The Black Bear 39 



help of a single trailing dog. In Maine they 

 are as apt to kill moose and caribou as bear 

 and deer; but elsewhere the two last, with an 

 occasional cougar or wolf, are the beasts of 

 chase which they follow. Nowadays as these 

 old hunters die there is no one to take their 

 places, though there are still plenty of back 

 woods settlers in all of the regions named who 

 do a great deal of hunting and trapping. Such 

 an old hunter rarely makes his appearance at 

 the settlements except to dispose of his peltry 

 and hides in exchange for cartridges and pro 

 visions, and he leads a life of such lonely iso 

 lation as to ensure his individual characteris 

 tics developing into peculiarities. Most of the 

 wilder districts in the Eastern States still pre 

 serve memories of some such old hunter who 

 lived his long life alone, waging ceaseless war 

 fare on the vanishing game, whose oddities, as 

 well as his courage, hardihood, and wood 

 craft, are laughingly remembered by the older 

 settlers, and who is usually best known as hav 

 ing killed the last wolf or bear or cougar ever 

 seen in the locality. 



Generally the weapon mainly relied on by 

 these old hunters is the rifle; and occasionally 

 some old hunter will be found even to this 

 day who uses a muzzle-loader, such as Kit 



