Soldiers with some of the buffalo that Edgar Howell killed.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing stories about Yellowstone Park is the capture of a buffalo poacher named Edgar Howell. Yellowstone became the nation’s first national park in 1872, and for the next 20 years very few laws had been passed that enabled park rangers to protect it from poachers. However this would all change in 1894 when Edgar Howell was caught red-handed inside the park with eleven dead buffalo (7 of which were pregnant). Howell was captured, but there was little park rangers could do other than confiscate his gear, lock him up for a short time in the guard house, and then let him go. Forest and Stream reporter Emerson Hough, who had already been sent to do an article on Yellowstone, was on the scene and wrote the story of how poacher Howell thumbed his nose at the near non-existent protections of the park. Howell was more than willing to risk minimal prosecution for a high degree of profit. Just one buffalo head was worth up to $1000 on the European market. Howell knew that all he stood to lose if caught was the value of his confiscated gear, amounting to around forty dollars, and a little lost time being locked up. The story about Howell sparked outrage among the public, and a short time later the Lacey Act of 1894 went into law. Following are several of the Forest and Stream articles that were written by Emerson Hough in regard to the capture of Howell.
A PREMIUM ON CRIME.
Summary: This article highlights the incident where poacher Edgar Howell brutally killed ten buffalo in the National Park. It underscores the absence of any punitive measures for such heinous acts, attributing this to the lack of government laws and regulations safeguarding the park. The article criticizes Congress for its negligence in providing protection to the park and its invaluable natural resources. It emphasizes the urgent need for action to prevent further devastation of the park’s wildlife.
The killing of ten buffalo in the National Park by a skin hunter from Cooke City and his capture by the Government scout is announced in another column. The news comes to us by telegraph from a staff correspondent now on the ground, and while for the present full details are lacking, the capture is unquestionably the most important that has ever been made in the National Park.
The occurrence calls public attention again and most forcibly to the criminal negligence of which Congress has been guilty for all these years in failing to provide any form of government for the Park, or to establish any process of law by which crimes against the public committed within its borders can be punished. The result is that, although misdemeanors and crimes of many different grades have been perpetrated in the Park, only in exceptional awe has any punishment been meted out to the offenders. Practically the only punishment that can be visited on the criminal is to lock him up in the guardhouse. In other words, a man while in the National Park is not subject to the law of the hand; within its borders he may without fear of punishment do those things which are forbidden in all other parts of the country.
Such a condition is not only an anomaly under our form of government, but a disgrace to every American citizen. Every citizen shares with all the others the ownership in the wonders of our National pleasure ground, and when its natural features are defaced, its forests destroyed, and its game butchered, each one is injured by being robbed of so much that belongs to him.
There is at present no remedy. Representatives elected by the people to guard their interests have steadily refused to enact bills brought before Congress for the protection of the National Park, or if willing to enact them have insisted on nullifying the good that they might do by coupling with the good provisions, others wholly bad and menacing the Park and all that it contains. A measure which should merely protect the National Park has in it nothing to excite the enthusiasm of the politician; there is the hope neither of gain nor of political preferment—nothing but the public good—and the average politician is not looking about him to see how he can benefit the public. His ambitions are more modest. He is quite satisfied if he can benefit himself.
The man Howell, who has just been arrested, has destroyed property belonging to the Government—that is, to the people—which was worth from $2,500 to $5,000; yet if we may judge the future by the past, he will be allowed to go on his way practically without punishment. If he had committed a similar act anywhere else—if he had destroyed Government horses or mules or grain or supplies of any sort to this extent—he would have served a long time in prison. So long as these lewd fellows of the baser sort, who lack only daring to be horse thieves and rustlers, know that they will not be punished for their invasions of the Park, ten regiments of troops could not protect it against their raids, but let it once be known that punishment will follow swiftly on the heels of capture, and they will give the Park a wide berth. As things stand at present, they laugh at the troops.
Behind the miserable scoundrels who commit the depredations are the still more cowardly wretches, who by offering high prices for skins and heads, tempt the poachers. These men are more contemptible than their tools, for they have not the courage to face the cold and snows of the mountains, the fatigues of the chase or the chances of capture. They merely buy the spoils. They are the “fences.”
In the Yellowstone Park the buffalo—remnant of a continent—have increased year by year, until now they number perhaps 500: the most curious ornaments, the rarest of the living wonders of our American Wonder-land. But Congress, by its continued neglect, encourages the evil-minded to believe that they may penetrate even here and destroy this last remnant of a race long nearly extinct. It puts a premium on this crime.
A year ago this winter several buffalo were killed; last spring and the spring before, a number of calves were captured; this winter ten buffalo have been slaughtered at a single killing. At this rate it will not be long before the last shall have been shot down. It is for the people to say whether or no they desire this.
Field and Stream March 24, 1894
THE CAPTURE OF HOWELL
Summary: A notorious poacher, Howell, was arrested in possession of ten buffalo skins from a National Park. The arrest was made by Park scout, Burgess, while Howell was skinning a buffalo. The incident highlights the serious threat of poaching to the buffalo population in Yellowstone Park, raising concerns about potential extinction.
We published last week a brief telegram, announcing the capture of the notorious poacher Howell with the skins and hides of ten of the National Park buffalo which he had killed near Astringent Creek, in the Hayden Valley. This news was exclusively for the FOREST AND STREAM, none of the other papers, either daily or weekly, having learned of it, but two or three days after its publication in FOREST AND STREAM, a general press despatch appeared in all the papers, announcing that hunters were committing depredations in the Park and explaining that this was due to the laxness of Congress in failing to provided any law by which such depredations can be punished.
As stated in the FOREST AND STREAM, the capture was made by Burgess, the Park scout, and a full and detailed account of it will shortly appear. In the meantime we are able to give some facts connected with the capture which cannot fail to be of interest.
