six Feet. carry a gun, and they made the country ring for miles around, so much so, they soon forgot their little farm when birds could be had and prosecuted this new branch of industry with ardor and success. Of Mrs. Joles it may be said, she was a pattern housekeeper, if anything too free for herself, but she assisted very much in the game business. The THE "GAMEY" WOMAN. 65 family were living in a region full of game birds, all kinds that roamed the prairies passed over their fields, which made up a small farm adjoining wooded lands on the east and west, from which a The "Gamey" Woman. road ran off southeasterly toward Green River bridee and on to Atkinson, and on the southwest the main road passed to Geneseo. I think Mrs. Joles must have forgotten her meals if not her sleep some- times, because many were the flocks of geese and ducks and chickens that came from the prairie be- low, and making for the Big Slough were stopped 66 QUAIL IN KNOX CO, 1856-60. by the guns of her boys whom she duly informed when they were about to approach. I have slept many times in the chamber of her house when she was up by daylight, giving an account of what she had seen outside while she was preparing her meals. The quantities of ducks she picked and dressed were beyond all computation, so much so she had saved whole covers of down with which she graced and warmed our beds, and which will never be forgotten. Some years later she and her husband, the tall cypress of the swamps and the stalwart among men, moved to Kansas, and, returning later, Mr. Joles died at Geneseo in 1886, and Mrs. Joles, now eighty- seven years old, is ending her days in the same city, living with her son Henry. Many warriors had lived before Agamemnon, many women have shown the grace and sweetness that filled all their lives while they had happy surroundings and every com- fort was assured, but she of her limited resources made health and cheer to spring up all around her and so consecrated her home. I never saw Mr. Joles after his return from the West. He was much troubled with asthma, but his humor was always abundant and charitable. His mind was unclouded and like a stream at his time of life when the fever is spent and the passions are chilled, escaping from the tumult of the hills and reaching the plain, with only ripples on its surface, goes willingly on to the ocean. When God made man I think he intended him to be about six feet tall, and this is what Nelson Joles was. In the latter part of the 70's I had an order for live prairie chickens and they were very hard to get. However, I counseled with the Joles' and they said if a good snow came on their buck- wheat patch, the birds would surely come and they would get them. They got their traps ready, and SELLS LIVE PRAIRIE CHiCKENS. 67 sure enough the snow came and the birds. This was in March. I agreed with them for four dollars a dozen. Dead birds were worth about three dollars. I did not know what live birds would bring nor how many I could sell if I had them, but they usually brought about two dollars per pair. Neither myself nor the buyer expected very many, and as it was getting late and the prospect less every day, the buyer told my commission man to write to me and tell me that he would rather give three dollars a pair than to fail in getting them, not stipulating any exact number. I had hardly read this letter and another following immediately in which the seller said, "I hear you have a good snow out West and shall expect the birds," when lo, in the forenoon in came a wagon load of live birds to Kewanee. I think there was about twelve dozen and the boys said dozens of them got away out of the shanty they had to hold them. I put them into low coops so they would not mar or bruise each other and got them off by express next day. The expressman was not used to live birds at that time and he sent them through as dead weight. When the buyer saw them, he declined to pay over $2.75 per pair, as there were so many more than he had expected, and they were sold at that price. I sent several lots from other parties afterward and was not able to get over two dollars per pair, and it was very difficult to get them through alive. Mr. Joles was not able to do very much with game after this, as his boys grew up and shifted for themselves, but the trade in the West was opening up briskly and I commenced to get most of my supplies from there. One day as I was about leaving his place, Mr. Joles said to me : "What will you take for your buggy and give me time to pay for it, and accept a note well secured 68 SELLS NELSON JOLES A WAGON. therefor?" I replied at once, "I paid one hundred dollars for this. It has not been used very long. I could sell it to you for that money." He said, "I will accept the offer, will give you the note ; my boys will sign it and we will put in the little balance that is now coming to you." The first time after this that I saw Mr. Joles, I exchanged the wagon for the note. I was surprised to find it read for twenty- five dollars more than he owed me, and I said, "You do not owe me that amount." "Well," he replied, "I wanted to borrow twenty-five dollars and that was included." I told him I was not loaning money, but I did not want to give up the note, and so I let it go until I could see the other signers. We ran across one another several times afterwards and I was asked each time for the twenty-five dollars. At last I said to Mr. Joles, "I have endorsed twenty- five dollars on the note so it is now all right." When it became due Henry Joles, his son, paid me. The winter of 1859 and '6o I passed in Knox County hunting for quail. I found them exceeding- ly plenty and in the first thirty days I was there I averaged fifty-five birds per day. I stopped with Mr. Norton, of the Wataga House, and drove out each day five or six miles south and southeast till I came into the coal lands. The country was very rough and broken, small streams ran here and there and gathering together in a larger channel made their way south and southwest. Little farms here and there dotted the hill sides with many vacant acres between. The farmers are mostly Swedes, very few of their farms being over forty acres. The highways did not show much signs of travel, in a little rough weather and storms you could scarcely make your way from house to house. The little pinched corn fields scarcely showed five acres in a NORTH OF ONEIDA. 69 patch, and the corn being" mostly picked it was no great worry to find the birds. By the close of the winter I had nearly gathered up the emails that were in that settlement, and in March, with a couple of hunters, we moved north to the prairie country, about a mile north of Oneida. We stopped with a family where there were three persons, father, mother and daughter, the latter about sixteen years old. I remember this, for the daughter did the milking and chores about the house, inside and out, and at every proper occasion she sang "Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer," which at that time was quite new to me and sounded both sweet and dear. At that time the fastidious criticisms of the last verse had not appeared and the passage of "Passing through the air" seemed well enough, but in later times it has been killed by seeming to use the language of the Spiritualists, who are so cogni- zant of that mode of traveling that it has become a menace to good sense and some kind of excision seems to be necessary. We offer a substitute : SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER. "And shout and sing as home we fare, Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer." The last day of March, i860, I left this family, and the following afternoon, April 1st, again ap- peared on the Big Slough. This time I left the Vil- lage of Geneseo and went north and east, farther up where the hunters lived. There was a man by the name of Crittenden whom I found in Knox County who wanted to join us in the Spring, and he was there with a horse and buggy when I came. We had three or four Joles' boys, Billy Morris, some- times Beers and his son and son-in T law took a hand for a day or two, beside myself. Before I bought 70 NO SALE FOR SNIPE IN i860. very many, I shipped a small box to see how prices would open up in New York, and it was only $1.50 per dozen. Taking the expense out the prospect was not flattering or auspicious. I should not at this time have made any contracts, and if I did, only for short periods, but the hunters were very pressing for a price, and taking the last year for a cue I rather believed that if prices were low for a while they would recover, so that Robbins would take them at a price that would make me some profit. I named seventy-five cents per dozen, and while I did not make an agreement for the future, I continued to take them and figure them at that price whether I paid for them or not, and therefore, legally, there was no escape. The next box sola for ten cents, the third for eight, the fourth for six cents each, and I stopped shipping and put the birds away in an ice house, laying their breasts flat on the ice and cover- ing them up where nothing would hurt them. After keeping them a week, the reports came in so bad that I did not feel to risk them any longer. I packed them all up and sent them to Messrs. Robbins, from whom I heard nothing for a number of days. There was over a thousand snipe and considerable plover in the lot. At last I received answer with a check for a little over thirty dollars, with the information added that that amount paid for all he had sold, and the balance had been thrown away. While I w"as at Colona a local hunter informed me there was a large kind of snipe which the farmers called bull snipe which were quite plenty above and below the Rock River bridge. I concluded they must be woodcock, and I figured that I might recoup my- self with them in August following. I had long meditated a visit to my brother in Minnesota, and I thought this was my opportunity. I had lost in CYCLONE OF i860. VISIT TO MINNESOTA. 71 this transaction with Spring birds something over one hundred dollars, which would have been much greater had not some unforeseen luck fell in my way. After the prices went down to almost nothing there were a good many blue-winged teal on the same ground as w'e hunted snipe. As far as I could I drew the boys away from the snipe shooting to hunting them, and in the last week or so we had very good success. I sent the birds to Chicago and they sold by the dozen for $2.25 to $2.50, and as we bought them for a dollar they made us a good mar- gin. In the afternoon before I left for Minnesota oc- curred the great cyclone which destroyed many buildings in Henry County and largely wiped out the towns of Albany and Canianche on the Missis- sippi. I was standing at a window on the west side of the Howard House, now the Geneseo* House, when a sudden gust of wind tore out the shutters, ripping the slats as though they had been paper, but otherwise doing the house no damage. It threw down the steeple of the church north of the track. It was about the first of June. When I got to Colona the bridge was gone, for the most part. We made connection with the west shore by use of boat and passengers and goods were reloaded on the farther side. One of my hunters met me at Moline and de- sired a settlement with me. I told him it was im- possible at that time as all the birds had been lost, but encouraged him by saying, as I had no business in the summer, I was going for a visit and to cut down expenses, but would be in Geneseo again in the Fall. I paid eight dollars for my fare and board to St. Paul and had a good visit and caught many large fish in Lake St. Croix. When I went up, al- most the whole length of the river was traversed 72 VISIT TO MINNESOTA. by flocks of wild pigeons. Most of them flew along the bank parallel to the shore, and at the place where I got off I stopped a few minutes and in that time killed all the birds I could carry. I took them to St. Paul but could only get three or four cents each for them, and I had serious notion of shipping them to New York, but the express being six dollars per hundred I gave that up as they would bring only a dollar a dozen there. In the last week in July I returned, got off the boat at Cordova, walked across the country to Rock River, crossed that on the ferry and the next day started to my home, two and a half miles southeast of Kewanee. I had two dollars re- maining and was within a mile of home on Sunday, when, as I crossed the highway, taking the fields, I had the fortune to meet John Whiffen and he was delighted to see me. He had a small meat bill, he said, against me. He said it was about two dollars. I took that sum out, gave it to him and passed on my way. Of course, I reached home witliout a dol- lar or a cent. However, I managed to return to Geneseo, where, on the first day of August, I began at woodcock on Green River. I hunted through that month, walking out and back to the river, and bought very few birds. On the first day of Septem- ber I had one hundred dollars to mv credit, without losing a bird or selling a pair less than seventy-five cents, and I easily killed twenty to twenty-five birds per day. The walking was hard and, in addition, I did all the packing. I settled up all my debts, with experience that was worth a decade of hard labor. These were the first woodcock ever shipped out of Henry County, and probably out of the state. From 1 86 1, for two years following, jack snipe sold low, seldom over $1.00 to $1.50, until late in the season, when the hunting was about over; then JOHN A. LYON AND A. & E. ROBBINS. 