The record-union., 1893-11-11
THRILLING ADVENTURE.
Driving a Team of Twenty Eagles
Through Space.
Speeding Over the Sierra Nevada
Mountains Behind Most Re-
markable Team.


| Especial Correspondence REcoRD-UNIoNl
On being informed that 1 belong to a
genus of itinersnt cosmopolitans who
exc quasi livelihood by collecting ZOO
logical bric-a-b brac for savants, museums
and curiosos, the indulgent reader will
have no difficulty in understanding that l
am sometimes put to the most ignoble
shifts in order to comply with that re-
straint of conventional decorum which
requires men to immure themselves in
decent apparel, nor will he be unduly
shocked to learn that the early part of
May 1881, caught me wandering about IN
threadbare suit, with detected mien and
disordered footsteps, not knowing ex-
actly which way toturn for a meal, in the
neighborhood of a deserted placer min
ing camp called Whisky Diggings, about
thirty-f1ve miles northeast from Sacra-
mento City, in the State of California.
This depressing extremity of fortune
accelerated my acceptance of position
as assistant droyer and herder to we'll
! known mutton baron of that section,
who was just on the eve of departing for
greener pastures in the high Sierra with
flock of eight or ten thousand sheep
which were Wintered on the stubble
! fields and downs adjacent to the foothills
that border the Sacramento River Val
| ley, near Bear River.
The following morning we set out for
our destination, range on the Little
! Truckee River, near the summit, and
/ about twelve or fourteen miles east Of
| Webber Lake.
Of ,1xo 1<@ff l,0
/ drove, including the proprietor, who
| brought up the rear with sumpter
camp-wagon, and [ well remember how
! the woods and hillsides echoed and re-
echoed our incessant whooping, whist
! ling, cursing, swearing and shrieking,
/ as. half-blinded by the volumes of dust
and half-choked with passion. if not with
dust, we slowly but surely pushed the
myriad of sheep ahead Of us through the
! thermal belt, along the old Nevada road.
! But we got through the chaparral of
| California lilac, live oak, poison oak,
chimousel and wild coffee. of the foothill
country, at last; left behind, also, the
struggling thickets of Digger pine, white
oak, buckeye and redDerry trees. Then
we ran amuck through the sheep thieves
of Grass Valley and Nevada cities;
crossed the sublime gorge of the South
| Yuba over road of appalling steepness;
| lost squad of twenty or more sheep in a
roadside hume somewhere near North
! Bloomfield; stampeded our band through
the poison weed district; threaded dark
! forest of colossal yellow pines above Eu-
reka; struggled through the tangling
| deer brush and manzanita brakes char
acteristic of the rugged and forbidding
mountains around the famous Bowman
| dam and reservoir; viewed with profound
rapture that admirable jewel of the ST.
ezra, Lake Webber, and, after a toilsome
journey of six days, arrived safe at fine,
| large substantial twO-story structure
| built of hewn logs, which, in the pioneer
! days of gold, had done time as a hotel on
busy stage line, but which, having been
! long abandoned, was now the very focus
! of all the loneliness in a vast mountain
! solitude, the central portions of which
constituted our range.
Here we found abundant grazing for
the sheep, and here it was my lot to So
| iOurn four months with two intelligent
| shepherd dogs and stupid, llstleSS indi-
vidual who was known in the vicinity of
| Whisky Diggings by the popular nick
name of Turkey Tom"
For few days time flew by on happy,
oderiferous wings. The tall sugar pines
murmured doleful but soothing requiem
as the milk-warm breezes of soft, green
| lavender spell of weather sifted through
| their far up tops of needle-like leaves,
and, as L had but little to do ex-
cept perambulate about our nibbling
! herd, Spellbound with admiration of the
! landscape and enchanted with the cli-
mate, l was, for a short time, in trans
ports Of delight with my new situation.
At length, however, this idle, sauntering
state OF being, isolated in an alpine will
derneSS, became mOnotonous, encour-
aged in me disposition to brood over
my ill-starred career, and began to op-
press me with a disagreeable conscious
ness of my abject social position. l was
'sheepherder," and Californians shun
"sheepherder'' as they do leper.
Fortunately for my reason, about this
time, coyotes, black bears and golden
eagles, lured by the smell of mutton
from afar, began to make forays into our
herd, greatly TO the terror of the year
| lings, and invariably to their loss and
sorrow. Wherefore [ determined to
drive dull care away by turning my skill
in the art of trapping to my employers s
account. 1 had brought half dozen
| steel traps, of assorted sizes with me,
and, when / returned to the valley in
September, l carried back the scalps OF
eleven coyotes (fOr which l obtained a
bounty Of fifty-tive dollars, black bear
skin, two live black bear cubs, and the
plumage preserved for stuf1ingl of a
hoary old golden eagle measuring eleven
feet from tip to tip.
summer in great numbers, and improved
every opportunity OF devouring a lamb,
sometimes swooping down and soaring
| of with a twenty pound sheep.
It was while observing the bodily
prowess of an eagle in feat of this kind
that l was impelled to calculate, "Eu-
rekal I will drive team of eagles! /
will have bird s-eye view of the Sierra
from a wool-sackH
My method of capturing the eagle was
| to seize it unawares from narrow pit,
in which concealed myself before dawn
by means of a cover made of twigs, grass,
etc. This pit had to be dug by night.
The excavated earth from it had also TO
be carefully removed and hid by night.)
After sunrise | seldom had long TO wait
for victim, which l usually secured by
grasping both of its legs through an in
| terstice under the cover, with my right
hand as it fed upon the lambs with
which / baited one side of the pit or by
suddenly rising and throwing sheep
skin (woolfell) over it. The sheepskin
was also indispensable when l seized the
soon have buried its ugly beak in my
flesh.
Having got the eagle under the sheep
| skin, wool side down, l could wrestle
with it to better advantage, and, when it
had worn itself out with vain, frenzied
Struggling, coulu lOIce IL liltO an empty
woolsack, drag it to vacant apartment
in the old log hotel where Turkey Tom
and l had our quarters, and make a
boarder of it.
In this way / succeeded in capturing
twelve OF the mammoth raptores. In the
meantime | had caught nine others by
concealing, every morning, several traps
around live lamb which had been made
fast to the ground on a neighborIng
mountain top.
Thus, in the course of month after
conceived the notion of navigating the
air with team of eagles, obtained the