On Tuesday, March 13, in obedience to orders received from Capt. George S. Anderson, Burgess left the Lake Hotel for the Pelican Creek, traveling of course on snow-shoes. That night he spent not far from Broad Creek and a few miles northwest of Fern Lake. Early the next morning, very soon after starting out, he struck an old trail of snow-shoes, and following it up stumbled upon a cache of six buffalo scalps and six skins, from three of which the hair had been partially removed as if for the manufacture of rawhide. He took this plunder in and passed on to the south until he had come near the mouth of the Astringent Creek, where he again struck a snow-shoe trail. this time freshly made. Following it up he came to the lodge belonging to the traveler, which was pitched about two miles northwest of the mouth of the Astringent Creek. While waiting here Burgess heard some shots, and soon located his man, whom he found on the north bank of Pelican Creek, about one mile west of the Astringent Creek.
The man was busy skinning a buffalo, and five of these animals lay about him. Burgess rushed upon him, and Howell was so occupied with his work that he did not see his captor until he was close to him. He had no time to think about making any resistance, but threw up his hands at once. Burgess brought him in and reached the guard house at Fort Sheridan at about 4:30 on Wednesday, March 14. Howell is now confined there, and will no doubt remain until news has been received from Washington as to what is to be done with him.
A party from the post was at that time at the lake, and at the date of our advices were about to begin to bring in the plunder.
There have been at least eleven buffalo killed and no one knows how many more. It is certain that Howell has been in the Park several times during the winter, and it is not very unlikely that he may have killed a large number of these animals. It is evident that unless some-thing is done at once to make poaching a crime, the Yellowstone Park buffalo will very soon be wholly exterminated.
Forest and Stream March 31, 1894
NO PUNISHMENT FOR PARK POACHERS
Summary: Despite the increasing incidents of poaching in Yellowstone Park, at the time there were no legal penalties in place to deter or punish these offenders. This was in spite of the government’s financial efforts to maintain and preserve the park. However, a legislative solution was being contemplated to address this glaring issue.
ALONG with the dispatch which we printed yesterday announcing the destruction of big game in the Yellowstone Park, comes a dispatch to FOREST AND STREAM announcing the capture by a Government scouting party of a notorious poacher named Howell with eleven fresh buffalo skins in his possession. This arrest would be a matter for great congratulation if the poacher was likely to be properly punished, but, as FOREAT AND STREAM points out, there is practically no remedy against the perpetrators of such outrages, although the Government spends considerable money keeping troops in the Park for its alleged preservation. The stealer of a Government mule would suffer much more severely and certainly at the hands of the law than the destroyer of a part of the few remaining buffalo on this continent. The Senate com-mittee on territories will give a hearing next Wednesday on a bill which will supply some of the legal safeguards which the preservation of the Yellowstone Park requires. It is to be hoped that in some way enough members of Congress can be interested in this matter to secure favorable action—New York Evening Post.
Forest and Stream March 31, 1894
BUFFALO SLAUGHTER IN THE PARK
Summary: According to Mr. Hough, the buffalo population in Yellowstone Park is alarmingly low, with estimates suggesting only 200-250 buffalo remaining. This decline is attributed to incidents of poaching and killings. Mr. Hough expresses significant concern over the insufficient protection measures for these animals and fears that legislative action may not be taken until it is too late to save the buffalo population.
IN a private letter from Mr. Hough, now with the FOREST AND STREAM’S Yellowstone Park Game Exploration, comes this story of the raid by the head hunters on the buffalo of the Park. Fuller details will be given in the report of the expedition. The letter was written on March 29:
I am afraid you are all wrong in your belief that there are now 500 buffalo in the Park. Capt. Anderson admitted last night that be feared 200 would cover it now. I do not believe there are over 200 or 250 buffalo left alive. There may be a large band up at the head of the Pelican Creek hot country, but unless this is so the herd is not half as large to-day as it was last year reported. The hay was largely cut on the Hayden and other valleys two years ago and also last year. Unquestionably this sent the elk out of the Hayden Valley, and it is to be hoped it also sent the buffalo, though the latter have not yet been located elsewhere. Capt. Anderson thinks the elk are in large bands on the upper Pelican, and argues that the buffalo must be in there, too. The man Howell had been camped in that country since September, and I do not believe he ever stopped at eleven head.
We counted 75 to 85 head of buffalo in Hayden this trip. Hofer was surprised at the scarcity of buffalo and elk. Sergt. Parker makes the Hayden and Nez Percé district buffalo 81 head. Capt. Scott counted 103 bead in Hayden Valley one day three weeks ago. One band of 5 and another of 7 head were seen in the Pelican country, 20 miles, say, from Hayden Valley. This comprises the total winter report of buffalo seen. We saw three head in Nez Percé Valley.
The worst of it all is, Hofer and I found where a killing had been made on Trout Creek, in the Hayden Valley. The carcasses were under four to five feet of snow and the animals may have been killed in January. We noticed the unusual number of coyotes, and found at length a hillside covered with coyote and fox tracks. We saw also tracks of a mountain lion, a wolverine, a lynx and a large bear. We then found six deep pits in the snow, which we investigated, and I saw two others which I did not go to. From the bite of hair, the bones, contents of intestines, etc., we knew there was buffalo at the bottom of each hole dug by the animals that were feeding there. The bodies were all on a quarter of mile of ground and it looks like a killing, of course. The snow was packed and icy and we bad no way of digging down, so we could not tell whether or not the heeds had been taken, though we thought the skins were. We could only see a little of the stripped bones and the fresh meat torn by the feeding animals. We reported this to Capt. Anderson. He sends out a party tomorrow to investigate. I think he will find that 6 or 8 head of buffalo were killed here. This is 15 miles from the Howell killing.