73 they would spring up to $2.00 and sometimes $2.50. Here was a point to be gained. Could I keep those birds long enough on ice to secure the larger price? That I endeavored to do. I had practiced long enough keeping birds in that manner to know how long it would be safe to do so and have them mar- ketable. I shipped everything up to April 20th, when snipe began to be fat, and packed away what came in afterward till close to the 10th of May. The poor birds which came early would not keep so well as those which were fatter and came later, and as soon as receipts fell off in New York, prices would begin to rise, and from about the first of May till the last were sold out, our kept birds sold for the best of the season. By limiting the shipments after the 20th of the month, the marketmen would get very hungry for them. They could not get any only at advanced prices from my commission man, when they would commence correspondence with me. In 1863 I did not buy many birds till prices were low and the amount was so large and the hunters de- manded ten cents a piece for them, that I dropped out largely from buying on that account. I had an unfortunate circumstance occur which threw me out of a large commission. The ice box which I used stood on the porch. This box had once been a re- ceptacle for beer kegs and in the place where the spout came out the flies went in, and so damaged the shipment that a hundred dozen sold for half price. At this time I was dealing with John A. Lyon, and he soon became expert in the trade and knew when to order and what they would have to pay. He did not deluge me with advice, as many dealers did, but he would, on the first inquiry, find my price and act accordingly. The two years that followed I sent most of my birds to him, because, 74 JOHN A. LYON AND A. E. ROBBINS. while Messrs. Robbins would give me a little better price early in the season, they would not give me any advance corresponding with the market later. Still, I occasionally sent a shipment or two to them to keep in touch with their prices. The market tone was now broadening and brighter, speculators began to come into the field. We reached the point where we would not sell any birds below $2.25, while the early birds would only bring $1.50. We constantly kept from two to five barrels on the ice, of selected birds, as soon as they came in after the 20th, and if ^orders did not come to me direct, in the first week of May we shipped them all to Mr. Lyon and he sold them all at $2.25 to $2.50 per dozen. We did this the more willingly because on another occasion we had five barrels . ahead and we had an outside order for them that they could probably get from $1.75 to $2.00 per dozen, subject to sale, and as these were composed largely of early birds we sent them on. The com- mission firm telegraphed on arrival that they had sold one barrel at $1.75 and were holding the re- mainder. In a day or two they wrote me that they had sold the balance at $1.00, as they had no means of keeping them and they would soon spoil. Then I abandoned shipping anything in large quantities unless the price was agreed upon beforehand. SNIPE AND PLOVER ADVANCE. ATKINSON. In 1864 I opened up the Spring trade at Atkin- son and put up a building there to pack goods. They had to be double-boxed and ice-packed. The former were more desirable, but there was more risk. I remember one week's receipts of sales of Atkinson shipments which amounted to over five EDWARD SUMNER. 75 hundred dollars. In 1864 trade had improved so much there appeared other dealers in New York who were soliciting shipments, and among the rest the members of the firm of Trimm & Sumner, on Washington Market, of whom Edward Sumner was the active manager of the game department. He was an inveterate writer and a great penman and he started by writing up the game business from day to day and endeavoring to secure our birds. Be- tween the two New' York markets, Washington and Fulton Street, there sprang up a great rivalry, and it would be a modest statement to say that between the two we got better returns than ever before. Sumner was every way as prompt as A. & E. Rob- bins and the information he threw in gratis was very gratifying. Everything now pointed to- an early close of the war. Money in the great centers was abundant and rapidly distributed by government. When Sumner first addressed me at Atkinson he quoted prices for jacks at $2.25 per dozen without commission. Messrs. Robbins were paying me eighteen cents each. I immediately shipped Sumner something over eight hundred snipe and received promptly in return one hundred and forty-four dol- lars. Following that I shipped him a box nearly every day, and as it was getting late in the month and receipts began to slacken he increased his price to twenty cents and eventually to twenty-five, and the last shipment of fifty-nine dozen that Spring to four dollars, including golden plover, grass plover and large yellowlegs. That was the high water mark and I had no birds- to hold. Between 1864 and 1870 trade was unusually good, but we never reached that price for snipe and plover again within that time. One spring the birds were very late in coming and up to the 20th of April we had only col- 76 OVERLOADED MARKETS SELL SNIPE DOWN. lected a few hundred as it was very cold and back- ward. About that time they began to arrive freely, when a sudden fall of snow came on and with the increased cold shut them off altogether, and that year prices were firm at three dollars and three- fifty when the season closed. One year we shipped twelve thousand golden plover and eight thousand snipe and marketed all of them safely, with the result that prices fell from opening to close, and the last sold at seventy-five cents in New York. I distinct- ly remember this last, as I shot the birds myself on the Pritchard land on the flat bottoms near to Green River and east of One Hundred Acre Grove, and it was on the 15th day of May, something I had never known to be done before or since at that day. I also shipped Lanning & Laing the following year all of my birds. They were a commission firm which sold all but the second shipment and the last at two dollars per dozen. The last lots which I held a few days on ice sold for $2.75, and the second shipment at $1.50. In the following year we held back our birds, after April 20th, when they were fat, and brought them to Kewanee to ship, and by so doing we exposed them too much to the air and without ice packing ; we suffered a total loss of two hundred dozen birds. They would have brought two* dollars a dozen if properly packed. By this time the golden plover began to decrease in numbers and spring receipts being so much lighter, they in- creased in price until they brought the same as snipe. This was in the days when breech loaders began to appear. They were very high in price but poor in quality ; most of them were of the pin fire kind, and the locking was not able to bear up the strain very long, which was dangerous, while the smoke escaped from around a pin, which fired the load and gave LOTS OF GOLDEN PLOVER. 77 the gun the name pin fire. Late in April, the birds which now had become spotted-breasted, would hover and light in great flocks in shallow ponds where they could wade leg deep and flutter their wings and wash themselves. I detected one morn- ing a flock of these birds sailing around and whist- ling over a low pond, as they do preparatory to alighting, and in a few minutes they did alight. They were very wary when in flocks, so I drove my horse quartering as if to go by them, got out my cartridges, and, when within proper distance, I dropped off be- hind the wagon with cartridges on the seat, stopped the horse, stooped down as low as I could to get a raking fire, and let go one barrel as they were and one as they raised. Those that fell back wounded uttered a terrific cry, lifted their wings and fluttered, which brought the flock back, when I unloaded two barrels again. They whirled away and returned until I had fired twelve or fourteen times, when they left entirely, and the birds counted out sixty-seven before one was picked up. In that forenoon I filled a two-bushel bag and was back before dinner. On the farm a little west of Atkinson I killed forty of them at one discharge of the two barrels and I think at least a dozen ran away. I used to tell the owner of the field that the birds that crossed his farm in one day were worth more than his whole farm, which was literally true. With a breech loader such as we have now a man with a team could have shot easily two hundreds birds a day. After '63 the game business was getting brisk and purchases were so large, so often and so continuous, we were often pressed for money to meet them, where we depended for sales of goods that went a thousand miles away to market. In not a few in- stances we abandoned the purchase of a large amount 78 HIGH PRICES OF GAME AND CEREALS IN '65 of game solely for want of ready cash, which pre- sented to us a very large margin of profit. At that time J. L. Piatt was running the only bank in Kewanee, where now is Zang's butcher shop. I did considerable business with him, but I said to him one day that I was too far away from my place of sales to do the business which was legally mine. He asked me what I meant. I said I meant cash, and rather than borrow it or ask for accommodation I would let sales go by. He said, "Why don't you draw?" I replied I did not know what that meant. He says, "I will tell you. Make your shipments, large or small, and then make a draft against it for about two-thirds of what the goods are actually worth, and I will advance the money for you to use, charging you only brokerage of twenty cents on a hundred dollars." I took his advice and gladly, and from that time afterward I had no trouble to pay for all the salable goods I chose to handle. This was the time I was opening up trade with Trimm and Sumner, and I think there never was a draft refused, although once or twice the consignee had hard work to pay them promptly, the goods not hav- ing yet arrived. At this time I bought everything that came to hand, game, furs and poultry, some- times hides, and the struggle on the street for poul- try at that time would make a record for anybody. Best of all, my consignees were well pleased, and no upbraiding letters came from them to mar our good fortune. In 1865, With the close of the Civil War, the cereals reached high figures and outran proportion- ately the price of game. Corn advanced to one dol- lar per bushel and oats to forty cents and upwards. Lead soared and shot brought $5.55 per sack. The price of land was drawn upwards with the crops. THE COUNTRY SMILES. 79 During the Yvar many pieces of land had been al- lowed to run fallow, weeds choked the highways and low grounds, once cultivated, went back to coarse grasses and neglect. The highways forgot to follow section lines, a short cut to the towns pre- vailed. The sloughs that emptied into the river beds seemed to be obstructed and heavy rains forced the floods back into fertile fields. Fences had gone to decay and the osage hedge to neglect and business was cramped and constrained because of the war. Now this was all changed. Farmers began to throw up new fences and improve the old ones. Discharged soldiers came in and made new laborers to culti- vate the fields. Houses guiltless of paint were re- freshened and decked anew. Lands that were sod- den and cold were turned up to the sun and their faces became joyous with the harvest. Most all the waterways were shut into healthy limits, new bridges spanned the quagmire, new roads followed section lines. Hills were cut down and hollows filled up. Drainage was begun. The axe struck into the forest. On the lowlands cattle seemed to multiply ; they tramped down and destroyed the thrifty shoots, the long grass and the immature bushes which promised thrifty trees and furnished the only cover for game. The Green and .Rock River country began to be depleted of woodcock and quail. The waters sank low in the marshes. Ducks were fewer and their stay less prolonged. St. Peters was a land of sullen, slimy channels where the muskrat drove his canal through flags and bunch grass, from pool to pool, tearing up roots and shoots and setting up his throne on top of gathered heaps and bogs which obstructed his way. The whole country north of the C. & R. I. Railroad seemed to rise in benediction for the blessing of the sun and 80 PACKING WOODCOCKS. the rain. From the middle of June until after July 4th, we gathered what woodcocks were to be had on our home streams and then followed the Mississippi until September. The history of woodcock shooting is to me the most interesting of all the hunting I have to relate. It began with us in the West, as stated, in i860. I ceased following the river in 1873. At that time we had an experience that stood us in good stead for packing and marketing all kinds of game, and although we could not hold and cool off on ice in hot summer weather, as with the snipe in the spring, and then ship without ice, still the bulk was so small that the task was not onerous. We doubled our boxes always, and that was a great protection against the ice melting on the inside. Our custom- ers were not then critical about fine plumage. Most of our birds arrived wet when sent to market and the customers did not complain, if they were sound. In some cases Messrs. Robbins informed us that the birds arrived very tender ; that they picked them out of the sawdust and threw them into ice water, by which means they were so restored as to be about as good as ever. Later years we had hundreds of them arrive that would have been absolutely worth- less if they had not been immediately doused in ice water. When taking them out and adding a thor- ough fanning, loosening up and shaking the feathers and drying them again, they regained their original appearance so they could hardly be distinguished from those that were fresh killed. In 1861 W. K. Porter and myself started out to kill woodcock. We read of some reports in the New York Tribune that experiments in Indiana of shipping them to New York had turned out disas- trously. Nevertheless, with the experience of i860 PACKING WOODCOCKS. 81 with spring birds, we decided to follow it through the summer. We started in north of Geneseo and followed Green River down, and we were much sur- prised in finding birds so plenty. We continued for several weeks on that river, and the shooting was fine. At Rock River bridge we tarried a week or more, and when once we had cleaned out a patch pretty closely we moved away a few days, and then, like young Oliver, we came back for more. The second and third time we covered the ground with equally good or better results. Then we followed up Rock River and by August ist we had reached as far as Erie. Ice was hard to get. Added to this was the fact that facilities for immediate shipping- were not to be had there. W r e had to carry our birds to Morrison, and when we boxed and transferred them across the country they were liable to' have the ice melt out of them, and before they reached New York would be spoiled. We lost one small box that way at Erie. We packed in double boxes, lined with sawdust, and that was often very hard to get. At shipping points it could always be had, because the trains at that time used wood fires, and wood was corded up and sawed at the stations, as was the case at Colona, Geneseo and Kewanee. The sawdust was mostly oak, and the ice water dripping through it made the birds look of a dirty red color, but customers did not com- plain. The three things, shoe boxes, sawdust and the birds, made a nice shipment. At length Porter thought the business was un- profitable, and dropped out. He had a crippled hand, like myself, or rather he had no hand on his left arm, and in shooting he shot to the left while I shot to the right, which made us very suitable 82 ROCK RIVER BRIDGE AT COLONA. companions. He was a straight, square man, and our business dealings together were altogether pleasant. I often thought of him afterward when prices advanced and birds were plenty, how much he was losing by the change. As long as he re- mained in Annawan he was active at his trade and made a good living, but he did not very much pros- per. I bought some birds of him afterwards, but he took no active interest in the business, and later he moved to Nebraska, since which time I have lost track of him. The dark cloud continued to loom disastrously over us for another year, and then the end began to dawn. We found only some sporting men that came in for a day or two at Rock River Bridge at Colona. On this trip we killed over one thou- sand birds and delivered nearly all of them safely in New York, but the prices were only thirty cents per pair at the highest. More sold at twenty- five and some at twenty. I remember the Fourth of July that my partner left for a home visit and I hunted alone. That day I killed three dozen birds, only getting twenty cents per pair for them. At the place where I killed these birds on the side of a slough, covered with bushes on one side, half a mile above Colona on the Green River, I saw the first young jack snipe that I ever saw, and they were so young they could barely fly and the fine hairs stuck out on their heads just like young woodcock, which we called wooly heads. After Porter returned we took a trip up the Mississippi and hunted at Savannah for ten days. These were the first birds ever taken there to be shipped and they were not plenty. Very few people knew that such a bird was there. There was no railroad there at that time and we had to take them to Fulton to HABITAT OF THE WOODCOCK. 