24 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 11, 1886 
7ff ^parfeitimt jfiwris/* 
A WINTER HUNT WITH 
DARLING.— II. 
JOCK 
A Tame Deer. 
The common Virginia deer is really about the hardest 
kind of big game to hunt anywhere. It is quicker on the 
start than moose and caribou, for when it once plainly 
sees the hunter it generally does not wait long on the 
order of its going. Moose and caribou on the other hand 
are slower to accept the testimony of their eyesight, and 
unless they get a scent of the hunter are not quick to 
start. Caribou will sometimes run right up to a man who 
is in plain sight, influenced by the same fatal curiosity 
that makes the antelope decoy to the hunter's red flag, as 
was the case with those we saw on our photographing 
trip last summer. 
At other times they will stand without appearing to be 
greatly concerned while being shot at. I know of a case 
where twelve shots were fired by two hunters from the 
same stand at three caribou, and the third caibouonly 
ran away when the hunters had stopped shcotsng, having 
.secured their legal limit of one apiece. 
Some caribou apparently never learn to use their eyes. 
No doubt they depend largely on their keen scent, even 
in their every-day occupations of feeding and traveling, 
and their vision is to a certain degree atrophied. I 
traveled down on the stage from Patten with an old gen- 
tleman who had half a caribou with him in a bag, and in 
connection with this he told me the incident of its cap- 
ture, which goes to prove what has been said above. 
The day before, this old gentleman was sitting beside 
the fire in a house a stone's throw from the center of the 
village of Patten, talking with Jois son-in-law, Dr. Wood- 
bury, when suddenly the latter, who had just glanced out 
the window, sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "There's a 
caribou!" Sure enough, a small caribou had that minute 
jumped over a fence into the back yard, apparently no 
more concerned at the presence of fences and houses than 
if they had been windfalls and rocks. If he hadn't been 
stopped it is possible that he would have gone right 
through the town and never been the wiser. As it was, 
however, Dr. Woodbury, who is a good hunter and sports- 
man, got bis rifle and actually shot the caribou "from his 
doorstep," as they do in the woolly West. 
Having stated the general principle that deer are 
quicker to accept the evidence of their eyes and quick* r 
to start than other game under the same conditions, 
which, I believe, is pretty generally admitted by hunters, 
I will tell of an exception to the rule, that as such is 
worth noting. 
Messrs. Stubbs and Staples, while cruising for moose 
one day, jumped a doe deer which ran a little way before 
old man Staples, who was leading, "blatted" and stopped 
her. As she turned to look back he brought his rifle to 
his shoulder and pulled the trigger. There was no result, 
however, and he recollected that he had not worked a 
cartridge into the barrel — it was a repeater — that morning 
on leaving camp. Accordingly he pulled down on the 
lever with this object in view, but the rifle had received 
a thorough wetting the day before and was so badly 
rusted that it would not work. Stubbs, who is something 
of a philosopher, meanwhile walked over to a stump and 
sat down and lit his pipe, and both he and the deer 
watched with considerable interest the old man wrestling 
with the rusted gun. 
Staples, who is as good a hunter as ever walked the 
woods, got a little mad finally, and co get satisfaction out 
of the deer he borrowed Stubbs's gun. His first shot was 
high, but the deer never moved. She couldn't for the life 
of her understand what all the trouble and noise was 
about. He fired again with a like result, the gun being 
this Stubbs promptly shot him again, and so no doubt 
saved the venison, for on examination he found that the 
bullet had only "creased" the buck, and the shock 
undoubtedly was only temporary. 
When Jock and Stubbs went after this deer and inci- 
dentally another hung up near by on one of the ridges 
west of the lake, they shot a sable — one of the pair shown 
in the illustration. The other was taken the Bame day 
from a bear trap set by Staples for fisher. 
SAPLE" AND BUCK. 
sighted too finely, and his third shot did nothing more 
than take the bark off a tree just above the deer's back. 
This was too much for human patience, and he banded 
the rifle back to Stubbs with instructions to "kill the 
blame thing." 
The philosophical hunter took one shot and missed, and 
it is an actual fact that the deer stood there till the next 
and fifth shot, which killed her. 
She was an extremely fat doe — the fattest I have ever 
8een — i) U fc she was altogether too slow to take a hint. 
"Saple" and Deer. 