I think forty buffalo have been killed this fall and winter, and no one knows how many more. While exactness is impossible, and while I am still new in the Park, I do not feel as though there were over 200 or 250 head left alive. I could have killed 60 head one day. Any man could do that in the snow. It is a big country. You are right in saying that ten troops could not protect the buffalo. The Park can be patrolled, but until there is a penalty established, how can the poachers be stopped from taking the 1,000 to 1 odds? Howell boasted to me that all he could lose was $26.75 (the cost of his outfit), and said that if he had been left alone he would have cleaned up $2,000. I do not believe the extent of this year’s killing has been learned as yet. That it is 20 head, at least, is sure. I would not want to be an alarmist, but there are no 500, or 400, or 300 head of buffalo in the Park alive today. Congress will delay making a law until there are not a score left. The present system puts a premium on their heads, and invites their destruction. Capt. Anderson knows this Park thoroughly, I am sure, and he is energetic and positive to a delightful extent, but either or any other man is working against awful odds when he has the short end of 1,000 to 1.
I hope that a later and better count will show up the rest of the herd elsewhere, but Captain Anderson tells me this moment that we may quote him as saying that without further information he will not report over 200 or 250 buffalo in the Park in his next annual report.
Forest and Stream April 14, 1894
THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
(From Garden and Forest.)
Summary: The article highlights the issue of buffalo poaching in Yellowstone Park, emphasizing the lack of legal measures to penalize the offenders. It calls for urgent action from Congress to enact laws safeguarding the park and its wildlife.
MUCH indignation has naturally been kindled by the stories recently published of the slaughter of the few buffalo which were nominally under Government protection in the Yellowstone Park. A late number of FOREST AND STREAM contained a circumstantial account of the capture of one miscreant in the very act of skinning one of the five buffaloes which lay dead about him, and there were evidences that he had been quite as successful in his murderous work on former days. The situation is made more depressing by the knowledge that this is probably a representative case, and that other poachers are engaged in the work of
exterminating the few surviving individuals of the countless herds which once ranged over the plains. More aggravating still is the reflection that no law exists for the punishment of such crimes. The fact that Yellowstone Park and the adjacent reservation have been set apart for the use and enjoyment of the people forever, is really no protection to its forests or its game, but rather an advertisement to every outlaw that he can steal the timber, or set the woods on fire, or slaughter the game, without fear of punishment. Obviously the first duty of Congress in this matter is to pass laws for the government of all our parks and reservations and then administer them in such a way that they will command respect. It is a national disgrace that property which belongs to all the people should be more unsafe than property that belongs to any one of the people.
Forest and Stream April 14, 1894
SAVE THE PARK BUFFALO
Summary: The article highlights the issue of buffalo poaching in the National Park, emphasizing the government’s inability to provide effective protection. It calls for Congress to implement more robust laws to safeguard the park and its wildlife. The article also encourages the public to actively participate in this cause by writing to their Senators and Representatives, advocating for the protection of the National Park.
It is but a short time since we announced the capture of a poacher in the National Park, and the fact that he had killed eleven buffalo, and this announcement greatly surprised and alarmed all who are interested in the National Park and all public-spirited citizens as well.
In another column we quote statements contained in a private letter received from our staff correspondent in the National Park, and these statements show that the condition of things there, so far as the buffalo are concerned, is infinitely worse than any one had supposed. Besides the buffalo known to have been killed by Howell, Messrs. Hough and Hofer, of the FIELD AND STREAM Yellowstone Park Game Exploration, discovered in another place eight buffalo carcasses scattered over the hillside and buried under 4ft. of snow. The date at which these were killed has not yet been determined, as it was impossible with the means at hand for the travelers to get to the carcasses.
There seems now to be little doubt that within the last year or two a wholesale slaughter has been taking place among our buffalo preserved in the Yellowstone Park. It was believed that these, if they had been protected, would by natural increase have reached four or five hundred by this time, but if the herd has been preyed on by poachers in other years as it has in the winter of 1893-4, we can well imagine that two hundred or two hundred and fifty is the outside limit for the buffalo in the Park.
As we stated a few days ago, Congress has put a premium on the head of every one of these great beasts. Any man is free to enter the National Park and kill them, and knows that—even if taken in the act—no punishment can he indicted on him. The chances against his capture are considerable, and even if he is taken, the only inconvenience that he suffers is a confiscation of his outfit, amounting to but a few dollars in value, and a few weeks discomfort in the guard house. Against this there is the prospect of selling for $200 or $300 the head of every buffalo which he has killed, and in the deep snows of winter there would be no difficulty in killing in the course of three or four days, all the buffalo in the Hayden Valley, which, as our correspondent reports, are now not more than from seventy-five to one hundred head.
It is not surprising that sportsmen and many of the newspapers of the country are stirred up about this matter, nor that a number of police bills have been introduced in Congress to remedy the existing state of things. Most of the bills introduced thus far are entirely inade-quate, partly because they have been drawn by persons who are not familiar with the condition of things in the Park, and so are ignorant of what is required in such a bill. It is somewhat absurd to provide the penalty of a fine of $100 for killing a buffalo, when it is perfectly well known that if a man kills one and succeeds in getting its head out of the Park, he can obtain for it three times the amount of the possible fine. On the other hand the penalties should not be so severe as to excite sympathy for the law breaker, and so to render the law inoperative.
We have already said that these animals are Government property, and that injury to them should be punished in the same way as injury to any other Government property. The Yellowstone Park has by law been distinctly set aside as a public Park or pleasuring ground for the people, and the natural objects in it, whether animate or inanimate, belong to the public. It is the business of the Government, which acts for the people, to protect this property which belongs to those whom it represents. The executive branch of the Government has done and is doing all in its power to furnish this protection, but the legislative branch has failed and continues to fail to do its duty, for it refuses to provide methods and means for enforcing the protection which it has authorized in the organic act establishing the Park.
