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Newspaper Page Text
68 THE INDIAN ADVOCATE. dise. Even at the present time certain eastern portions of the Choctaw Nation may be regarded as second only to the Rocky mountains in affording sport to the lover of gun and rod. The mountain ranges lying between the Missouri, Kansas & lexas railroad and the Arkansas State line, being almost uninhabited, and in places wholly impassable, form a secure retreat for wild animals, such as bear, panther, cougar, catamount and deer. Bear are very plentiful, especially in the vicinity of the Kiamitia river, in Wade county: eight bears were killed by one man during the summer and fall of 1891, in the Jacks' fork mountains, while several other hunters killed from two to four each during the same months, besides capturing some six or eight 1 ubs. Bear hunting in these mountains is at its best when the huckleberry (or whortleberry) is ripening on the foot-hills and grassy slopes. Where the fruit is most plentiful, there bruin is certain to be found. The female weans her cubs on the berries, and not infrequently the hunter ap proaches within a few steps of the greedy animals before they have discovered his presence. The acorn of the white oak is also a favorite food with bruin, and in the late fall he will not be far away from woods where white oak abounds. Deer and wild turkey are also numerous in these mountains. The Choc taws, as a tribe, are not hunters, and few, even among the full-bloods, take any great pride in the chase. When they hunt, they do so to supply their physical wants father than as a recreation, and the greater portion of the game killed in their nation falls before the rifle of the white man. Although the offence is punishable by arrest and confiscation of hunting equipment, parties of United States citizens are constantly visiting the more remote sections of country and killing off the game. But they easily manage to evade the law by em ploying a Choctaw to accompany them, who acts as guide and shields the intruders from trouble. The eastern portion of the Choctaw Nation is well watered, and the rivers and streams, which are deep and lucid, abound in fish. Several species of bass are found in great plenty,