The day Jock and I spent unsuccessfully hunting the 
moose on the ridge near Wadley Brook dam, Stubbs came 
up with a fine buck who was standing tail on rubbing his 
head against a tree when first seen. Aiming at his neck, 
as offering the best possibilities for a shot, he fired, and 
the buck went down like a log. 
Stubbs walked up to the deer, but just as he reached 
him the buck raised himself in a sitting position, such as 
a dog assumes when resting upon his haunches. Upon 
failure, and had decided to strike off to the bog on the 
north branch of Wadley Brook and spend the afternoon 
in hunting caribou. Jock and I, however, were loath to 
give up the moose. The news we had heard decided us 
to circle back toward the spot where the moose tracks 
had been seen, and accordingly, without waiting for any- 
thing to eat, we set off down the ridge at right angles with 
our former course. Had the other hunters known that 
almost within rifle shot of the spot where they sat were 
CAMP ON SEBOIS GRAND LAKE. 
Stubbs sighted the sable on the snow near the deer car- 
cass, and being prompted by Darling, he ran after it as 
fast as he could go. Jock knew by experience that it was 
pr>f sible to tree the animal in this way. 
Stubbs lost sight of the sable almost immediately, but a 
careful survey of the neighboring trees soon showed the 
saucy little freebooter perched on one of the lower limbs. 
Jock brought him to the ground by a shot that only grazed 
the top of his skull, and did not hurt the skin a particle. 
"Saple," as they are called by Eastern trappers, are the 
prettiest little creatures imaginable. They look very 
much like a fox in the face, but are longer and lower, and 
of course of a much darker color. They have large soft 
feet provided with the sharpest of claws, and they can 
catch a red squirrel in a tive, or a rabbit on the ground. 
They follow the latter in a deep snow by jumping in their 
tracks, profiting by the broken trail, and when the 
opportunity offers they will shorten the rabbit's detours 
by well calculated cut offs. 
• The deer from whose antlers the sable hang has a spread 
of 27in., woods measurement, and taken in connection 
with the other deer's head, pictured last week, they 
make a remarkable pair. Another thing of interest in 
this picture is the arrangement of the front sight on 
Jock's rifle. He has covered all of the front sight but 
the extreme tip with a shield of leather, which is firmly 
bound to the barrel on either side, thereby accomplishing 
one of the ends which Mr. Lyman has attained with his 
peep sight — namely a fine bead, and an absolute certainty 
that at ordinary ranges he will neither overshoot nor 
undershoot. Jock's "patent" has proved so good that 
most of the woodsmen who have seen it who shoot open 
sights have adopted it. 
Moose Hunting on a Crust. 
And so the time passed till the last day of my stay. 
The hunting was very noisy, and though moose sign was 
plentiful, we had no shots at the game which American 
sportsmen put at the top of the list, barring only the 
grizzly bear. My gun had become badly rusted from 
hunting in the rain, and the mechanism refused io work, 
so Sunday was spent in walking down to the main camp, 
where there was a screw driver, and taking apart and 
cleaning the lock. 
Wednesday morning found the crust as bad as ever, 
while, as if still further to assure the game from our 
covert designs, there was no wind whatever, and every- 
thing was so quiet that a man could be heard walking 
thirty rods. It seemed a waste of time to attempt a 
hunt under these conditions, and it was largely due to 
Darling's indomitable persistence that we went for moose 
that day. Darling is one of those men who only recog- 
nize obstacles to get the better of them, and this is one 
reason for his great success as a hunter. 
There were moose on the ridge running north from the 
mouth of Wadley Brook, as we knew from previous 
scouting trips, and as this was probably the best nearby 
ground, we selected it as the scene of our hunt. It was 
arranged that Messrs. Stubbs and Staples should follow 
the east side of the ridge, while Darling and I took the 
other. 
On our way to the ridge we found where three caribou 
had come on the ice and followed the shore of the bay 
from some distance., striking up at last on the bog at the 
mouth of Wadley Brook. The tracks were very fresh, 
and the temptation was strong to give up the moose hunt 
and follow the caribou up the brook, where the chances 
were greatly in favor of finding them, but we had nailed 
our colors to the masthead, and moose it was to be or 
nothing. 