We suggest that every reader of FOREST AND STREAM who is interested in the Park or in natural history, or in the things pertaining to America, should write to his Senator and Representative in Congress, asking them to take an active interest in the protection of the Park. In no other way can Congress be made to feel the force of public opinion, and be induced to enact the necessary laws for the protection of the National Park.
Forest and Stream April 14, 1894
YELLOWSTONE PARK GAME
Summary: The Yellowstone Park expedition discovered a significant amount of game in the valleys, confirming the area’s importance as a winter habitat for large game. The expedition also reported on the disturbing actions of a butcher named Howell, who specifically targeted pregnant buffalo and young calves for slaughter in the park. Additionally, the report mentioned a man named Matthews who disappeared in the park, potentially due to a snowstorm.
A Few items of interest about the Yellowstone Park have come to us this week, and are given in advance of the full report which we expect soon to receive from Mr. Hough, of the FOREST AND STREAM Game Exploration. After reaching the Mammoth Hot Springs on its return from the Hayden Valley, the expedition made a trip up the Yellowstone River some distance beyond Yancey’s, in order to be able to say whether this winter the game gathered, as it has always done, in the valleys of the Yellowstone, Soda Butte and Lamar rivers. It was found there as usual in great abundance, and thus the statements of those persons who declare that segregation or a railway line would not interfere with a great winter range for game are again proved false. Our correspondent writes: “You may say positively and without reservation that the whole country of the proposed segregation—all the region around Yancey’s, the East Fork (Lamar River), Slough Creek, Hell Roaring Creek and all that bare country clear over to Soda Butte—is absolutely full of elk. I saw 500 in one band, 1,500 at one sight, 80 bands in one day’s travel and 8,600 total at least count in two days. That section is the very best wintering ground of the whole Park.
It is evident, then, that there has been no change in the situation; that, notwithstanding the statements that have been made, this country maintains to-day what it has always been, a great winter range for large game. This we knew, but in view of the extreme importance to the public of this matter, it seemed to us worth while to expend some time, energy and money to bring forward additional testimony, carried down to date and incontrovertible in its character.
The fiendish malignity of the butcher Howell, who was recently captured in his buffalo shambles, is shown by an examination of such of the animals slain by him as were brought to the fort. Only 9 out of the 11 animals killed at this particular place were saved and transported to the fort, the other hides having spoiled through lack of care. Of these 9 buffalo 7 were cows heavy with calf, while only 2 were bulls, one a yearling and the other an old one. It would almost seem as if Howell’s buffalo slaughtering expedition into the Park had been inspired by malice rather than by the hope of gain—as if he had gone there for the sole purpose of doing as much harm as possible. Here he was killing cows about to drop their young, and even young calves, when big bulls, which would be more salable, were readily accessible. One of Captain Anderson’s men named Matthews, who was stationed at Riverside in the Yellowstone Park, left that station March 11 to go for mail to a neighboring station. A sergeant accompanied him for some miles and then turned back, and Matthews has not been seen since. It is thought that, overtaken by a snowstorm, he may have become bewildered, lost his way, wandered off and perished.
Forest and Stream April 28, 1894
“Forest and Stream’s” Yellowstone Park Game Exploration.
THE ACCOUNT OF HOWELLS CAPTURE
Summary: The article discusses the successful winter exploration of Yellowstone Park by Forest and Stream, marking the first time a staff member was sent through the park during winter. The team was fortunate to have Mr. Hofer as a guide. A significant event during this exploration was the capture of a man named Howell, who was found butchering a buffalo in the park. This incident led to the passing of the Lacey bill in Congress. The article provides a detailed account of the winter patrol’s efforts and challenges in the park, and the capture of Howell by Scout Burgess. Howell’s actions were condemned, but his self-reliance and courage in the harsh winter conditions were also acknowledged.
The article further elaborates on the capture of Howell, a poacher who had killed several buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. He was found with a revolver and had been camping in the park since September. The capture was challenging due to the vast and difficult terrain. Despite his poaching activities, there was no penalty for Howell’s actions, and he was eventually released from custody. The article calls for Congress to establish a new basis for punishment for such crimes. It also mentions that a significant number of buffalo have been killed in the park, and the remaining population is at risk.
The article also describes the use of snowshoes to track poachers in the snow. It highlights the indomitable grit of a scout who captured a poacher despite suffering from a severe foot injury. The article underscores the need for stricter laws and penalties to protect the wildlife in the park and the challenges faced by the patrol team in enforcing these laws in the harsh winter conditions.
The First News.
Chicago Ills., April 27—The FOREST AND STREAM Winter Exploration of the National Park, now just concluded, was a venture singularly fortunate in every respect. Not devoid of certain hardships, and not free from possible dangers of more sorts than one, it was nevertheless brought to a close without illness or accident to any of the party other than of the most trifling sort, and from start till close progressed with the smoothness and merriness, if not the ease and indolence, of a summer picnic. Fortune was kind and raised no obstacle too hard to be overcome. Thus the FOREST AND STREAM may truthfully say that it is the first and only paper ever to send a staff man through the Park during the winter time. Schwatka once made 20 miles of this 200 miles winter journey in the interests of the New York World. Overcome by his failing, and perhaps discouraged or disgusted by the amount of unavoidable hard work ahead (for the only possible method of locomotion in those high, rough and snowy regions, is by one’s own snowshoes), he allowed his undertaking to come to failure, and returned to his starting point with no results to show. Since him me or two other men have gone to the gates of the Park, looked at the big snow land, and resolved that it was easier to write about the winter scenery of the Park from imagination than from fact. The only man ever successful enough to go through the Park in winter, and intelligent enough to make a newspaper account of it, was Mr. Elwood Hofer, whose stories of his two trips, simply and dearly written, appeared in FOREST AND STREAM. Mr. F. Jay Haynes, the able St. Paul photographer who has done so much to make public the beauties of this wonderful region, went through the Park after the collapse of the Schwatka expedition, but never wrote of it, no far as I know. His party was lost on Mount Washburn for three days, and they all came near perishing.
