s 
A 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 4, 1896. 
that nn the hoof had weighed the best part of a ton that 
had fallen to four rifles. 
Moose, caribou and deer figured in that display, and 
that we had no small game was due only to the fact that 
we did not shoot it. Bear was the only item that right- 
fully should have been there and yet was missing; but the 
bears had gone into winter quarters, and could not be 
tempted out even to make a Eoman holiday. 
There are three lakes in the Sebois chain — White Horse, 
Show Shoe and Grand Like. The main camp is situated 
on a bluff overlooking Snow Shoe, which is the middle 
lake. 
It is a well-built log structure, two stories in height, 
and extremely comfortable in cold weather. 
Jock has another camp on the upper part of Grand 
Like, and this was occupied at the time of i ur arrival by 
two other hunters, Messrs. Stubbs and Scapes, The lat- 
ter part of our stay was passed at this cmp, but for the 
first three days we hunted about Snow Shoe. 
Hunting Around Snow Shoe Lake. 
South and east of Snow Shoe is a piece of burnt land a 
mile in width and two or three miles in length. This is 
good deer country; in fact, it would be hard to find any in 
this neighborhood that is not, and it is also the some- 
time abode of a family of moose. All summer these 
moose had used in the burnt land, and the week before 
my arrival Jock had run upon them, four in number, at 
the eastern edge of the strip over toward Hay Brook. 
Deer and caribou, of course, were of secondary consid- 
eration as long as there were moose to be secured, and 
accordingly our first hunt was planned solely with refer- 
ence to the latter. 
Footwear. 
The thermometpr stood at z^ro as we left the camp that 
Monday morning. Jock wore a pair of rubber boots, as 
there were many swampy places that the covering of 
snow keep from freezing, and that would soon have 
soaked buckskin moccasins. My feet were protected by 
high cowskin moccasins, that proved to be thoroughly 
waterproof for all ordinary purposes, and by far the 
most satisfactory hunting footwear I have ever tried. 
Under these I wore two pair of high woolen stockings 
that reached above the knees, and which kept my legs 
dry on several occasions long after my trousers had been 
soaked. Later I found one pair of these heavy stockings 
sufficient for the coldest weather we experienced. Prob- 
ably this would not have been the case, however, if I had 
not also worn a pair of "arctic sock" slippers inside the 
moccasins. Tbese are made of soft felt material, and 
kept my feet very dry on occasions when the moccasins 
were very damp inside. 
Jock lost two of his toes years ago from freezing — he had 
killed a caribou late in the day and persisted in skinning 
it despite the biting warnings of a semi-arctic night — and 
he acknowledged that rubber boots were not the warmest 
footwear for such a cold day. He was obliged from time 
to time to stop and kick and stamp till he could rouse a 
circulation, and as long as there was no water to wade 
through the moccasins had decidedly the best of the situ- 
ation; we soon found water, however; at the foot of the 
hill below the camp was a spring, and this had been 
backed up by the snow, and formed a wet place of con- 
siderable extent. Darling went straight through, but, as 
I did not want to test the moccasins too severely, I picked 
my way cautiously about the edge. A leather boot will 
not stand wading through pure and unadulterated water 
for any length of time, and neither will leather mocca- 
sins. 
Moose Sign. 
We kept the road down Sebois Stream to the head of 
White Horse Lake, w hich we crossed on the ice, and 
then struck up east into the burnt land. The old road 
which we followed was a maze of deer tracks, and we 
came upon frequent beds and Bigns of feeding. 
Jock has hunting associations connected with every 
foot of wild land in this part of the State. Two years ago 
he met three caribou on this road, handy to the lake, and 
knocked over two of them, which was all the law allowed. 
There is always the chance of meeting caribou on these 
roadB. They are indefatigable travelers, and if one stays 
in the woods long enough he is sure to runacroes them. 
But what interested us more than caribou talk or deer 
sign was the unmistakable evidence of the recent presence 
of moose. From time to time we came upon places where 
the young trees, moosewood and maple saplings, had been 
broken down, generally at a height of 7 or 8ft. above the 
ground, and where other trees of the same variety had 
been stripped of a portion of their bark. These were the 
feeding grounds of the moose known as "workings." The 
trees had been broken down in order that they could 
browse off the tender growth at the ends of the branches, 
and this process was accomplished, not, as writers used to 
assert, by riding the tree down between the forelegs, but 
by means of a twist of the powerful neck of the animal. 
This is what Darling says and I see no reason to doubt it. 
We saw no trees that were bent over as they would have 
been if straddled and ridden down. They were all broken 
off, and always at the height of the moose's head from the 
ground. Darling says he has frequently seen them feeding 
and he has observed the process carefully. 
A moose, like other deer, has no upper teeth, and the 
barking of the trees is accomplished by a long upward 
sweep of the jaw. Of course, as soon as the bark is started, 
at least in summer when it peels easily, it can readily be 
stripped from the tree. 
We made a long circle around the edges of the burnt 
land and into the timber beyond, but we failed to locate 
the moose. No doubt they were snugly yarded in some 
nearby ridge, and we may have passed very close to them. 
We jumped deer on several occasions, but hardly gave 
them a second thought, and we crossed a number of fresh 
caribou trails. Near the head of Bach Brook we saw 
where one of these animals bad walked along a fallen 
tree over a wet place, as a man would have done. 