83 ship. The habits of the birds of Savannah were different from any I had before seen and they were the same the year following. The birds were to be found in the white alders wherever there were any. The bodies of the trees grew close together, from eight to ten feet in height over your head, and fre- quently there were three or four birds in a clump at one time. The shade was thicker under these trees and covered the ground entirely where the birds sat. We found very few birds under the open trees and it was past the season for them to feed on the sloughs, except sometimes after a rain they could be found there. In later years we found them in August and September, largely in short clumps of bushes resembling alders in appearance, and the cover was much thicker than under the al- ders, and here the shooting was perfect as long as I knew it. I became so familiar with certain grounds of this kind that I had them marked in my mind, and I never failed to find birds there at any time until snow flew. In 1861 I became ac- quainted with some hunters by the name of Barton. There were three of them and their father, also, with whom I had only one transaction that I can remember, as he was a fisher and trapper, but he was gathering fur along the Edwards River, and as I passed his house every few days he invited me to buy his furs, which I consented to do, although I was not expert in that line. This was, I think, in 1863. He wanted twenty-five cents each for his muskrats. The rest I do not know what they were or what I paid him, but he loaded down my wagon with them at that price. I did not know a kit from an old rat and I paid him the same price for all. I shipped them as the price was fast rising, and they sold in New York for 47^4 cents each, except the 84 A BARGAIN IN FURS.— WM. BARTON. kits, which did not bring over one quarter that sum. I also bought a few mink from my hunt- ers, and Jerry Hopkins at that time was keeping grocery store in the old corner of Second and Main streets, KeWanee, and as he offered to buy what I had every week and give me four dollars apiece for all prime mink (which cost me three dollars) which I would bring him, I accepted his offer. One day I brought in a mink skin which he declared was a fox mink and not worth much more thai*; a cotton tail, and he would not buy it. As I shipped birds every Monday morning, I put that fox mink in with the birds, and on getting my returns I found it brought six dollars. I think Jerry will never for- get that circumstance and he solemnly declared that that sale must have been a mistake, as that skin could never have brought that price. In the summer of 1862 William Barton, one of the brothers above mentioned, wanted to hunt with me and sell me his birds. As I had a horse and buggy I went with him to New Boston and we remained there four weeks. The birds were badly scattered and we only killed six hundred in that time, one hundred of which I killed in three days at the mouth of the Edwards, while Barton took a visit home. The prices were very low — twenty- five to thirty cents per pair in New York — but ev- erything else was low — board and ammunition and horse feed — but we got home whole. After a little while I pushed on to Rock River alone in the month of September, and there I killed one hundred pairs a week, and there was the first money I had made in woodcock since I left Geneseo. I killed thirty dozen in that time in about ten days and they brought me forty cents a pair in New York, and the labor was light and pleasant. A BARGAIN IN FURS.— WM. BARTON. 85 In 1863 I took the same Barton boys and one or two others in June and hunted in the neighborhood of Rock Island Bridge west of Colona, and there We killed three or four boxes in less than a week, and these all brought us fifty cents a pair. Then we followed up the river again to Erie, and there in less than a week we killed four hundred pair, which brought us as much or more than the Colona birds. I never went back there with anybody to hunt with me, but I made that point once every Tune for a number of years until the birds became too thin to pay me and local hunters began to come in as the railroad now passed that point. I don't think I ever went there in June but what I killed at least one day fifty birds north of the Ferry. The last time I found a good many birds south of the Ferry. The brush was thick and after pounding away to little purpose one afternoon, I concluded to quit and give them another trial next day, which I did, and then I cleaned out the whole gang. Be- fore twelve o'clock I had bagged forty birds, and I know I killed birds without looking over the gun at all. Once the gun was discharged while I w^as holding it in my hand before I got it to my eye, and breaking into the trick brush, lo, I found the bird lying dead. This hunt is memorable because in the midst of the brush I stumbled over a famous steel trap, powerful enough to hold a tiger, with double springs, which I still possess. From Erie we went to Savannah and spent a large part of the summer hunting on the Island across the river and on the bottoms below the town, and in August, when we left, we thought we had killed about all the birds that were there. The Bartons were not successful in finding woodcock although the birds were plenty. They strolled constantly all over the 86 A BARGAIN IN FURS.— WM. BARTON. island looking for sloughs to locate the birds upon when they had left that ground in June, and now were to be found on the high ridges under big trees and in thick, heavy clumps, and everywhere where the deep shade protected them. I had no difficulty in bagging twenty to twenty-five birds a day and never went half a mile from where I started, while they wandered aimlessly, went all around where the birds were without discovery, wasting their time where they were not, tired out at night with only two or three birds apiece and dis- couraged. I think prices had now reached 65 cents per pair. The railroad had come in and we did not have to transport them to Fulton. Ice was plenty and express moderate and most of the birds I shipped to John A. Lyon, New York, the third man of the trio, of whom I will speak hereafter. I let the Bartons go and took on A. Collins, who I employed on various occasions afterwards and of whom I shall speak more later. We had but one dog, and, like the lion with one pup, it was a good one, and contrary to expectation we found more birds than we did in July and August. We hunted twenty days on the island opposite Savannah and mainland beyond the cut-off, which rising at the upper end of the island, follows it the whole length and empties in the River at Sabula. We planted our birds in the damp soil along the river bank, a dozen or more at a time as we got them, covered them up with moist, soft ground underlaid with leaves, and at night gathered them together when they were well cooled off and ready to go into the ice house. We hunted here twenty days and we killed forty birds a day and marketed them in good order. I think some of them sold for seventy-five cents. Collins carried an army canteen slung over A. COLLINS ATSAVANNA. 87 his shoulder, from which we drew long drafts each of us, as the days were hot and the water seemed as refreshing as that from the old oaken bucket which hung in the well. We walked slowly, the dog leading the way, and I do not think ten minutes elapsed in which he did not set a bird, the whole day long, but the cover sometimes was very close and many birds we had to raise three or four times to get sight of, and when we did our shots rang out together when one load would have been amply sufficient. Doubtless either of us would have killed twenty-five birds daily if we had had separate dogs. In 1864 I was hunting on this same island oppo- site Savannah in July. It was a muggy, moist day and the mosquitoes were very annoying. It was diffi- cult to keep your patience with the winged pests and it took much time to load and I got along slowly. I was on the first bench back from the River. A skiff had come up and landed on the shore a few rods distant, and I noticed two persons follow back into the woods which were rather dark, some- what in the direction of me, and though they did not come up they seemed to be following me. They followed me about for perhaps an hour (in which I killed several birds), and left without coming up. Later, in Savannah, I was accosted by a man who said he lived there, was a fisherman in summer and pork packer in winter, was handy with a gun, and he was one of the men on the Island who had been following me about, wondering what I was doing and seeing how I killed birds. He believed if I would buy his birds he could kill them as I did, and said that his name was Nate Tompkins. I agreed with him on the price and he proved to be one of the most successful woodcock hunters I ever knew. I traveled with him until 1866, going 88 NATE TOMPKINS. with him in his skiff, he doing the rowing, being an expert boatman and thoroughly familiar along the river bottom in the country. Many times I sat with him in the boat as he rowed ten or fif- teen miles up the river in a heavy current, always dodging the swift water when he could, following the sloughs and the shore where the water was less rapid. HIS IDIOSYNCRASIES. He was a most intense listener, about forty- five years old. He gathered up and held in reserve every word you said, and with his deep, dark eyes looking down upon you from those steady lids, he was a true representative of the Pennsylvania back- woodsman, as he had once been. He was an in- veterate smoker and carried a pipe and smoked it as he rode, I sitting in the back seat and he pulling long stretches of the river channel, coming to a stop when he reached his limit, and always where the birds were. If he was within reaching distance of home the same day he would time his hunt so we would set out before sundown, and he absolutely declared he would not return home after dark. On one occasion I did not reach the boat until dark, and he was in a state so excited it was useless to try to reason with him. As I had struck a fine lot of birds that day and killed three dozen, I im- agine that circumstance had something to do with it whilst he was waiting, gaining nothing. With all the rest, he was a good hater ; he remembered distinctly every man who had taken advantage of him, even to a cent, and I took good care that he did not direct his malice towards me. He seldom killed after the first year less than twenty-five birds a day, and when he had the latter number he wanted to return home if it was only in the middle of the DID NOT CARE FOR SOFT DRINKS. 89 afternoon. He was not a temperate man, but I do not remember when he showed effects of drink so much as to be offensive or to be incapable of a successful hunt, but he was cross-tempered some- times and he did not look out for his family as he should. Some mornings he would not appear at the boat and in that case I would go off on foot on some of the islands from Sabula to hunt, and I was told afterwards he was drinking. He had no settled town or home. In successsive years I knew his stopping place for fifty miles and I kept track of him the last when he camped one fall near Prairie du Chien. He lived until 1899 and died in August of that year,. His drinking habits increased with his age, which, with resulting poverty, drove his wife at last to leave him. When I stopped with them, as I did several nights in the course of those years, his table was very scanty, but his* wife made no complaint. He had a dog with only one eye, and as he had great success with him, I bought him for twenty-five dollars, hoping good luck would follow me, but some neighbors poisoned him in a few days. In 1864 Tompkins still lived at Sabula and I bought his birds at twenty-five cents each, with the agreement that he should take me in his skiff with him whenever he went to hunt. By the middle of August we had taken sixteen hundred birds. The first box brought me 85 cents, and after that all of them one dollar per p^\r^ Later it became necessary to move, and Tompkins not caring to leave town at that time, I went on boat to Du- buque and up on to the Islands above there about four or five miles on the Wisconsin side, and the hunting was fine as he had told me it would be. The first week I killed in five days 159 birds and the following week I sent for Charles Collins to 90 TOMPKINS AT SABTJLA, 1864. help me, and we did nearly as well for each of us, and I remember Sumner, in New York, sold them and allowed me $1.12^2 per pair, so the check was considerably over one hundred dollars. I had occasion to remember this, because I came into Du- buque with the birds and the Julien House wanted to buy them, but they would only offer me $4 per dozen and I was sure I could do better. I knew a man by the name of Curtis, who was a shipper of coal and produce on the boats that ran down to Rock Island, and I thought I could .borrow enough of him to buy our provisions with and get back on the Islands without waiting for returns. We only wanted $5, but he would not help me. Next day he shipped and went with this cargo, and at Port Byron the boiler of the boat exploded and he was killed. I think this was the only time I ever failed of 'getting accommodations on the River whenever I asked for it. I went up to a pawn shop, put up my watch for the $5, and went back to hunt. One day we were on a rather high bench on the mainland and our guns were going off pretty lively. We were not over two hundred yards apart, but we were so busy we did not run onto each other's line. I made desperate poor shooting and the ground was good. Finally I said to myself, "I will go and see what Collins is doing," and I found him swearing fearfully at the birds which got away from him. I said, "Charley, let us sit down a little while and eat our dinner and give our nerves a rest, and we will do better." Tlhis we did, and on re- suming our firing we had splendid success. There were some fishermen camping at the foot of the first islands above Dubuque, from Lancaster, Wisconsin, and we begged the privilege of staying with them CHARLES COLLINS AND SPECHTS' FERRY. 