The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-05

got nSh. They are interested be-
cause an occasional bit falls to their
lot.
Removing a squirming fish from an
ice-encrusted hook when the fingers
are so numb that they couldn't nick
up twenty dollar gold piece, is no
pleasant sport, but it must be accom-
plished. Hardly is this one Topping
in the box sled when another tip-up
performs after its kind. If the angler
has had the luck to strike a school of
! fish, he will be kept warm-all but his
Misunderstanding from one line to an
other. The gulls will give him some &C.
cupation also. Emboldened by hunger
they swoop down on the little encamp-
ment, and snatch fish almost from the
hand of the fisherman, unless they are
closely watched. Cases have been
known where the draught dogs have
caught and killed these graceful rob-
bers. A hundred fish in half a days
work is considered good luck, and the
man who makes the catch may pack up
and go home in high spirits. Then
how the plucky dogs speed over the
smooth stretches! Unless checked they
will take hummock ice and snow drifts
in their eagerness to get home, and
the hard-won load will be scattered for
the gulls to pick up.
Not always has the fisherman a load
to bring home. Sometimes he may fish
all day and take nothing but a wrig-
Cling red lizard, edible only for the
winged thieves. Or he may have just
begun his catch when a blue gray
haze appears far away toward the hor-
lion and he must upstakes and fee
before the blizzard that, at one swoop,
may wipe away the trail and leave him
lost in the Sahara of snow and ice. If
the storm be wind alone, it may be a
boon instead of a danger to the outfit,
for the shelter cloth is converted into
a sail and the sled, now become an ice
boat, scuds swiftly along, while the
dogs rush, barking with the joy of
freedom, beside it.
Billiards are the terror of fishermen,
who will tell you stories of terrible
suffering and hopeless wanderings
through the binding storm, stories of
wonderful rescues and tales of men
who went out and never came back; of
how the instinct of the dogs has been
resorted to as the last means of find
ing the way home; of how this too has
sometimes proved unavailing and the
dogs have crouched whining and shiv-
ering in the drifts, refusing to move
You will hardly find an old fisherman
but has some such tale to tell. usually
about one of his own family.
You mind my nephew, Charley?
Fine, big, strong Teller he was, but he
was young an he thought he knew it
all. Wouldn't put back, last year, when
the big Febooary blizzard come up
Luck was too good, he said. He stayed,
but his dogs knew better. They ran
away an got home alive. We didn't find
Charley that winter. but when the ice
broke up two of the boys found a man
an sled frozen in big piece. From
the clothes we thought it was Char
ley. You couldn't tell by the face, count
of the gulls. He must have got mud
died and wandered way out beyond the
furthest fishing posts.''
The wise man always carries a COM
pass In his pocket, but there are many
careless and improvident ones who do
not think of it until the time when
they would exchange everything they
possess for a wobbly, nervous little
needle in a brass box There was a
March night last year when the
weather-wise among the Buffalo fish
ermen looked out over the wind-swept
ice, shook their heads, pulled their
caps down tight and then sought shell
ter indoors. Those who did go out kept
close to the breakwater. At various
points along the south coast, some,
more venturesome. or less ex-
perienced, braved the storm and
went among the white swirs
that sprang up suddenly
here and there, spinning about like
whirling dervishes and then darting off
in binding columns before the whip
of the wind. Ere night one of these
parties was caught like fish in a net.
A streak OF water, a black dead-line,
opened between them and the shore
and the wind pounded their brittle ice
raft to fragments. Some of the bodies
were found, others were never discov-
cred
At Dunklrk. fifty miles west OF Buff
falo eleven men were similarly caught
A man residing on the shore sighted
them and and after a number of
trips with a boat all were brought
safely TO land.
At Silver Creek, a village between
Buffalo and Dunkirk, thirty fishermen
were a mile from shore when they sud
denly made the discovery that they
were afloat and were being driven out
into the lake. They, too, were dis
covered by persons on shore. A res
cuing party was formed, but after thir-
teen of the men had been safely Landed,
the boat met with an accident in the
floating ice. Before the repairs could
be made the darkness of a cloudy win
ter night had settled upon the water.
Thirteen more men reached shore In
the early evening without aid.
Word was sent in all directions and
bonfires were lighted at different points
to guide the lost in their efforts to
make the land. At midnight the re-
manning four, by jumping from cake
10 cake. reached the shore. where they
fell exhausted. When able TO speak,
they told a story OF suffering seldom
equalled. After hours OF extreme ex-
ertion one became so weak that he
lay down and told his companions 10
leave him 10 die They dragged him 10
his feet and forced him 70 keep going.
Another. In attempting 20 leap
stretch Of open water. zen in. and was