38 The Wilderness fJunter. 



helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be justified on the 

 plea of hunger. This is also true of lying in wait at a 

 lick. Whoever indulges in any of these methods save 

 from necessity, is a butcher, pure and simple, and has no 

 business in the company of true sportsmen. 



Fire hunting may be placed in the same category ; yet 

 it is possibly allowable under exceptional circumstances 

 to indulge in a fire hunt, if only for the sake of seeing the 

 wilderness by torch-light. My first attempt at big-game 

 shooting, when a boy, was "jacking " for deer in the Adi- 

 rondacks, on a pond or small lake surrounded by the 

 grand northern forests of birch and beech, pine, spruce, 

 and fir. I killed a spike buck ; and while I have never 

 been willing to kill another in this manner, I cannot say 

 that I regret having once had the experience. The ride 

 over the glassy, black water, the witchcraft of such silent 

 progress through the mystery of the night, cannot but 

 impress one. There is pleasure in the mere buoyant 

 gliding of the birch-bark canoe, with its curved bow and 

 stern ; nothing else that floats possesses such grace, such 

 frail and delicate beauty, as this true craft of the wilder- 

 ness, which is as much a creature of the wild woods as 

 the deer and bear themselves. The light streaming from 

 the bark lantern in the bow cuts a glaring lane through 

 the gloom ; in it all objects stand out like magic, shining 

 for a moment white and ghastly and then vanishing into 

 the impenetrable darkness ; while all the time the paddler 

 in the stern makes not so much as a ripple, and there is 

 never a sound but the occasional splash of a muskrat, 

 or the moaning uloo-oo uloo-uloo of an owl from the 