91 in their tent at night, for it was beginning to get cool in September, and we cooked our meals and ate with them. We had a nice bed of fir boughs and I think I never slept more easily or thoroughly. We had a box of ice, a shoe box in which we laid our birds to keep them from the heat and flies of the day time. The ice we had hauled from Du- buque in a skiff and it was no pleasant or easy task. This night as we returned from hunt, we found our box open and inside a dressed pig stretched warm and fresh the length of the box, to cool on our ice and the ice half gone. There was a scene when we came together and I never want to repeat it. We had to go to town next day for ice and so lost the day. The following season I went up early and shot around Sabula and later in September Charles Collins wanted to go with me again to Du- buque. I set a day to leave Kewanee and when the time arrived he said he could not go for a few hours, "But you go on and I will meet you at Rock Island." I went there but he did not come. I returned on the first train for I knew his prom- ises were empty wind, and his excuses were on tap whenever he wanted them. I determined to take none this time and give him no chance to form one. I came onto him unexpectedly where he was plow- ing, with no thought of seeing me, and before he had fairly looked up I had him. He could not look up ; he broke down and begged pardon. I took him with me the next day. We did most of our hunting below Cassville, and the last week, which was the first week in October, we stopped at Spechts, opposite the Canal which comes into the River be- low Potosi and connects the slough with the river. In these six days we averaged over sixty woodcock per day between us, and we shipped them from 92 WOODCOCKS DISAPPEAR IN SUMMER OF '65. East Dubuque to New York as we came down the River, the last week of the season. The birds were sold at fifty cents per pair to Sumner, who claimed they came tool ate and out of season. In 1865 things were fairly booming-. The first of the season we had a fair supply of woodcock and they sold well. In August there was no rain and the sloughs began to dry up fast, and the birds gradually to disappear. They could not be found as usual in the heavy timber under the largest trees, where the ground was soft and damp and cool. We thought we should see them again in September before their annual dispersion to the South, out they never came. For more than a hundred miles we drove along the River and surveyed with great minuteness all the places where they were likely to be found. Along some sloughs there were some signs that they had fed there over night, but we could not raise over one or two birds a day. We carried a box of ice along with us and in the course of our travel from Platte River South below East Dubuque we found nothing but partridges and did not hunt them only as the dog broke into covies along our route, and we stopped and fired a few shots. Twenty part- ridges we took that day without leaving the wagon road, and we sold them in New York for one dollar per pair. In our travels we learned of a hunter who watched a pond at dusk and killed a dozen woodcock or more every night, but we found no such place. It is possible that around Potosi birds could have been found, as on a later year we found them there when they had disappeared elsewhere. It is not quite certain that the dry weather drove them off. Once before it had been very dry, the River was so low that it had been forded in some places, sand banks were everywhere and water shal- WOODCOCKS FLY TO THE HIGHEST PEAKS 93 low. Under the great oaks, in deep and impene- trable shade and gloom, behind fallen trunks where the sun never shone, and death was disrobing the giants of the past, we had often found them flutter- ing up where no life seemed to exist, but we searched for them now all in vain. We had imagined the white grubs which lie hid in these sepulchral homes of rotting trunks furnished them food when the earth worms did not, but if so they left no trace. We sought them along high and dry ridges where the birds generally repair when they leave the sloughs in July, in clumps of impenetrable bushes and under thick running vines and everywhere we could invent a place they could sit concealed. The eye of the sun must not light upon them. If they were inaccessible by day they were equally so when the shadows began to fall. The quick, sharp whir of their wings would then come if at all. At this hour they left their cover for their evening meal, lighted on soft, damp ground where the worms were, did their lively probing until the ground was pierced with holes like a skimmer, or they lifted themselves up to the hilltops on easy wings, swing- ing as an athlete from point to point, those airy domes of rock where the clouds rolled and the lowly wanderers were lost in space. I had lost Tompkins for a while, and he was indebted to me twentv dol- it lars or more, and he had promised to make it up to me in the previous fall, but it never came. He had sent his birds to me the year before and we would pack them with what others we had at Dubuque and send his returns to him at Sabula. I instructed the express agent there to pay him for any ship- ments he might make while I was away, and to the check which I last sent him, he added an equal amount from the agent, so that he got his pay 94 A RUSE ON TOMPKINS SUCCEEDS. twice. I not only lost the money but lost the birds, as he did not ship me again afterwards. I determined on a ruse. In July before the season opened, I went to him in Sabula and told him that I wanted his birds the coming summer ; that I made no account of what he owed me, we would call that account square, he might send me in his game as usual and nothing would be held back. It worked all right. I could have recouped myself many times if I had chosen, but I never did. I got his game ever afterwards when I was within reach and I have no doubt but what it was a profitable venture. We were apprehensive in 1866 whether the birds would be found as plenty as in 1864, but when it came around the birds were as plenty as ever. We took on Tyler Mapes and traveled farther up the River and reached Cassville, an old looking Ger- man town, and I think the hunt at that place was as good and the sport as exciting as any place we ever visited. One thing was remarkable. We were hunting woodcock and yet we were killing part- ridges nearly as plenty; something in the old style which we first discovered above Dubuque, was ap- parent. When we had a point the dog could not tell us what kind of bird it was, which made the hunt more exciting. In the thickest bushes among willows rising over your head so close set you could hardly make your way between them, you some- times had to be dog and hunter before you could dislodge them. It was a pleasure for us to have a change, if only occasionally, and those fine fellows with tail feathers just budding out and spotted breasts, set off handsomely the ruddy brown wood- cock which were our daily hunt. Just below Cass- ville is a small island called Jacko, and across the River and up from the old town are large bottoms CASSVILLE AND DEWEY HOTEL. 95 where the birds had not been disturbed. We could find only one place suitable to board, which was the Dewey Hotel, the ex-governor's of Wisconsin, which he built to secure the court house and failed, and which was now in decay. It was a noble man- sion and rented for a boarding house. Both the governor and his wife frequently sat at the table with us and their little child. More often the wife and child came alone, and we got on good terms with her right away, but the governor would not be comforted and one day he told us he did not want us to be killing those birds of his and shipping them to the nabobs of New York to feast upon. We in- quired and found he owned about all the land around there on the river bottoms, but in as much as the landlord was getting some revenue out of us, which he was supposed largely to share, we gave ourselves no uneasiness and continued to trans- gress. We expected trouble, but it never came, and in time we left in peace. The governor was im- proving his lands up along the River with fine stone fences for miles adjoining the mountain side, and built him a palace costing twenty thousand dol- lars. His wife's mother lived below the town on the Wisconsin River, and as her daughter and the governor did not get along well together, it so wor- ried her that she drowned herself in that river. Uater after we were gone, I think the next spring, the wife went to Europe and drew so heavily on him for expenses, which annoyed him ; she finally came home and they separated, the wife living in poverty near Milwaukee with her mind demented, and later moved to Washington, D. C, where she remained with her daughter and where she died a few years ago. The Governor became a hankrupt and his property passed to his creditors, and he died 96 CHARLES COLLINS' MISFORTUNE?. earlier. We may here remark of the two Collinses that they were brothers, raised on the farm with their father a few miles from Kewanee, and I be- came acquainted with them very soon after reach- ing Henry county. Charles was the older of the two and loved hunting immensely well when he could sell his game, and he shot well. He followed me often in my hunts to distant towns and states. Out in Iowa, in Knox County in this State, and along the up-river towns, in 1872, when he became a citizen of Nashua, Iowa, where he remained until he died a few years later. He was an industrious worker in any capacity you placed him, and barring his defects, was as good a voyageur as you would care to have with you. He was a fairly good talker, a good listener, and, if he could not make, at least enjoyed happy hits, and was lavish in applauding them in others. He was not temperate, he loved a glass dearly, but I never saw it have any ill effects except to make him quarrelsome. His faults were more of the head than the heart, and his head was proverbially bad. I do not think his moral nature Was shocked or repelled in hearing anything that pleased him or that made fun for him. He drew this nature from his surroundings, which were un- favorable and unhappy, as his father taught him dis- respect for all the religious institutions that had for their object to make men pure and clean. I do not think he ever regarded the future with solicitude, and his life and that of his family was one round of weakness, wickedness and woe. In 1866 an uneasy feeling crept in among the hunters of Sabula, that they were not getting full value for their birds, and among the rest, Tompkins, with whom I hunted early in the season. Taking that year as a sample, it was indisputably true that THE SABULA HUNTERS SECEDE IN 1866 97 the birds were worth more than twenty-five cents each, which I paid them, but there were many sea- sons when they would not net that price, both before and after that year. As Tompkins and myself killed most of the birds that were shipped, and our total birds made us a profit of over a thousand dollars that year, we made no effort to control ship- ments which originated with Kindred and one or two other hunters who formed a compact for hunt- ing together and shipping their own birds. Improp- er packing and frequent delays in returns and de- lays in getting enough birds to secure frequent ship- ments, seemed to present the only obstacle to their success. They knew our packing well and were as capable of doing it as ourselves. They pushed Northward by steamboat, taking their skiffs with them as far as Lansing, Brownsville and LaCrosse, along Root River and the west coast of the Mis- sippi generally, and poor shots as they were they did remarkably well if their tale was to be believed. Kindred was so fascinated with his unexpected good fortune,' he began to purchase real estate in Sabula, and was the reputed owner of some property. His companions gave out that they got $1.25 for their birds. Therefore when 1867 came round I made no effort to secure their trade and passed Sabula by. I took A. Collins, brother of Charles Collins, and John Barton, and with a tent left the Savannah country and never returned there to hunt. We ex- amined the country North of the Galena River and as far up as LaCrosse early, and later above LaCrosse and in the Trempelau country. We found more birds about Potosi bottoms than any- where and Barton and I had the satisfaction of getting lost in the Kickapoo River bottoms, where the mosquitoes nearly annihilated us, and I confi T 98 LOST IN KICKAPOO BOTTOMS, WIS. dently believe would have done so if we had been compelled to camp out there all night. We struck this bottom a little before noon and were pleased with the prospect. Moving about among scatter- ing birds, on beautiful ground, and loading rapidly, for the pests of mosquitoes hung about us like a cloud and got in their work when we stood still, in the course of two or three hours we lost our bear- ings, as this flat land was so much alike as far as we could see, with puddles of water every few rods and sometimes a pool which lengthened out and led us deeper into the forest as we went. After a while it began to dawn on our minds that the sun was declining and though we found game slowly and constantly as far as we went, we decided we must try to get out before nightfall overtook us. I sug- gested to Barton that we should follow the sun, as it was probable that we had come East from where we entered, and this we did. I think we walked for three hours as fast as we could walk, never, however, failing to fire at a woodcock when we surprised one on our way, and as darkness -was set- ing in fast we came out of the woods nearly ex- hausted, in precisely the same place we entered. As we got on the high, open land beyond we heard Collins' gun booming about a half a mile away, where we soon found him camped and supper ready. Collins reached the same low country as we did, but he did not dive into the forest. His dog made a point in the outskirts but the bird did not rise. On walking up there was a stir from among the long grass, the bushes bent and switched and a bear that had been lying there in cover broke away into the timber. This is the only time that we ever disturbed bruin in our hunting tours. Deer were of common occurrence but we made no effort to kill COLLINS DISTURBS A BEAR. 93 A. Collins Uncovers a Bear. them as they were too much of a burden to carry and would have destroyed our day's sport among birds. We did not find a good country, about Trempelau. We got in among the Indians, who visited us nearly every day, now hunting ducks on the open ponds or more often sleeping in their tepees as leisurely and shiftless as Indians are, kill- ing nothing of the game we were hunting. Every- where woods and water prevailed. Mosquitoes filled the air and in one point of /woods we were compelled to abandon it altogether on their ac- count. We worked down the River again after getting a box or two in this place, and down along the West shore as we went late in the afternoon we applied at a landing place for provision, and were told that one man by the name of Brophy had all the stores we wanted, ice included, whither we Lot 5. 