The effort to learn of the winter life of this tremendous and fateful region had hitherto been, let us then say, severely frowned upon by Fortune. When FOREST AND STREAM, always rather a favorite of the fickle dame, made the attempt, Fortune relented, and all became possible and plain. To this end, FOREST AND STREAM was in the first place highly fortunate in having Mr. Hofer as a member of the party. His guidance, counsel and assistance constituted the difference between success and failure. Without him the trip could not have been what it was, and it is to him, very much more than to its staff representative, that this journal is indebted for the success of the undertaking just completed. What were the obstacles to be overcome before success could be reached, and what were the trials, the pleasures and the incidents of the winter journey through the mountains of the Great Divide, it will be a pleasure to recount later, but the first duty is to tell at first hand, and exclusively, the story of the capture of the man Howell, who was caught in the act of butchering the Park buffalo. This story, taken from FOREST AND STREAM’S first and exclusive report, has appeared in various forms and in some inaccurate shapes, in the press all over the country, and such is the importance of the occurrence that it has driven Congress to an action delayed years too long. This is undoubtedly the most dramatic and sensational, as well as the most notable important piece of sporting news which has come up in recent years. It is news which will be historic.
TheHowell buffalo slaughter marks an epoch, the turning point, let on hope, in the long course of a cruelly wasteful indifference on the part of the United States Government in the matter of one of the most valuable possessions of the American people—a possession growing yearly less and less through this indifference, and which as it has grown less has increased in value, since when once destroyed, it can never by any human power be replaced. Had not FOREST AND STREAM been born under a lucky as well as an energetic star, it could not have enjoyed the journalistic good fortune of having a man right on the spot—and a most remote and improbable spot, too—to obtain exclusively for its service this most important piece of news. Now that we are out of the mountains, the first opportunity offers to give the story in accurate detail.
The Telephone Carries It.
Capt. Anderson, the beet superintendent the Park ever had, and one good enough to be retained there for an indefinite term, is a thoroughly fearless and energetic man, and disposed to do all that lies in his power, with the limited means at his disposal, to protect the vast tract of land which lies within the bounds of this peerless reserve of wilderness. How difficult a task this would be with many times the troops and many times the money no one can understand perfectly who does not know the Park, and who does not know what winter in the mountains means. A part of the system of the winter patrol consists of little details, usually a sergeant and two privates, stationed at remote parts of the Park. Thus, there is a substation of this sort on the east part of the Park, on Soda Butte Creek; one on the west side, known as Riverside Station; one twenty miles from the Post, at Norris Basin; one forty miles from the Post, and near the center of the Park, at the Lower Geyser or Firehole Basin; and one at the extreme south end of the Park, known as Shoshone Station. Communication with these stations can only be made by snowshoe parties. The winter’s supplies are carried into the stations by pack trains early in the fall, before the impassable snows have covered all the trails. Under such conditions news would naturally travel slowly. Yet we knew of Howell’s capture, some seventy miles from the Post, the very day he was caught in the act of his crime, the news coming by telephone from the Lake Hotel. The Park Association keeps attendants at three hotels within the upper Park, not counting the one at the Mammoth Hot Springs (Fort Yellowstone), on the entrance side of the Park. There is one attendant, or winter keeper, at the Cañon Hotel, one at the Lower Basin Hotel, and a man and his wife at the Lake Hotel. All these hotels are connected by telephone with the Post, elsewise the loneliness and danger of the life of the solitary men thus cut off from the world through the long months of an almost Arctic winter would deter even such hardy spirits from undertaking a service worse than that on a lighthouse tower at sea. When the telephone line fails to work, as naturally in such a wintry country of mountain and forest it often does, old Snowshoe Pete, the lineman, is sent over the line to locate and repair the damage. He is the only man allowed to go alone through the Park in winter, and he has had some rough and dangerous experiences. When the soldiers of the out-stations wish to report to the Post they go to the nearest hotel, perhaps fifteen, perhaps forty miles, and telephone in, if the telephone happens to be running. Burgess, the only scout whom the munificent U. S. Government provides for the protection of this peerless domain—a domain which any other power on earth would guard jealously as a treasure vault—makes scouts from time to time in all directions through the Park, traveling of course on snowshoes. He may sleep and get supplies at some one of the out-stations, or of one of the three winter keepers of the hotels, or it may be that he will hole up for the night in one of the several shacks built at certain secluded portions of the mountains for this purpose; still again, he may have to lie out in the snow, perhaps without a blanket, perhaps with nothing to eat. This all depends on circumstances. A poacher’s trail has to be followed hard and sharp, with no let-up and no returning. It was fortunate for Burgess that he caught his man within a day’s march of the Lake Hotel. He brought him in to the Lake Hotel that day and at once telephoned to Capt. Anderson, commanding officer at the Post, Mammoth Hot Springs. The message was received at the Post about 9:30 in the evening, Monday, March 12. This was just before Hofer and I started into the Park from the Post, and as I was the guest of Capt. Anderson at the Post, of course I learned the news at once, and at once put it on the wire for FOREST AND STREAM, which had the information within twelve hours of the capture, which latter had occurred 2,000 miles away in the roughest part of the Rocky Mountains, and four days’ journey from the nearest telegraph station, by the only possible means of travel. The next day FOREST AND STREAM was represented in Washington. Within thirty days the Lacey bill had passed the House. To FOREST AND STREAM, born under a lucky, as well as an energetic star, will be due more than to any other one agency the thanks of the public for the ultimate preservation of one of the public’s most valuable heritages. No other paper has made the fight for the Park that this one has, and it deserves the utmost success which now seems certain to attend it. When the people finally come to look upon an undivided National Park, and one tenanted once more with some specimens at least of its grand though vanishing animals, they may thank all the men who nobly and fearlessly worked for that and so carried out the actual will of the people—they may thank all these friends of intelligence and justice and public honor and decency; but they will have only one newspaper on earth to thank, and that one will be FOREST AND STREAM.
