62 AN ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



Dr. Elliott Coues, assistant surgeon general U. S. A., secretary of the Hayden 

 survey, and naturalist to the United States government, is well known in libraries. 

 Coues and I were co-workers in the Labrador expedition in 1861, when his labors 

 were first begun, and 'helped him jerk his Puffins out of their holes and reach with 

 my rifle some specimens beyond the reach of his shotgun. I have always felt 

 cause for gratitude that we were not all poisoned by the arsenic he used in 

 making skins. For the skins went to his collection and the carcasses into the 

 galley pot invariably. 



Did I ever see a bear? Oh, yes! Many scores, of size and color. Ever kill 

 one? Not exactly; but Jack Stewart killed one for me among the huckleberry 

 bushes on Grand Lake Island, in Maine, in 1859. We traced his tracks on the sand 

 bottom across from the main land to the island, and stalked him in parallel lines 

 up the island, keeping each other within sight of the water space. Jack jumped 

 him at his noon siesta after his feast, and shot him with his .38 revolver. Then 

 he took off his hide and gave me a two-ounce vial of his oil with my .22 

 as a voucher of my prestige. But I have seen many others in my backwoods 

 rambles in Alaska, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Montana, Minnesota, New York and 

 the Maritime Provinces, and I have owned and raised quite a few cubs, black 

 and cinnamon. Some seventeen years ago, when I was in the Catskills, I domiciled 

 with John W. Rusk, hunter and photographer, at Haines Falls, and we stalked 

 the North mountain quite considerable for grouse and bob-cats. We saw their 

 tracks by the springs, and occasionally a black bear showed himself to us when we 

 were wading a trout stream, fishing. John used to set a fourteen-pound trap at 

 the garbage pile, half a mile back of the Kaaterskill Hotel, and got one almost 

 every time. He would make a contract with the young sportsmen at Sunset 

 Park and neighboring resorts to get them a bear for fifteen dollars ; they to have 

 the hide and carcass. It was a good snap for the fellows, and the three of us 

 would start off for the North mountain, where there are bob-cats and other 

 varmints, and after a search through the woods, swing around to the garbage pile, 

 and at the right moment John would point out the bear and let the man shoot. 

 Of course the trick transpired at once, but the victim never let on; and so the 

 game was repeated, ad captandum, and every young hunter vaunted his prowess 

 and exhibited bear oil, hide and claws as trophies. 



The. most sanguinary story to my recollection was the tearing to pieces of 

 the hunter whose cabin was near Fort McGuiniss, Wyoming. Briefly, he had shot 

 a buffalo. from his doorway, but before he could get off the hide a she grizzly 

 with two half-grown cubs almost killed him \vhile he was skinning. He fought 

 them all to their death with his sheath knife, because he had left his rifle in 

 his cabin. 