100 A VICIOUS RATTLER. went, and over his front store door was written in large letters, "M. Brophy, Dealer in Whiskey, Beef and Beer." We named this Brophytown and stayed with him one or two days, when we fell down the River again, hunting the Islands as we did so, and at night we found ourselves at the foot of a small hamlet on the East side, and at the extreme point was an unoccupied stone building facing the river and being built directly against the high bluff, it formed a basement which was open, and as we had our provision with us we decided we would lay our bedding there and stay for the night. It was entirely dark inside and we worked our way back without striking a light, as somebody might dis- possess us if we did, and spreading out our clothes we lay down, when he heard the ominous warning of a rattlesnake's tail, which like peas in a bag went rattling continually, and kept up such a din we were bound to investigate, and by the light of our torch which we now carried, we beheld him reaching out his long neck from the foundation wall half way up and throwing it in every direction with more devilish cunning than all the snakes we had ever known. The boys manifested some excitement, but I told them he would not molest us, and pulling our bunk nearer the doorway we stayed there that night. I may say here that in this trip we saw more rattlers than we ever saw before or since, for the River was high, the bottoms flooded and we were compelled in traveling along the shore to skirt the great rocks which hung from the mountain shelves, and there the venemous reptiles lay, but they were not dangerous. Many times I shot them when dis- covered, and on one occasion when my dog was a little in advance I saw a very large one. I stepped back one or two steps to dispose of him, when the DOG STANDS UPON A RATTLER. 101 dog, seeing me raise my gun, turned towards me to know what I was doing, looking up meanwhile at me and not noticing what lay beneath him, he walked square upon the rattler and stood upon it, and I ex- pected the snake would strike him every moment. I tried to scare him off, but to no purpose, then I Above La Crescent, Minn. ran off at right angles and the dog followed me, when I turned and dispatched the reptile. Unless they are struck they are not likely to strike back, but then, they are like good Indians — the best when dead. I never knew anyone bit by them but the sight of one coiled will make you shudder. 102 WE SETTLE WITH S. B. RANDALL. Dresbach, Minn. We did not get over a dollar for birds this year; some sold for seventy-five cents and one box .we lost. My real estate man at Sabnla was not very active. We did not run across him and there was no very great inducement to ship. I heard no more from him for several years, but I learned after- wards that he did kill some birds but his trade never reached any great proportions, and his ship- ments were so irregular and desultory they could not have paid him much. Such speculations were like all others. If you hit it makes a fool of you. If you fail you quit. A steady pull brings the sur- est rewards and a loss can be recouped by evening up with the profits. Eighteen hundred and sixty- seven was not a good year, but we made some- thing, and the $150 with which we returned home we turned over to S. B. Randall, of Cambridge, on COLLINS ASKS QUESTIONS. 103 settlement for an unprofitable trade in poultry the preceding winter. Coming down the River this season we stopped again at Potosi, where we had been in the early part of the season, twelve miles above Dubuque, and spread our camp on the west side of the slough, which was on the east side of the River, over which passed the long bridge, which led to the river shore. The water was high ^n3 copious rains continued to fall. East of the bridge the highway led to Potosi, wriggling and twisting about between mountain precipices whose waters lashed their way in ghostly clamor to the pools below. East of the bridge was a flat space of land where great cotton woods reached their arms into the air and sent unbroken shade to the adjoining hills. I think Friend Collins will remember this place, so charming was the scenery all around the bridge, which the sun reached only in mid-heavens. The dust and noise of high- ways and thoroughfares dropped through the thin air and clung to the foothills. The swallows crossed and recrossed the waters, dipping their wings like a light oar skimming the surface. Many times Col- lins and I sat alone when the day's work was over and revived old memories, without the jar of much argument, looking only at the quiet side where all was peace. This day he seemed to have grown out of his usual silence and he asked me abruptly, "What do you think of men, anyway? I think thev are selfish from first to last, every mother's son of them, don't you?" "Why, Lon," I said, "it depends a great deal how you take it, what ground the word selfish covers. Anyway, it don't mean us, I sup- pose," and gave him a quiet smile. He turned his eyes away a moment, as though he was afraid he had provoked argument, ■ and then, looking down, 104 THE LONG BRIDGE AT POTOSI. Collins Asks the "Unknowable." THE HIGHEST MODE OF EXISTENCE. 105 continued, in his menacing way, that he did not be- lieve I would deny the impeachment altogether, and then we sailed in, not angrily, I think, but on oppo- site ground, which broadened out after a while from religion to politics, he denying everything and I claiming everything. Of selfishness, I declared it must not be confounded with self-love, which every man has a part of, and that no one had a right to trample upon this instinct of our nature. "Well," he continued, as though he had struck it this time, "you church people are great hypocrites ; you always think you are a little better than anybody else, but I never could see it." Watching his eye, I said, calm- ly, "Did you ever try to see it? There is a great deal in that. Now, I did try and set myself on guard for that one thing. When I first came into the country a man of great influence and more prej- udice advised me that I would find the church peo- ple more deceptive than anyone else, and to let them alone as untrustworthy, and I now declare to you that his whole theory has proved fallacious. Taking samples from each, in church and out, the church- man has held his own remarkably well, where the unchurched has gone down." Again he remarked, "I suppose you believe in a man's getting religion and all that?" as if that was a stumper; "I never wanted religion if it was like what these people say it is." I replied, "You probably never heard them say, as you claim you never was in a religious meet- ing.'' "Well," he said, "where is God, anyway? I don't see him and I don't know as there is one, anv- way." I continued, "Shut your eyes and you will never see, shut your ears and you will never hear, and the mysteries will never unfold to human souls." He said again, "You think that God can forgive sin, do you? I do not." "Why not?" I said, "Don't you 106 THE "VISION." forgive your child when he asks forgiveness ? Sup- pose you had offended someone, would you not go to him as the proper person to forgive your of- fense, and if you did not go, and he should come to you, wouldn't you say that he who suffered the in- jury was the proper person to forgive it. So God says, T will forgive you because you have sinned against me.' " He softened a little, with a quiet look, and continued, ''Why don't God show Himself so I could see Him? Then I might believe on Him." ''That is a question as old as the human heart," I replied, "and you may put it down once for all that the Highest Power always does as it chooses, in Heaven or in earth, and the highest mode of exist- ence is in that form which God chooses, and that is a spirit." We relapsed a while into politics, and as Collins was a great Democrat, we did not press our views much farther, and the talk ended. . I was alone, but the long bridge and the cottonwoods and the shadows ! I was delighted with the shadows. Other shadows came and barred the sunlight and threw their taper fingers far over the highway and the sickly stream which flowed beneath me, and the gloom came with the evening, and at the end of the long bridge was sunlight again. And I heard glad voices calling unto me, oh, so sweetly, singing the songs of the angels until the harmonies of earth and sky seemed to meet and mingle in tenderest embrace. The sun declined. For a while it shot out shafts of heat and light, till, tired of its unequal fight with spectres, it sank into its chambers. And there was heard the soft notes of viols as 'of an angel band disenthralled of pain or passion, sweeping the tender chords with the skill of artists and no human love, not the deepest enchantment of woman, could reach the sublime heights which their melody created. A. COLLINS' SUCCESS. 107 Night followed and dissolved the shadows, and the illusions lost their color and form. The mists were slowly rising from the river, the damp with ample folds was spreading over the hill sides and along the highway, and the cold hovered around me till I re- gained shelter, but the vision remained till the day dawned and the shadows fled away. Dear old river, when the visions become realities there shall be no night there ! The Trusty Man. Of A. Collins it is a pleasure to write in high praise. Brought up with the same unfavorable sur- 108 A. COLLINS' SUCCESS. roundings as his brother, and sedulously instructed to avoid houses of worship as sanctuaries of hypo- crites he early learned that what he did not under- stand or appreciate, he should not sharply criticize or condemn. I think if he had been brought up in a Christian family, his life would have been sweeter and better and more inspiring, and more often he would have seen men as living souls and not as trees walking. Be that as it may, he has always been a Spechts Ferry thoroughly honest man, and in the many years he toiled with me he committed no act which I would care to blot out or strongly shade. He was to be trusted anywhere, with any mission he was com- petent to fill. He made a wise choice of a small THE THREE PROPOSITIONS. 109 farm north of Annawan, many years ago, and it has so improved under his fostering care that it supports him well, and he can now pass his days in peace and plenty, assured that he owes no man anything. I always compliment him on his laugh, for it is in- spiring, as soft and coy as a maiden's, and his droop- ing lids cover up no traces of undue boldness or temerity. We wish him a long and happy life, and that he will never forget to sing the old refrain, "What shall we do with the drunken sailor? Put him in the long boat and let him bail her." For many years it became apparent that no man could carry on the game business with success where his market was a thousand miles or more distant unless he could establish, from time to time, the fol- lowing propositions: First, that he could cool his birds off on ice and keep them there sweet for ten days in Spring and Fall, and then ship them without ice and without deterioration. Second, he could keep his birds dry in cold air of about 30 degrees F. and ship them dry for thirty days or more, dry chilled and safely. Third, he could freeze his birds and keep them frozen and then ship them safely after six months or more. Fourth, he could pack his birds in air-tight packages, frozen and kept at a low temperature, say about 20 F., and keep them uninjured for one or more years. The two former were comparatively easy, the latter more difficult, but by 1890 we believe we had accomplished it all. When we shipped in the early years, from 1861 to 1870, in the Spring, and cooled off the birds thor- oughly on ice, we never lost but one shipment, and that was by transferring them from one town to an- other and letting the warm air work in. With light 110 FREEZING GAME BEGINS IN 1870. shoe boxes, as square as we could get them, we pressed them so closely, and they carried so much cold with them and retained it so well, that the birds could not damage in two or three days. We frequently shipped eight hundred birds in one box and we received sale for every one of them, when sold, with prices ranging generally from two> dol- lars to two and a quarter most of the time, and oc- casionally higher. Time and again we were warned by our consignee that we were likely to lose a whole lot any time if we did not ice them, but we did not lose them nor did we ice them, and our express was so light that it was very profitable. We now pro- ceeded to freeze up our birds and hold them in hot weather. We had been in the habit of freezing them in their natural state in cold weather in Winter, when prices were too low, and carrying them through the dull season till prices became normal again and then unload them. Turkeys and ducks were for a long time frozen and held by packers in this manner at high altitudes where heat did not come till late. We even kept woodcock one season from November tin the following Spring in a large double grocer's box, opening or closing the lid ac- cording to tne weather and never allowing them to thaw. We filled this box with grouse and quail in December and sold the lot in February following for $600. We took a small sled load of mallard ducks one day in November, just as the ground was freez- ing up, which cost us two twenty-five per dozen, packed them snugly away where the air could not reach them after they were frozen, and in the month of January following surprised the dealers in New York by marketing them there at $6.00 per dozen, and the buyers were so numerous and so insistent FIRST FROZEN MALLARDS 111 that the only way we could do to prevent a fight was to divide them, and this we eventually did. In 1870 we heard of a fish dealer in Sandusky City, Ohio, who had a patented freezing box for, butchers and poulterers, and we went there and saw the owner and the box, which was a very good one for that early day, and we purchased it for $150.00. Later we discovered the patentee in Chicago and we bought two more boxes of him, which were to be of the same style and quality, but they were not. With these boxes for a starter, in the fall of 1870, with the assistance of a good carpenter, we set out to build our own freezing rooms. We built them be- low ground and though they were inferior to those that came later, we could and did freeze birds fairly well in summer with the aid of the first box we bought. In the summer of 187 1 we filled it full of wood- cocks in June, and kept them in a fairly salable shape till September, when we sold them on an order from Edward Sumner. We packed them in a can used for ice cream, put ice around it, and when they ar- rived we received one dollar per pair therefor, which we thought was a good price for them at that time. We built an outside freezer in Atkinson in the Fall of 1 87 1, and we filled it with mallards, pack- ing them frozen in November and December as they came in, and as the temperature was generally low outside and we had pans to freeze hard inside, we laid them on top of one another in tiers until the room was nearly full. We had no opening in the outside but we descended always by a door from the top. After a while the birds seemed to settle a little, and we packed more on top until we had it full, with probably fifteen hundred in all. On the top shelf where we went in we placed a few snipe 112 BUILDS A FREEZER IN ATKINSON which came in the last of the season and after all the Fall birds, which were packed on ice, were spoiled. Before January was over I went to Ke- wanee and left the place in charge of R. E. Bailey. It was soon getting time to ship them out. After taking a few boxes off the top a peculiar smell began to arise and he soon found that the inside birds were getting soft and spoiling. Before he reached the bottom I think one-half had to be thrown away or sold for small price. This year the price for the best birds was only 62 l / 2 cents per pair, and the demand was very slack at that, but we emptied the house. The weather was very cold and the birds went through cheaply by freight and as good as they left us and our loss was not heavy. The few dozen snipe remaining on the shelf were separate from every- thing else and they kept well frozen and sound, and in February Snmner gave me four dollars per dozen therefor. These were the first frozen Fall snipe that up to that time had been kept over the winter and marketed in good order. The mallards spoiled by connecting with the ground which drew the frost from beneath them. The Spring came again. We packed about twenty thousand birds. We shipped half of them or more and endeavored to carrv the rest until the summer, or when they were called for. Prices were good in May and June at about $2.50 to $2.75, but we were confined entirely to orders if we maintained our price, and the orders came now only from A. & E. Robbins that year. By August I saw the birds were not as good as they had been and his orders were less numerous and there was no prospect that he would clear us all out, as woodcock were now coming in. Our rooms were not cold enough and we could barely keep them frozen with great care and expense. I employed SELLS DAMAGED JACK SNIPE. 