Capt. Anderson’s Story.
When Capt. Anderson came in after hearing the news of this capture, he was positively jubilant through every inch of his 6ft. 2in. of muscular and military humanity. He couldn’t sit still, he was so glad.
It was some time before I could get from him the story of the plans leading up to the capture. “I knew that Howell had been in the Park,” said he, “and had an idea that he was over on Pelican Valley somewhere. I sent Burgess in after sign once before this winter, but Burgess broke his axe and had to come back. I told Burgess this time that I wanted him to come back this time with a whole axe and a whole prisoner, if possible. I knew that Howell had come out of the Park for supplies, not long ago. He came out from Cooke City, where he hails from. He brought out his toboggan, and took back a load of supplies with him. I knew he must leave a broad trail, and knew that if Burgess could strike his trail and follow it into the Park, not out of it, he could catch him sure. Burgess has been scouting on Pelican, as directed. He says, by telephone, that he found the trail early in the morning, and followed it till he found a cache of six buffalo heads, hung up in the trees. Then he followed the trail a good distance till he found Howell’s tepee. While he was there he heard shots. Approaching carefully, he saw Howell skinning out the head of one of five buffalo he had just killed. Making a careful run over the 400yds. of open ground between Howell and the timber he got the drop on Howell. Burgess had with him no one whatever but one private, Troike, who was not armed and who stayed back in the timber. Capt. Scott, Lieut. Forsyth and party were at the Lake Hotel not engaged in this scout at all. I must say that Burgess’s action has been in every way highly courageous and commendable, and I shall be glad to commend him publicly. He made his arrest alone and brought his man into the Lake Hotel to report for orders. I have ordered him to bring his prisoner on into the Post as quickly as he can. Tomorrow I start out a party on snowshoes from here to bring in all the heads and hides of the buffalo killed. I have ordered Howell’s tepee and supplies burned. His arms and outfit will be confiscated, and I will sock him just as far and as deep into the guard-house as I know how when I get him, and he won’t get fat there, either. That is all I can do under the regulations. I shall report to the Secretary of the Interior and in due course the Secretary of the Interior will order me to set the prisoner free. There is no law governing this Park except the military regulations. There is no punishment that can be inflicted on this lowdown fellow. I only wish I had the making of the law and the devising of the penalty. I’ll bet you this man wouldn’t soon go at large if I did have.”
Scout Burgess’s Story.
This was Capt. Anderson’s story of the plan that led to the capture, a plan evidently wise and well laid. But how wide a difference there remained between this plan and the actual arrest I never knew until I had seen the Park itself in all its immensity, its impenetrableness, its forbidding and awful regions of forest, precipice and crag, until I had traversed with weary feet some of those endless miles of bottomless snow; until I learned how utterly small, lonely and insignificant a man looks and feels in the midst of solitude so vast, so boundless, so tremendous and so appalling. Then I knew that the man Howell was in his brutal and misguided way a hero in self-reliance, and that Scout Burgess was also in courage and self-reliance a hero, nothing less. Howell, or any like him, I hate instinctively, but I salute him. To Burgess the salute will come more easily from any man who knows the facts and knows what a winter trail in the Rockies means. Burgess’s story of the capture, as told by himself, simply and modestly, would make it out no great thing. This story I heard from Burgess himself at Norris Station, which point he had reached, coming out with his prisoner at the same time the FOREST AND STREAM party made it, going in. We spent the night there together.
“I expect probably I was pretty lucky,” said he. “Everything seemed to work in my favor. I got out early and hit the trail not long after daybreak. After I had found the cache of heads and the tepee, over on Astringent Creek, in the Pelican Valley, I heard the shooting, six shots. The six shots killed five buffalo. Howell made his killing out in a little valley, and when I saw him he was about 400yds. away from the cover of the timber. I knew I had to cross that open space before I could get him sure. I had no rifle, but only an army revolver, .38cal., the new model. You know a revolver isn’t lawfully able to hold the drop on a man as far as a rifle. I wouldn’t have needed to get so close with a rifle before ordering him to throw up his hands. Howell’s rifle was leaning against a dead buffalo, about 15ft. away from him. His hat was sort of flapped down over his eyes, and his head was toward me. He was leaning over, skinning on the head of one of the buffalo. His dog, though I didn’t know it at first, was curled up under the hindleg of the dead buffalo. The wind was so the dog didn’t smell me, or that would have settled it. That was lucky, wasn’t it? Howell was going to kill the dog, after I took him, because the dog didn’t bark at me and warn him. I wouldn’t let him kill it. That’s the dog outside—a bob-tailed, curly, sort of half-shepherd. It can get along on a snowshoe trail the best of any dog I ever saw, and it had followed Howell all through the journey, and was his only companion.
“I thought I could maybe get across without Howell seeing or hearing me, for the wind was blowing very hard. So I started over from cover, going as fast as I could travel. Right square across the way I found a ditch about 10ft. wide, and you know how hard it is to make a jump with snowshoes on level ground. I had to try it, anyhow, and some way I got over. I ran up to within 15ft. of Howell, between him and his gun, before I called to him to throw up his hands, and that was the first he knew of any one but him being anywhere in that country. He kind of stopped and stood stupid like, and I told him to drop his knife. He did that and then I called Troike, and we got ready to come on over to the hotel. It was so late by the time I found Howell—you see he was a long way from his cache or his camp—that we didn’t stop to open up any of the dead buffalo. We tried to bring in some heads, but we found we couldn’t, so we left them.
“Howell had been in camp over there for a long time. I only found 6 heads cached. He wrapped them up in gunny sacks and then hoisted them up in trees so the wolves couldn’t get at them. He had a block and tackle, so that he could run a heavy head up into a tree without much trouble. He was fixed for business.
