The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1905-09-29
A HUNT IN TIE 0LDEN DAYS
NORFOLK sPoRTsMEN TODAY RE.
VISIT FORMER FIELDS.
GOT TWENTYsIx DEER ONE TRIP
D. Mathewson, |. Powers and Charles
Mathewson Were Members OF a
Hunting Party In 1882 and Of Anoth.
er One Leaving Norfolk Today

Mathewson Were Members OF a
Hunting Party In 1882 and Of Anoth.
er One Leaving Norfolk Today.
with quarter OF n century between
the hunting trip of then and that Of
today, and with the fleet footed deer
which then covered the wilderness Of
western Nebraska, in the little thicket
by the streams and over the range Of
tall grass, all shot away and fright
oned out Of their pastures, until those
prairies now are covered, so far as
the huntsman is concerned, with mere
ly handful of prairie chickens, a
party OF Norfolk sportsmen left the
city today to go over again as in the
times gone by their hunting grounds
Of 1882.
ID. Mathewson, Judge I. Powers and
Charles Mathewson composed the par
ty which left today to bag wild birds
on the plains, and twenty.three years
ago this very month they were three
OF party of five which left the site
of Norfolk for Cherry county-the rail-
road didn't reach Valentine in those
days--and when they returned from
that hunt they brought with them
twenty-six fine deer as the prize of
their shooting.
Those twenty-six deer were eaten,
every pound of the venison, right here
in Norfolk The fact that the meat
was kept in a good state of preserva-
tion from far out in the country-a
two days trip from the nearest rail.
road statlon-until it reached Norfolk
has always been considered remark
able. But It did-and it was, per
haps, the greatest treat of this sort
the city has ever known.
The meat was preserved with the
greatest of care. During the night
time the venison was hung up under
the trees, where no flies were apt to
get at it, and in order that 1t might
cool thoroughly before the sun came
back And then, during the day, 1t |
was laid in a wagon with green grass
shading 1t so that, with its heavy pack
ing, the meat kept cool all day long.
For venson, in order to be kept well,
must be kept dry.
A Changed Land.
The changes which the twenty-three
years have wrought in the prairies of
Nebraska are perhaps more vividly
impressed upon the hunter than upon
many others of the country. They
came early, when there were antelope
and deer on the bank of every stream;
those were the times when, with a bug
gy whip, an Xpert could bag enough
prairie chickens to fill wagon box.
And the country then-for miles and
miles and miles there was no sign Of
a house to break the unendng grass
land; no sounds except the call of the
birds and the ripping of the river and
the rush of a herd of deer.
Twenty-three years have remapped
the whole scene With the shrill whis-
tie of the locomotive as it plows
through the cornfield; with wires
overhead connecting the ends of the
earth; and with here a house and
there house all through the land
and thousands and thousands of domes-
tic cattle milling over the range: with
these and thousand other changes
wrought by the progress of but a brief
quarter century, the hunters who left
Norfolk today for the west will find
that they are lucky to get as many
teathered fowl this month as they got
of deer in the time of years ago.