113 a Mr. Loyd to care for them and I went off on the river. In the Fall, after vast quantities of ice had been expended, we threw the balance, several hun- dred dozen, away. In the Fall following we tried it again in our freezing rooms at Kewanee where there was less trouble to care for them, and in looking at them in the winter I discovered they were getting mouldy, which is the first stage of decay, and when Mr. Lyon soon after asked if I had any snipe I took out a box on his order and sent them to him, some- thing over four hundred in number. They looked so bad and smelled so musty, I put the balance in an- other shoe box, about the same size as the one I shipped, took them down near the railroad track and buried them in an open ditch, which the com- pany soon after filled up. In a few days Mr. Lyon returned me over one hundred dollars for the lot I sent him, and those I threw away were equally as good. This is introduced to show the quality of birds which at that time could be sold and which now would not be received at any price. The next vear I reduced the temperature somewhat lower, and though the birds did not open in the Winter quite what they should, I sold most of them to Messrs. Robbins for $3.50 per dozen. The demand now seemed to be increasing, and to cut this story short, from 1873 or 1874 to 1878 or 1880, we had uniform- ly good prices. I packed all the snipe I could in the Fall, frequently getting large numbers in Chicago at abotit $1.25 per dozen and selling them in March for $3.00 or more, and no one offered any compe- tition. By and by, as the demand was very great in the early spring and too little in summer for all we got in, we conceived the idea of packing them up in iron cans, and so carry them through as air tight as possible till the Spring following, and then 114 IN 1879 WE PACK SNIPE IN CANS. we would have no surplus to lose, but it was doubt- ful how many the market would take, and we op- erated with caution and with a feeling of uncertainty with the first lot so packed. We had one room which stayed remarkably cold, somewhere about 20 F., and in May we packed there over a thousand dozen, besides leaving out enough for our Spring and Summer trade. In the Fall the season was wet, so that we added a good many more, and when the Spring opened we had nearly fifteen hundred dozen. This was about 1875 or '76. It was very cold in February and we went to New York with all our snipe and plover, and some poultry. We be- gan putting out our Fall snipe at about $3.50 or $3.75, and sold most of them at that price, and they were in fine condition and highly spoken of. It re- mained now for us to dispose of our canned stock, for which we had no little anxiety. Prices had now begun to fall, receding to $2.50, and at this price we marketed all our birds of the Spring previous before fresh birds came in, giving us now two chances to unload the crop. In 1876 we had in the Winter some three or four hundred dozen Fall snipe and about fifty dozen golden plover, and in the lat- ter part of February, Mr. Lyon wrote me that there was going to be a big demand for good, dry frozen birds, and he asked me if I had any, and as I had on one previous occasion sold A. & E. Robbins fresh birds as high as $4.50 per dozen, I informed him that that was my price now. These were fine birds, not mouldy at all, and he advised me that he did not think he could get that price, but if I would send him a barrel he would be sure of $4.00 and he would try hard to get the $4.50, and, anyway, it would get them on the market, and the quality would be as- certained. I sent him the barrel which he sold at A NEW SHIPPER COMES IN AT ERIE, ILL. 115 $4.00, he volunteering the opinion that he did not think he could get any more. However, next day he ordered a barrel at $4.50 and the plover at $3.50, and in a day or two other offers came in for over eight hundred dozen at this price, and some who of- fered $4.00 raised the price to $4.50 before the day was over. In 1877 we were carrying a small amount of birds, as the Fall was dry and unfavorable. The time came for orders and they did not come. Nei- ther dealers nor commission men made any inquiry and we were mystified a good deal. Finally it was getting so late I wrote to J. A. Lyon to know what was meant. He informed me that a man in my country, in Erie, was sending what birds they had so far needed and when they were sold mine would be called for. As this man at Erie knew little or nothing of possible values and the buyers offered him $2.75 per dozen, and it made him a good mar- gin, he ordered them sold. After this it was difficult to raise the figures and we had hard work to get the same. This man had been with me in several excursions, as will appear later, but was anxious to get him a breech loader and asked me to get him one, which I did. As a year had elapsed and he had not been able to pay for it, he solicited a chance to work for me in the ice house in winter when I was packing, to pay the debt. I took him on and, in the course of the winter, he learned enough to think he was proficient in packing and handling birds and freezing them. When he returned to Erie he put up a small freezer on his own account and packed the neighboring birds of two or three towns. This was why I had no call, as the dealers knew it would cost them more if I did. The next year Spring snipe were very scarce and sold in New York as high as $3-5o, and the Erie man made quite a hit. Then I 116 COMPETITION BEGINS, BUT SOON ENDS. went over to Erie and I employed a man to buy for me and he ran the price so high the jig was soon up. He could not get birds enough to pay him to run his freezer after Spring w T as over, and in the following Winter, in the last of January, I was sur- prised to receive a letter from him, stating that he had two hundred dozen good snipe and he would like to sell them to me. As I had only seventy-five dozen which I got from Chicago in the Fall previous, and was very short, I asked him his price and he re- plied that he would deliver them to me for $2.00 per dozen. I ordered them on and in two or three days he arrived overland with the birds. I g~ave him four hundred dollars and sold them all within thirty days for $4.50 per dozen, when I felt that I had squared myself with him. Later he, went to a telegraph office above Omaha, and eventually to Stewart, Nebr., where he persuaded a party to put up a freezer, and where he was in 1895. He proved himself dishonest in every position he was in, al- though he was a man of good mind and ought to have made a success. He was a good telegraph op- erator, but he could not hold his post. From 187 1 we continued to freeze w r oodcocks and sell them frozen. We seldom carried less than five or six hundred pairs, and sometimes very many more. One day we received an order from an unknown party in Fulton Market for forty dozen at $1.25 per pair net, which I thought might be a mistake for four dozen, as it was an unusual number for one order, but I sent them and was glad to receive a let- ter a day or two afterw r ard stating I must not fail to fill the order. Later in the latter part of the eighties, we received an order from A. & E. Robbins for a barrel at $1.50 per pair, and he liked them so well he continued ordering till he had received thir- HIGH PRICES, 1878 TO 1885. 117 teen hundred pair, all of which arrived in good order and were promptly paid for. Very many barrels were forwarded and sold in those years between 1878 and 1885 for over three hundred dollars per barrel. These sales of woodcock I generally en- trusted to J. A. Lyon, as well as the snipe, unless I had a direct order. One year prices did not go up above one dollar and I did not sell. I put them in barrels and carried them over till 1884 and then shipped a carload of all kinds of game at once, in September, including canvas backs, red heads and snipe, and we packed the car in ice and it arrived well and sold well, except the woodcock, which sold only a barrel or two at half price, and we had them returned to us in cow weather, but we never were able to dispose of them. We saw, moreover, our birds were not keeping as well as they had been, and we decided either that our rooms were getting in bad order or that we were carrying the birds too long. We did not think it would be the latter, for many of our oldest birds sold best. We found there was very much difference in the keeping qualities of different birds we packed, in general the fattest birds turning out the best. The early small snipe did not hold out as well as the later, and as it hap- pened we got two or three barrels of the lighter sort where we got one of the heavier. We had a good many barrels of the early snipe which we had car- ried over from the year preceding, and they were getting mouldy, and I could not place them on or- ders. We rubbed the mould off the fat birds and they sold well, and the last two barrels we had of stall-fed pigeons, which were very fat but picked and covered with white mould, we cleaned up so that we heard no complaint, selling at the extreme price of $2.50. 118 SELLS $1,000 WORTH OF GAME. At this time in the Spring the crop of snipe was very small ; fine birds sold readily at three dollars per dozen the season through. In June I had only* two or three barrels of them left. The year before, I had become acquainted with Messrs. H. L. Law- rence & Co., of Boston, and now the birds giving out in that city, his buyer came to Chicago, expecting there to get his supplies. As he failed he planned to come down and see me. I had at this time a large supply of fresh grass plover and I sold them about a thousand dollars' worth of birds within an hour after he had arrived. He took what fresh snipe I had at $3.00, a good many barrels of grass plover at $2.00, the small mouldy snipe at . eighty-five cents, and the sand snipe at twenty-five cents. I was fear- ful he would have some trouble in disposing of the mouldy birds, but he said afterwards he did well with them on account of the scarcity of better birds, and he gave me about fifty per cent higher than I could get in New York. DOW BIRDS SELL WELL. I had a few barrels of Dow birds. They seemed to keep better as they were very fat, and what little mould there was rubbed off easily enough. These brought me six dollars and a half a dozen when win- ter came, and I had now reduced my stock of old birds so low that I only had twenty-five or thirty barrels left of all kinds, and I considered it the best time I would have to rebuild my freezer. I found that the same ice did not produce the same cold after the freezer had • run twelve months or more and it began to have an old smell. The longer I run it the iller it got. I initiated a new plan at that time, of entirely isolating the rooms from contact PACK QUAILS IN AIR-TIGHT CANS. 119 with outside air. I not only made the walls so thick and so numerous that they were impervious to heat or cold, filling the spaces with dry charcoal, but I built a new room entirely inside of this outside shell and made the air have connection from one side to the other so there w T as a constant movement all around the outside. Immediately on completing this a great change was wrought in the appearance of the birds and the temperature declined several de- grees lower and remained there more steadily, so that if any sudden change occurred from any out- side cause, there would be more degrees to spare to reach thawing point. As the winter passed away, 1 accumulated a large stock of quail, and I hardly dared to risk them through the season in ordinary packing. I fell back to the cans, which I had used two or three years previously for snipe, and as they were altogether too large to handle with ease, we made new ones and smaller, and we experimented how we should make them air tight. The cans, as now made, held about the size of a sugar barrel. We marketed the remaining old birds whenever we could get an opportunity, what were good selling readily. Some were showing signs of mould that we carried through the summer and we had to sell them at a loss, and dealers began to complain and to discriminate against us, and in the winter, with much effort we sold the stock all out, the fat, heavy birds doing very well, the poor birds at a low price. We found canvas backs and red heads would sell well and look well the winter following, but if car- ried farther were very liable to show decay. As we 120 CANVAS BACK AND RED HEADS. were packing about three hundred barrels a year at this time it was necessary to improve our packing and storage. We took four or five hundred dozen quail that we had left in the Spring and packed them in cans and sealed them the best we knew, and they cost us $1.50 per dozen. In October they opened up so well we sold them to Fred Smith, of Chicago, for $2.75 and $3.00 per dozen, and Fred declared they were the finest he had ever seen held. We laid out over one thousand dollars in cans in 1890 and 1892 and they paid for themselves hand- somely every year and we could fill them again very- many times. Even if we had to lose the cans every year it was a great success. Finally we packed all our game in cans and when we kept the temperature steady and low enough we never lost anything. We began to pack birds from all along the river, from Wabasha to New Albin and Lansing, and as far down as Savannah, and by putting them in shape secured the top price for many really poor birds. Wet birds we dried, rough birds we smoothed out, and if the meat was sweet and sound we made sales readily. We bought large lots of snipe in Chicago and quails and red heads and canvas backs in their season for many years, and we had no trouble to dispose of them at good profit. The first canvas back and red head we held in barrels in 1883 to 1885, and the trade was not as critical as it is now. They usually sold at $2.50 to $3.00 per pair for canvas, and at 75 cents to $1.25 for red heads. As the canvas change their color from Spring to Fall, dealers began to be wary and demand Fall birds and Springs birds were not much wanted. Teal also, which had been selling at about sixty cents a pair, sold anywhere from twenty-five to fifty, 