“Howell said to me that if he had seen me first, I ‘would never have taken him.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘Oh, I’d have got on my shoes and run away, of course.’ I don’t know what he meant by that, but he’d have beenin bad shape if he had, unless he had taken his rifle along, for I had already found his camp.”
Howell’s Story.
Howell was, we found, a most picturesquely ragged, dirty and unkempt looking citizen. His beard had been scissored off. His hair hung low on his neck, curling up like a drake’s tail. His eye was blue, his complexion florid. In height he seemed about 5ft. 10in. His shoulders were broad, but sloping. His neck stooped forward. His carriage was slouchy, loose-jointed and stooping, but he seemed a powerful fellow. Thick, protruding lips and large teeth completed the unfavorable cast of an exterior by no means prepossessing. He was dressed in outer covering of dirty, greasy overalls and jumper. He had no shoes, and he had only a thin and worthless pair of socks. He wrapped his feet and legs up in gunny sacking, and put his feet when snowshoeing into a pair of meal sacks he had nailed on to the middle of his snowshoes. The whole bundle he tied with thongs. His snowshoes (skis) were a curiosity. They were 12ft. long, narrow, made of pine (or spruce), Howell himself being the builder of them. The front of one had its curve supplemented by a bit of board, wired on. All sorts of curves existed in the bottoms of the shoes. He had them heavily covered with resin to keep the snow from sticking to them. To cap the climax he had broken one shoe while in the Park—a mishap often very serious indeed, as one must have two shoes to walk with, and elsewise cannot walk at all. With the ready resources of a perfect woodsman, Howell took his axe, went to a fir tree, hewed out a three-cornered splice about 5ft. long, nailed it fast to the bottom of his broken shoe, picked out some pieces of resin, coated the shoe well with it, and went on his way as well as ever. He said he could travel as far in a day on those shoes as any man in the party could with any other pair, and I presume that is true. Moreover, Howell pulled a toboggan behind him all the way from Cooke City with a load of 1801bs. None of us could pull a toboggan behind skis, and we would not wear web shoes. Howell’s toboggan was 10ft. long, and had wide runners, like skis. He said a flat-bottomed Canadian model toboggan was no good, as it pulled too heavy.
At the Canon Hotel Howell ate twenty-four pancakes for breakfast. He seemed to enjoy the square meals of captivity. At Norris he was always last at table. He was very chipper and gay, and willing to talk to the officers, Capt. Scott and Lieut. Forsyth, on about any subject that came up, though the officers mostly looked over his head while he was talking. He was apparently little concerned about his capture, saying, as I have already mentioned, that he stood to make $2,000, and could only lose $26.75. He knew he could not be punished, and was only anxious lest he should be detained until after the spring sheep shearing in Arizona. He is an expert sheep shearer, sometimes making $10 and $15 a day. He has money always, and was not driven to poaching by want or hunger.
“Yes,” Howell said, in reply to our questions, “I’m going to take a little walk up to the Post, but I don’t think I’ll be there long. About my plans? Well, I haven’t arranged any plans yet for the future. I may go back into the Park again, later on, and I may not. No, I will not say who it was contracted to buy the heads of me. I had been camped over on Pelican since September. It was pretty rough, of course. If you don’t think it’s a hard trail from Cooke City to Pelican Valley, you just try pulling a toboggan over Specimen Ridge.
“If I’d seen Burgess first, he’d never had arrested me. I’d have got away from him. It was so windy and stormy, I never heard him till he got right up against me and hollered for me to put up my hands. He was sort of blowin’, and was nervous like. I see I was subjec’ to the drop, so I let go my knife and came along.”
Private Larsen’s Story.
Larsen, one of the men Capt. Anderson sent in with our party, talked with Howell later in the day, when most of us were away, and Howell was freer with him. Larsen says that Howell told him he had been camped in the Park since September and that at first he had a partner, a man by name of Noble, but that they had a falling out and he run Noble out of the camp. Noble went out at the south end of the Park, not going back to Cooke City. Howell said there was nothing in being arrested, they couldn’t do anything to him. Howell also said he “supposed them — fellers would want to get a photograph of him in the morning, but he wasn’t going to let them.” (Nevertheless, one had already been made of him and in the morning I got a shot at him without his consent, while he was stooping over and fastening his shoes. He tried to spoil the picture by rising and coming toward me. He had told me previously that he would not have any pictures taken and I was sorry to be so impolite about it. Capt. Scott, who had at that time gone on down the trail with Lieut. Forsyth, had said to me that if I preferred it he would give me the privilege of photographing Howell standing on his head. On the whole I believe that would have been nicer, if Howell could have been induced to look pleasant. The negative is not yet developed, but my impression is that he wasn’t looking so very pleasant over the surreptitious FOREST AND STREAM shot at him.
The Butcher’s Work.
The party sent out by Capt. Anderson to bring in the heads and hides of the slaughtered buffalo consisted of Sergt. Kellner and two privates. They passed the incoming party between Norris and the Cañon, and pushed on down at a hot pace to the remote corner of the Park where the butchery took place. The second day out from Norris found them near the spot, but it was two days later before the animals were found, a fall of snow having covered them up, and Troike, the private who was with Burgess at the capture, having lost his head entirely about the localities. If it was so hard a spot to locate among the interminable mountains, even after a man had been there but a few days before, how much harder must it be to locate a poacher whose whereabouts is not known at all, but who has the whole great winter wilderness of the Park to surround him and his doings? The only wonder is that arrests can be made at all, where the country is so great and so difficult, and the special police of the Park limited to just one scout. The need of more scouts is too apparent to require comment.