Jock and I saw two very old moose tracks, but that was 
all we had to report when we met the other hunters by 
chance at noon. Of course we had jumped deer, but that 
didn't count. Messrs. Stubbs and Staples had a somewhat 
better account to give. They had seen the tracks of six 
moose made only a few days before, and it seemed rea- 
sonable to believe that^these were still on the east side of 
the ridge, as they had not crossed to our side and there 
had been no hunting in the neighborhood where we sup- 
posed them to be to frighten them away. 
Stubbs and Staples had built a fire and were eating 
lunch when we arrived. They voted the moose hunt a 
two bull moose they might have taken a different view of 
the situation. 
Keeping Everlastingly at it Brings Success. 
The main ridge at this point was quite steep, and it did 
not take us long to arrive at its foot. Here the open hard- 
wood growth terminated and the black growth took its 
place. Just ahead was a little knoll overgrown with 
balsam firs, and beyond that was the cedar swamp that 
extended to the open bog of Wadley Brook. To our right, 
between this evergreen knoll and the main ridge, was a 
hollow, and in this hollow we both suddenly caught sight 
of a large bull moose. It was only an instant's glance, for 
the old fellow had winded us and was off at a gait that 
was marvelous, considering the nature of the ground he 
had to pass over. 
But though we only saw him for an instant, the picture 
was of a nature to stir a hunter's blood, and it remains 
vividly photographed in memory. We both stood on a 
fallen tree that by reason of its elevation enabled us to 
look over the tops of the nearest firs, and there we saw 
the moose, his head thrown back and the wide antlers 
resting on his shoulders, disappear in the forest growth. 
I don't think I saw the moose for more than a second. 
Jock blatted a "bah-a-ah" that sounded like a bellow in 
a vain attempt to stop him, but he might as well have 
blatted at the Empire State Express. We both got our 
rifles to our bhoulders, but there was no chance for a snap 
shot even, and neither fired. A moment later, seeing 
that there was no possibility of his again coining in sight 
further down the ridge, we lowered our rifles. 
One's first inclination after such an experience is to 
consider the event from the "might have been" stand- 
point, but I am glad to say that whatever our thoughts no 
words in any such tenor passed our lips. We stood look- 
ing over the little knoll for a time, and then Jock, who 
never is at a loss for the right thing to do, said: 
"There may be another bull in here. I'll take this one's 
back track, and you can work down the ridge for a shot." 
As we each separately proceeded to carry out our parts 
of the programme, we heard above us on the ridge the 
voices of the other hunters. They had finished their 
luncb, and were coming down almost on our trail with a 
view of cutting across to the bog. 
I watched Jock till he disappeared from sight among 
the firs at the far end of the knoll, and then I walked in 
the opposite direction, parallel to the course of the moose's 
flight, but keeping somewhat higher ground. In the 
meanwhile the other hunters passed Jock, and I could 
hear them talking several rifle shots beyond. What little 
air was stirring blew toward me, and though they were 
at least a quarter of a mile from the spot where I stood, 
I could almost distinguish the words. One of the hunters 
is somewhat deaf, and the other had to raise his voice to 
make himself understood. The fact of their talking 
proved how utterly hopeless they considered woods hunt- 
ing under the circumstances. 
Presently Jock began working my way. I heard him 
whistle several times, but at this juncture I became aware 
of a new sound. It was a crunching of the snow as some 
heavy animal broke through the crust, and every now 
and then it was punctuated by moments of absolute 
silence as the animal stopped to listen. Darling con- 
tinued at intervals to whistle, and I could still hear the 
other hunters talking far off in the distance. 
As the moose, for such it proved to be, came nearer I 
selected a good position from which to shoot on a log that 
offered a projecting, stub for a footrest, which my left 
foot instinctively found. My eyes were too busy scanning 
the fir thicket that bounded the view at a distance of 60 or 
70yds. to notice such details. 
While the moose was still well concealed by the firs I 
became aware that he had changed his course slightly 
and was moving across the front of my position. I could 
hear him run ahead 20 or 30yds. and then stop and listen. 
No doubt he was bewildered by the unaccustomed sounds 
he heard on different sides, and possibly he had a fear 
that he was being surrounded. 
Probably he had been started by Messrs. Stubbs and 
Staples, now well on their way to the bog, for Jock after- 
ward told me that he had seen no fresh tracks besides 
those of the first moose. 