011 account of their changed color in the SELLS 6 BARRELS CANVAS BACKS FOR $i,ooo 121 Spring, while green wings, red heads, quail, grouse and partridges and snipe did not publish their age. In 1885 or 1886 there was a distinctly loud call for canvas backs in December and I received an order through J. A. Lyon which did not specify anything, whether Fall or Spring birds, and, in fact, the ques- tion was not raised. In the previous year I had re- ceived quite a good many red heads and canvas backs and the red heads did not seem to sell. We kept them in New York for several months and were at last forced to sell the red heads at 85 cents per pair. The canvas back we disposed of earlier. When Mr. Lyon wrote me that he had sold all the red heads he advised me not to put up any more frozen ducks, as they were discriminated against so much. Without paying any attention to his advice I sent a buyer to the Illinois River in March, who gathered up, with a little outside hejp, thirty-six bar- rels, red head and canvas, six barrels being canvas and the balance red head. The canvas cost about $6.50 a dozen and the red heads $2.50. When Mr. Lyon inquired if I had any canvas backs in the win- ter, as I have stated, and what price I wanted, I in- formed him they would be five dollars per pair, as I had seen some quotations at that price, and that I had six barrels which would count about two hun- dred pair. In two or three days he ordered them by express and it was now very cold weather. Messrs. A. & E. Robbins got the birds, to be de- livered on an order which they had previously re- ceived from Delmonico's, where they were offered and refused by that house because they were Spring birds. This threw them back on Messrs. Robbins, but as the birds had been accepted from us, after some grumbling and a demand for a reduction in price, they were finally paid for as we sold them, 122 . SELLS 30 BBLS. RED HEADS. After this there was a steady call for reel heads in February and March. We sold a barrel in De- cember for $2.00 per pair. Later they raised to $2.25 and $2.50, and the last three barrels were sold in March at $3.00 per pair. The market was in such a delicate state we could only sell one or two barrels at a time, but when the last barrel had gone we found we had a net profit between twenty-nine hundred and three thousand dollars on the thirty-six barrels. That was the high tide on them, for al- though birds further advanced to $6.00 per pair, we only sold two or three barrels afterwwards to Sum- ner as high as five dollars a pair for Spring birds. In 1867, at the time of the rupture at Savannah and Sabula with the hunters there, we conceived the idea of building a small steam boat, run by ourselves and drawing but little water, with which we could penetrate all the back places along the river where the birds were the most plenty, and in 1868 we began to put this plan into effect. It was the more necessary because the railroads were not running up far on the east side and none on the west side of the river, and it was extremely difficult to reach the best ground with a skiff, and more so with the ice which made our great burden. Besides, we had to ship by steamboat at the nearest landing we could reach and thence they were transferred to railroad towns, by which, in the long run, we lost one or two boxes and several more were damaged. By means of a steamboat we could use our own conveyance and could provision it and make our shipments and have our home on board. We contracted with a boat builder in Davenport,, Iowa, to put us up such a boat as we needed and have it ready fo r delivery July 4th. We hardly knew what we did \yant ancl we left the construction very much to tlf^ STEAMBOAT FIREFLY— 1868. 123 builder. It was to be forty feet long, eight feet beam, model bow, side wheel, and the engine to be three horse power. There was a walk around the boat of two feet more on each side. The front, in tne hold, was divided off into a large recess for ice and a circular roof covered the whole. We did our cooking in front and had our sleeping berths in the back end. Also, we steered our boat in the begin- ning from the front. Later we abandoned it for the stern and with a raised platform we had the pilot house there. The boiler was a poor, second-hand affair and it would not at this day have been tol- erated in any water, but it was not intended for pas- senger traffic or fast sailing, but with some im- provements it answered our purpose as long as needed. This little vessel we named the "Firefly," from its diminutive size and the flash light from the smoke stack. This is the boat that once was tossed From Island Rock unto LaCrosse. Unknown its nature or its name, Whither it went or whence it came. No penant flung, no beacon flew, No seas of foam inspired the crew. Without a pilot or a chart, Without a merchant or a mart; Past the great ships that hurried on To their own land, this one had none. Past rising towns whose stately stone Fell down before the great cyclone, Never a timber, never a spar, Floated the vessel near or far, By lordly barons owned. Its keel In shallow waters planned to steal, By lonely pools and fetid fen, 124 BUILT AT DAVENPORT, IOWA. Forest and rock and shade and glen, Beyond the homes and haunts of men It journeyed on. The hull of the vessel was framed very strongly, with ribs of oak a few inches apart, and this, with the floor laid of only one-inch boards, saved us from foundering many times. The machinery was not fastened to the bottom of the boat as solidly as it should have been, and as we shall see, soon caused us much trouble in a trying moment. When we learned the boat was completed, immediately after July 4th, Mrs. M., myself and the two boys took possession at Davenport, in a very hot spell of weather, and there selected our companions du voy- age. We lay there for several hours, tied up just below the wharf of the ferry boat, completing our outfit of ice and necessary provisions for an absence of a week from the city. The river below and partly abreast of us was shut in by a boom of logs that started from the boat and ran out many rods into the current, and the delight of the boys was to walk the logs and wade in the river. We were all very busy and did not notice for a while that either of the boys was absent, but when the knowledge be- came known to us, Clarence, the younger, was found sitting on one of the logs many rods out in the stream, and when told to come in he was disinclined to do so. However, the usual persuasion discovered to us he had slipped off one of the logs into the river and was now trying to dry himself in the sun- shine. He made no outcry or expressed any fear, and he looked to me very much like a New Zea- lander content to sit on his log and float away to any shore the winds might carry him. We had a small amount due yet on the boat and PASS THE MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE, 125 The Boy Too Busy to Drown. while the fire was starting in the boiler I went to the Rock Island Bank of Lynde & Co. 1 never had been in the bank before and carried no refer- ence, and merely stated I wanted to draw one hun- dred dollars on New York, and that the little vessel built across the river was mine. The banker made no objection, asked me for no references, handing me the money, and, by five o'clock or thereabouts, we started on our journey with the rapids before us. 126 GET ON WRONG SIDE OF THE RlVER. We expected to hire no skilled machinist, as the hunters we took on board had some experience, and they soon learned to handle the boat fairly well. I think there were nine men of us besides Mrs. M. and children. Among the rest we carried the two Ogden boys, James Joles, Bart Potter, Johnny O'Brien, Ike Seyberts, Charles Collins and Orm Brown, a motley crew, with no bonds to bind them further than the profit they expected to make and the novelty and fun of the enterprise. Ike took to the furnace. Collins guided the wheel. The rest left on foot one way or another, advising us to go ahead and they would meet us farther up the river. They had no dogs and we did not know why. It did not develop for what purpose they went till we had got along up a mile or so above the city > where we stopped for the night and the hunters began to come in, each of them with one or more dogs. We found the water very swift when we began to pass the railroad bridge and continuously afterward, and we ran over just before dark on the Government Is- land, expecting to find the water there less rapid. While we lay there a few minutes trying to increase our steam, an officer found us and informed us we must not stay on the Island longer than we could possibly help. We soon steamed up again and landed on the west shore, camping for the night in- side the fence on the long grass, a pleasant place enough with all the cover we wanted, for it was very hot. We started early in the morning, following the dogs tugging at their chains and yelping a miserere by the time the smoke left the smoke stack. It was suggested that we hitch them on and have them draw us up the river, as there were no whales in sight, and their superfluous power was being wasted. Their bark, when tied up, was like steam pipes under STUCK ON ROCKS BELOW LeCLAIRE 127 pressure and their grand notes and high solos were proof against sleep in the morning. We got away, some by water and some by land, with a current not now very swift as long as we followed the line of the shore. The boat was not drawing over one foot of water. By middle of the afternoon the boat was abreast the coffer dam, which begins somewhere opposite Moline. Then it proceeded slowly up sev- eral miles, receding farther from the west shore and meeting much rough water. Whether the rocks threw the helmsman out into the channel or whether he was experimenting to find easier water, I never knew, but looking across toward the middle of the rapids from the great flat which forms the bay be- low LeClaire, we saw that the boat was there and in trouble, and evidently on the rocks outside of the channel, and apparently unable to get away. It developed afterwards that in this crucial moment the foundation of the machinery tore up and it required some time to replace it strong enough to hold till they could pull off the rocks. Marion Ogden was on shore with me nearly half a mile off, along the deep bay that reaches into the mainland on the west shore. The water was not deep between us and the boat, and for fear it would not get loose and because Mrs. M. was on the boat with part of the crew, and suffering terribly from the heat outside and inside, he made his way to the vessel, took her in his arms and transported her to the shore. About the time he reached there the boat got loose again and gradually worked its way on up the river till it reached the point by the old mill, just below LeClaire, where we passed the night, all hands being present. In the morning we had only a short space of rough water till the upper end of the rapids was passed and we continued on up easily. To the people of LeClaire 128 GET SOME FREE ADVERTISING. Mrs. M. Makes Off with Another Man. we were a wonder of wonders. Their evening sheet came out with a long account of the new arrival, which, it stated, was composed of men, women, chil- dren and dogs. Getting some provisions, we left LeClaire, still following up the west side till we ran into some old piles, the remains of a former lumber fleet that were sunken under the surface of the water. They were cut off smoothly on the top, over which our boat traveled and nearly balanced WE REACH SABULA AND HUNTSVILLE. 129 Savanna— Old Town. itself when about midway, and held so fast we thought the bottom had pushed through. Luckily it did not, when, passing over to the east shore, we resumed our way and before noon passed Port Byron. We continued on up to Camanche, making that our stopping place where we could get our table supplies and in the morning dropped down to the Wapsiepinicon River, where we did our first hunt- ing. Mrs. M. was so overcome with heat we had to carry her out on the shore under the shade of some great trees where she passed the day. We stopped at the mouth of the Wapsie and there Mrs. M. discovered the first and only humming bird's nest 130 MOUTH OF THE MAQUOKETA RIVER. we ever saw. The nest, holding two eggs, we re- tained, which we brought home with us when we returned. Unfortunately the eggs were broken, but the nest we have kept ever since. In the two days we were at the mouth of this river we killed one hundred and thirty birds, shipped them at the end of the second day at Albany, which village hacl been riddled and torn with the battle of wind and hail in Maquoketa River. i860. By the time we reached Sabula we had our banners all out, moving closely along the Iowa shore with great crowds meeting and cheering us as we went, and with wind and steam we saluted them all. About twelve miles further up we reached Hunts- ville, an insignificant place at the mouth of the Maquoketa River opposite, before we began to hunt Among the islands below dubuque. i3i again. Farther up we passed Bellevue, then crossed to the east shore, took up a Slough that runs along past the mouth of the Galena River, then out into the main channel again and along the islands below Dubuque. Often when the boat was moving slow-' ly along some of the crew would rush ashore and shoot a while, then jump on again when they got a little tired or reached a slough they could not cross, Dubuque's Grave. and in this way many woodcock came in. Next day we passed East Dubuque, and further up about five or six miles we reached the islands where Coflins and I had such good shooting two years before, and here remained one day. Then we took to the Slough 132 AMONG THE ISLANDS BELOW DUBUQUE. Rock Cut on the Catfish below Dubuque. again, which begins close by the lower point of the island and runs back up the east side and ends at Grant Slough, from which a canal is cut into the river opposite Specht's Ferry. We passed up to the bridge that crosses the road to Potosi and the river AMONG THE ISLANDS BELOW DUBUQUE. 