When finally the butcher’s work had been found again, it was learned that most of the robes and some of the heads were ruined for lack of proper care, Howell having been stopped too early in his work for this. The scene of the butchery was a sad sight enough for anyone who has the least thoughtfulness in his make-up. The great animals lay slaughtered in the deep snow in which they had wallowed and plunged in their efforts to escape. To run up to them on the skis and to shoot them down one by one—only six shots to kill the five buffalo outright—was the work of the clumsiest butcher. In the snow these animals are absolutely defenseless. Howell could have killed more of the band, if there had been more, and he would not have stopped had there been more to kill. As I shall show later, I think he had killed far more than the eleven head discovered. I think his partner, Noble, left the camp of his own free will, and took out a load of heads at the lower end of the Park. I do not consider it impossible, from news I had after I left the Park, that Howell took out some heads with him when he went out to Cooke City after supplies. As FOREST AND STREAM has said, he was killing cows and calves in this last killing. He had been in camp since September, and he was killing cows and calves. I cannot evade the belief that he would kill any buffalo he could get to. He could prepare and hang up a good many in five months.
The heads and the available robes were brought first into the Lake Hotel. Capt. Anderson sent another party over the long trail from the Post, and the spoils were finally received at the Post the first week of April. The capture of Howell had required two trips by Burgess, aggregating 250 to 300 miles, one trip by the first detail of three men, nearly 150 miles, and a final trip of a little less than the latter distance by the detail who carried in the plunder. The heavy heads and hides all had to be packed in on the backs of the men. Every foot of the way had to be traveled on snowshoes. No men but just these hardy ones could do this work. For a time the Park had more men in it than it ever had in winter time before. The stir was all over this miserable specimen of humanity who was heartless enough to kill alI he could of the few remaining buffalo left alive on earth today. These bare words convey no idea whatever of the hardships and dangers incurred in the winter patrolling of the Park. To criticize the military, or to say that Capt. Anderson should have caught the fellow sooner, is to display a total ignorance of the conditions, and to be absurdly unjust as well as ignorant. For such ignorance and injustice we must look first in just the quarters where it should not exist. Nowhere can we find an ignorance and indifference on this subject equal to that which has so long existed in the halls of Congress. It is time the change should come.
No Penalty.
Let us remember, then, first, that Howell was killing cows and yearlings; second, that the few buffalo left are helpless when pursued in the snow; third, that for a crime of this sort Congress provides no penalty! As this is written the word comes that the Secretary of the Interior has ordered the release of Howell from custody. On this old basis he can now go into the Park again and kill more buffalo, and have another hunt made after him by the U. S. Army. Let us hope that by the time this shall be in print there will have been a new basis established by Congress, so that such villainy as this shall obtain a punishment, prompt, adequate and just. Kill a Government mule and try what the U. S. Government will do to you. Yet a mule can be replaced. A buffalo cannot be replaced. This is the end. But kill a Government buffalo, and what does the U. S. Government do? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! This is the old basis. Let us sincerely hope that the new basis will come soon and that it will be widely different. Gentlemen of Congress can surely only need to have the matter called to their attention, and this has been done in the various measures this year submitted by the members who know the facts. In a later article I shall advance the facts on which I base the firm belief that half the buffalo of the Park have been killed, and that not over 200 now remain alive. The Howell killing above described has been only a part of the total. Nineteen head were killed by Indians southeast of the Park last fall. Seven heads were offered to a Bozeman taxidermist for sale (not of these 19 heads) from Idaho this winter. We found what we supposed to be 6 or 8 dead buffalo in the Hayden Valley. I have track of several other heads that have this year appeared in Montana towns. No one knows how many heads have been quietly bought by Sheard or another Livingston taxidermist. Certain it is, that the traceable total of buffalo killed this year in the Park is alarmingly, appallingly large. There are not very many more now left to kill.
The Snowshoe Trail.
The method of work in scouting for a poacher is simple if arduous. The scout must know the country and the course likely to be taken in the Park. He circles to cut the trail of the man he wants. The snowshoes leave a deep, plain trail on any ordinary snow (except crust), and this will remain for weeks. Even if covered by later snow, the trail will eventually become evident again. The trail packs the snow under the line of the shoes. In the spring when the snow begins to melt, a snowshoe trail will not melt and sink, but will show up in the form of a little ridge above the level of the snow, the other snow melting and sinking below it. The poacher can get in in no possible way but on snowshoes, and he cannot travel without leaving a trail which for the rest of the season will endure, though part of the time it may be invisible under new snow.
A Plucky Scout.
I cannot leave this description of the Howell capture without mentioning one fact showing the indomitable grit of the scout Burgess who brought Howell in. We were all looking out over the trail when Burgess and his prisoner came in sight. Howell, of course, was ahead, but we noticed that Burgess was limping very badly. How he was able to travel at all was a wonder. When he got in by the fire he said nothing, but took off his heavy socks, showing a foot on which the great toe was inflamed and swollen to four times its natural size. The whole limb above was swollen and sore, with red streaks of inflammation extending up to the thigh. How the man ever walked I cannot see. I noticed that Burgess had lost the two toes next to the great toe, and that the scar of the cut ran halfway through the great toe. He told me, quietly, that the Crow Indians did that for him. They made him put his foot on a log, and amused themselves by cutting off his toes, taking two off clean and nearly cutting off the great toe. Since then the circulation had been bad in that member, and he had frozen it more than once. It had been frozen again on this trip, and was now in bad shape. Yet in spite of this injury, which would have disabled most men, Burgess passed the evening calmly playing whist, and the following morning again took the trail, making the twenty miles to the Post before evening, and delivering his prisoner safely. The post surgeon, Dr. Gandy, after making examination of Burgess’s foot, at once amputated the great toe, thus finishing what the Indians had less skillfully begun some years before.
E. HOUGH. Forest and Stream, May 5, 1894
909 SECURITY BUILDING, Chicago.
Here is a link to a Quizlet about the Howell Capture.
https://quizlet.com/850298177/howell-capture-flash-cards/?i=28nu4&x=1jqt