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 