133 and could not get under the bridge on account of our high smoke stack, which we had to take down. We tarried one or two clays alongside of the Canal and found many birds. While we were away from the boat one day, two deer crossed the Slough close by, which were the only ones we saw on our route. There were wild hogs innumerable and Collins shot Dubuque. one, and it was dressed and served up on the boat. It had a wild and unsavory taste and we preferred the hams which were our usual fare. After going through the canal into the river we went about a mile farther up till we reached another slough on the east side and, following it along up to its upper end, we stayed a day. Close by, on a bend of the 134 AMONG THE ISLANDS BELOW DUBUQUE. East Dubuque and Railroad Bridge. Mouth of Catfish, Below Dubuque. TURKEY RIVER AND CASSVILLE, WIS. 135 slough, we found a little spring house with a stream running from it, and looking in, the boys found pans of milk which they sampled freely and after- wards named it the Milk Slough. We passed Cassville in a few days and the mouth of the Turkey River a mile above, where' we found Eagle Point, Above Dubuque. many birds. Still on we went above Guttenberg, another German town, and nearly opposite the little town of Glen Haven there is an island on the west side along the point of which, in its upper end, near- ly all the river boats have to pass in low water, and here we stopped a day or two to hunt out the island. We knew next to nothing about the channels for river boats at that time and while landed here there came down around the point a big river boat which 136 TURKEY RIVER AND CASSVILLE, WIS. passed so close to our vessel that it nearly submerged it, throwing the waves all over it, throwing it upon the shore and nearly overturning it, falling back at last into the trough of the sea which the great ship had scooped out. The captain of the vessel hailed us as he passed and said we were in the most dangerous part of the river possible, that the boats had to make that sudden turn in low water and were Broken Bridge at Eagle Point above Dubuque. unable to give us any warning, and that to save our lives and property we ought to move away, which we soon did. East of this there are two is- lands, one of which comes up from opposite Gut- tenberg and is divided by a narrow passage from the island that flanks Glen Haven on the north, and here in this channel we landed and were sleep- TURKEY RIVER AXD CASSVILLE, WIS. 137 138 GET TANGLED UP WITH A STEAMBOAT. Turkey River Above the Mouth. ing quietly in the night when a huge boat came up from below, attempted to land, and caught into our skiff, which was tied to the end of the boat, and it got so mixed up with it that the captain, coming forward and seeing the trouble, backed out into 'the river again and went on his way. In the morning we came near getting into a trouble with the men on the landing, for it turned out that this was a woodyard where the boat got its supplies and we were blamed for not permitting it to land. At this point James Joles killed forty birds in one day on the lower island not far away, and this was the first big shot that anyone at that time had made. We put out our tent on the channel between the islands and many of us slept ashore there while we stayed. One night, coming in, I was shown two WE HUNT BELOW McGREGOR, IOWA. 139 or three monstrous rattlers which the boys had killed that day. We were now taking it quite easily, some of the hunters had left us, and we did not retain over half of the number that shipped with us. The few that remained did better, and the weather began to be cool and bracing. We shipped a number of boxes from Guttenberg near by, then passed on up- wards to Prairie Du Chien and McGregor. South Railroad Bridge and Wisconsin River. of McGregor half a mile there is a small bay run- ning up from the river between two cliffs on the mountain side, where a little flat sets in, and by it, on the water's edge, there was then a fine spring which was so enticing we remained there some days. Across the river at this point, a little lower down, was the mouth of the Wisconsin and there was much good hunting ground adjacent. This open ground where we landed covered half an acre or more, and the cows would come along down from town pas- turing here as they went and loth to leave on their 140 SEYBERTS AND COLLINS HAVE A RACKET. journey among the hills that flanked the sides of the bay, and at night returning with full udders they wended their way slowly along or rested awhile. The boys soon enough discovered that this was their dairy, and penning up those that x would not stop themselves they drew therefrom bountiful streams that went to modify their Rio. One evening Charlie Pictured Rocks Below McGregor. Collins, who always had a penchant for .getting up high and coming down low, climbed up this lofty hilltop, and to show he was there and make a great noise began throwing down the biggest stones he could find, roaring and tumbling like a volcano, and Ike, who was intent on getting the lacteal fluid and had his cow penned up against the steep hill side, was too mad for quiet when this downpour of rock SEYBERTS AND COLLINS HAVE A RACKET. 141 was precipitated upon the land, which disturbed muley so much that she- kicked over his pail and gave Ike some pains in the sublateral region, which created much merriment. Ike tried it again with no better success, when he halloed up to Collins to quit his d d monkeying or he would come up there and kill him. As he and Charles were always in a Pretty Cave Bejow McGregor. quarrel it began to smell around there something like the flavor of brimstone till Charlie came down with his usual apology, laughed loudly, in which Ike joined him and it was all blown over. The crowd chaffed Ike a great deal about this occurrence, but the rest of the crew bore the loss bravely which the destruction of the milk brought them. While we were there one morning there was a slight noise 142 ADVENTURE WITH A RATTLER. upon the roof of the boat, and looking out we dis- covered a rattler sliding along /down but giving no warning of his presence till he landed on the bow, and Mrs. M. was so frightened she ordered Ike to kill it immediately, which he did. It turned out that Ike, on going to a spring to drink before he landed here, had heard the familiar sound of a A rattler whose room was better than his company. m rattler close by, and getting a box had put the reptile therein, after pulling out his fangs, as he said he did. If so, they had grown out again in the short time he had been on the boat, and Ike was warned not to repeat the performance. Guttenberg is quite an industrious, thriving Ger- man town, and as one of the leading citizens there was named Crawford, I always thought of the noted MRS. M. INTERROGATES THE INDIANS. 143 novelist of that name when I visited it. Glen Haven, on the east side, is also a small German town, and the only man who seemed to possess any skill was a watch maker and he could do almost any kind of work on machinery to perfection, and fixed up any breakage we might have many times. We stayed one day at Prairie Du Chien and passed up the river Looking from Pike's Peak Towards Wisconsin River. on that side. Across on the island was an Indian camp, whither Mrs. M. was very anxious to go and visit. As she had our dog with her the bucks were very anxious to secure it, which they claimed would be "good eat" when he became fat, and fat dogs are their specialty. With plenty of green corn in the summer, which they appropriate from the growing crops of the farmers near at hand, and the muskrats, 144 MRS. M. INTERROGATES THE INDIANS. which they take at all times of the year and which form their staple meat, they manufacture succotash in the summer in the Indian style, which is kept cooking constantly in a large iron kettle over the fire, the women doing the work and the bucks mostly asleep. Their filth does not seem to destroy their life or make their morals any worse, neither North McGregor Point. are they shy at begging. From Prairie Du Chien we passed up to Lansing, shooting over the inter- mediate ground, and on beyond Lynxville,, and a few miles farther up we stayed several days, not going as far as DeSoto, but nearer the opposite shore. The birds did not seem to be very plenty here ; it was very dry, and they seemed to have left SMOKE STACK GIVES OUT. 145 the wooded beds and dry valleys and gone into very thick cover. Not a track of any living being was to be seen in the bottoms across from Lynxville, except occasionally the barefoot track of an Indian. This was fine ground for birds, plenty of cool, shady places and little draws where we usually found them, and we did not kill more than eight or South McGregor. ten birds a day each. We started to work down the river again and we had not gone very far before one of our flues gave out and the smoke and heat all escaped up the smoke stack and we were where we could not repair it short of McGregor, therefore we pushed out into the stream and allowed the boat to float down sideways, as the waters carried it, only working with our skiffs alongside to keep the boat 146 SEYBERTS AND COLLINS LAND TO FIGHT. from swinging and to pull it out of the channel in case a big boat should find us in their way. We were now reduced to four or five men and Seyberts was in the skiff and Collins was back of the boat doing some mending. Ike, with his usual devilish- ness, began to row with one oar, the outside one, of which there was no need whatever, and as if by mis- take he skipped the blade of the oar over the top of the water in a kind of skimming fashion, and by so doing threw a large amount of water into Collins' face and lap. Ike apologized slightly but in a few minutes repeated the mistake. Collins began to get angry and he told Ike that if he did that again he would come down into the skiff and throw him into the river. The wetting continued, and Charlie said to O'Brien to turn the prow of the boat around to- wards the shore, that they were going asliore and Ike and he were going to fight it out. Johnny turned the boat point forward to the shore and he and all aboard was laughing at the fun that was in store. I was on the shore at that time, running along through the brush, hunting as I went and keeping easily abreast of the boat, which had noth- ing to propel it but the waves, and looking out oc- casionally through the bushes, I saw the boat head- ing towards me, apparently as if to land. Those that were on the boat were setting up a great glee at the prospect of the fight, and the champions stood with knitted brows glaring at each other as the 1 boat was about to land. I supposed it was landing to take me on. I made towards the boat as it struck the shore. The champions stood a while as if un- decided what to do, and the crew meanwhile poking fun at them and daring them to fight, till Charlie began to laugh, when the whole thing fell through, the boat shoved out into' the stream again, and no blood came from either of them. WE RETURN TO TURKEY RIVER 147 We went over to North McGregor and had our flue repaired on Sunday, at the elevator, and Mon- day we descended to Turkey River, just above Cass- ville. This is a bottom of heavy timber on both sides for a mile or more back from the main river. I was on the south side of the stream, hunting away with very fair success in the afternoon, when it be- gan to grow dark more suddenly than I expected. The day seemed to shorten up and the hills in the west threw a dark mantle over the valley. Night was coming on unmistakably and I left for the river bank where the boat lay. Collins had come in for the same cause as myself, with the additional one, as he explained, that he was "all fired up" with the mosquitoes which attacked his neck and face without mercy. I had put on a preparation, so they hurt me but very little, while his neck and ears were red and swollen. After getting our meal the darkness began to fade away and the light to strengthen, and short- ly the sun broke out into the sky and it was only three or four o'clock. It was an eclipse of the sun. The fowls began to crow in the farmyard as though another day was approaching, and we slept the rest of that day. We stopped at Cassville and it was getting cold now, along the first of October. Our landing for several days was opposite the governor's house, and his wife frequently came out to see us. Our little boys ferried me across the river every day, and over against the bluff side the shooting was good. Later we passed below Jack O and into the Milk Slough again, staying a few days and returned to Cassville to ship. As we started to leave the slough we perceived a lot of bark piled up near the shore and before we left we filled our boat with it for fire and steam, as it took no labor to prepare it. We started out just before dark and had gotten 148 AND THEN TO OASSVILLE, AND BELOW. fairly in the river when it began to rain. The winds blew and beat upon us and our motion was slow and heavy, but our bark fire was a terrible dis- appointment as it made little steam and we were hours, working up against Buena Vista till we got in the channel between Jack O and the east shore, without which we would never have seen the city that night. It was so dark between the shore and the island that much of the time we had to guess our way, and running close to the island to avoid heavy seas, we encountered tree tops innumerable that had fallen over into the river, and often we had to back out to save our smoke stack. It was mid- night when we landed at Cassville again and in the morning the boys of the town reported another ship had come in during the night, and the Gover- nor's wife came out to see if it was so. "What boat is that came in last night?" she said, and down she came and talked awhile with us very pleasantly. Our crew was reduced to only one man, Collins and myself, and we found a good many birds for the middle of October. While we were there it froze very hard one night. The boys had picked up some small turtles which they kept in a pan to look at ; not over two or three inches across their backs, spotted and with little short tails ; they were quite an attraction. We had planned to take them with us when we went home, but the cold was so intense that night that it froze ice over in the pails and our little guests were cooked in the morning dead. We pulled down the river again the last week of Octo- ber, Mrs. M. firing the boat and Collins at the rud- der. Three or four miles above Dubuque we landed on the west shore where there were some bottom lands, and it was cloudy and foggy from the cold the night previous. We did not stop over an hour, RETURN TO CASSVILLE AND HUNT. 149 and I picked up my gun while dinner was getting ready. In that time I raised seven partridges, and killed six of them, the one that escaped not coming up within reach. Before dark we were below Dubuque at the east shore opposite the point of the first island you meet. Here were a few cottonwoods on the shore, while on the island a lumber fleet had put in and tied up for the night, and the wind rocked out little vessel like a cradle till the morning ap- peared again. We reached LeClaire just before night the following day and we prepared to run the rapids. There was a comparatively narrow channel where it was safe for big boats to go, but they sel- dom ventured out before morning, laying by at LeClaire. We did not know this channel, and when we entered the current the great momentum of the flood from above struck us, and we went with a plunge down the incline. The helmsman could hard- ly keep on his feet, and the mad rush of the waters made one dizzy to look overboard, as it would from a high tower. We looked at one another with as- tonishment, the voice semed to freeze to our lips, and every lurch of the vessel seemed to send a thrill into our veins, and we could only meditate rapidly as we would when going over an abyss. For a moment we would glance at the waters, hoping that the prow would not meet an obstruction and turn the boat against the current, in which case we would have been swamped in an instant and the craft sunk to the bottom, but it bowled on. No one had advice to give, or, if given, it would have passed unheeded, and the awe of the moment crept over us. We felt we were pygmies in a boisterous flood that was sweeping us madly on to eternity. We probably had descended a quarter of a mile, hoping and waiting, with our feet braced against the bottom 150 RUN CHANNEL OF THE RAPIDS. *-# — '*»»* t^igv*®^ ^tf* 4» M J* , . «■( »