"They're just like a goat," commented Jock. "Go any- 
where over ledges and all kinds of rough places, and never 
slip or hurt themselves." 
Darling as a Trapper. 
The wild woods mice, which are twice as big as city 
mice, soon learn of the presence of human habitations in 
the woods, and as the shelter is comfortable and food 
abundant, they fleck in from all sides till they become a 
pest. The second night of our stay in camp Jock set 
about getting rid of some of the surplus mouse population 
that had accumulated during a short absence. He split 
out from a stick of firewood three flat pieces of wood, 
which he whittled into miniature representations of snow- 
shoes, lin. high and perhaps 3in. long. To the narrow 
ends of these he tied a piece of pork rind for bait, and 
then he set up on edge inverted tin pans resting on the 
snowshoe-shaped pieces of wood at their widest parts. 
The whole thing was delicately adjusted, so that when a 
mouse touched the bait the pan slipped from its support 
and made him a prisoner. 
The first night the traps were set Jock caught two mice, 
the next night three, and so on till he had caught fifteen 
before I left. One poor little fellow was found sitting 
upright with his paws to his face, frozan stiff. 
A Deer and a Caribou. 
The second day we tried for deer, as there was no meat 
in camp and we were hungry. We crossed the dam and 
went up an old tote road to the east of the camp, and 
presently, before I really had a chance, I heard Jock's 
rifle. I had jumped my deer in the meanwhile, and was 
not loath to leave his trail for Jock's. 
Jock had gone some distance along the road without 
crossing a fresh track, but I presently met him and asked, 
"What luck?" 
"I got one," he replied. 
"Buck?" 
"Yes." 
"What kind of a head has he got?" 
"Homely ," said Jock ; "he lies back here about thirty 
rods." 
We started in the direction he had indicated, and Jock 
told me be had seen the deer first running along with his 
nose to the ground, scenting his own track. He had 
A SET OF MOOSE ANTLERS. 
previously crossed the road several times at the same 
place. Jock blatted, and when the buck stopped he shot 
him. When we reached the deer I found him already 
dressed and hung up. He was a large buck, though 
rather poor, and despite Jock's uncomplimentary charac- 
terization had a magnificent head. The antlers were 
very irregular, but massive. There were nineteen points 
in all, including one stub projecting downward. 
"He will be tough chewing," said Jock, "but I guess 
we can manage." 
Jock had drawn the first blood, but he magnaminously 
ascribed his success to luck. Be this as it mav, I have 
always noticed that the best hunters are lucky. The 
snow was quite noisy, for a rain and crust had followed 
the cold weather of the day before, and another man 
would no doubt have been seen by the deer first, and in 
all likelihood only had a glimpse of its flag as it disappeared 
from sight. 
Later, on that same road, Jock saw the fresh track of a 
caribou. He kicked the impressions in the snow and 
found that it was still unfrozen. Seeing that the track 
led straight for a bog on Bach Brook he followed at a 
good speed, for be knew that the caribou would not stop 
to feed on the way. He saw where the caribou had 
crossed the brook on the ice and then gone up on the bog. 
Here he expected to find it feeding and he moved more 
cautio usly . Presently he saw something wh tte amon g th e 
little spruces that dotted the bog and the next instant 
made out the caribou's bead. The caribou was standing 
looking directly at him, but squarely in front of her nose 
— for it was a cow without horns — was a small tree trunk. 
Jock could see the ears on both sides, or he would hardly 
have recognized the head as distinct from the snow 
masses that hung on the branches of the evergreens all 
around. He brought up his 30in. Bullard and that was 
the end of that episode. 
A New Camp. 
Messrs. Stubbs and Staples, the latter an old hunter and 
trapper of long experience about Sebois, turned up at 
camp that night. 
They reported having found four moose yarded on a 
ridge east of the upper camp, which, owing to the crust, 
they had not disturbed. 
As the neighborhood of the other camp was a better one 
for moose we decided to change our base of operations, 
and the following day we all moved up to this camp. 
From here we made numerous excursions over the hard 
wood ridges which stretch in all directions about Sebois 
Grand Lake, and on most of these we found moose sign 
and moose tracks. 
After Moose. 
One day, while following up some old tracks, we got 
very close to two moose. The tracks had been made the 
day before, and there seemed to be no immediate prospect 
of seeing the moose, as they were plainly traveling, but 
for some reason best known to themselves they had taken 
their back trail. 
We jumped them during a flurry of snow, and the one 
I saw looked black as a bear against the fleecy back- 
ground. It was a cow or young bull, for no horns 
were apparent. 
Another day on the ridge north of Wadley Brook dam 
we found where a small bull had yarded. We did not 
disturb him at the time, as the crust continued very noisy, 
but later there came a rain that softened the crust tempo- 
rarily, and we spent the greater part of a day trying, to 
the best of our ability, to circumvent the wary animal. 
He was on the side of the ridge in a thick fir growth 
and no great distance above a bog. This bog was 
bordered in places by a nasty cedar swamp, and in circling 
to get the wind of the moose we found ourselves obliged 
to pass through the swamp. My recollections of the half 
hour spent in that swamp are not of the pleasantest. A 
wet cedar log is about the slimiest and slipperiest thing 
in existence — unless it be an eel — and when one tries to 
avoid a hole that is filled with ice water and slush by 
walking on such a log, it is not agreeable to suddenly 
change ends and land head first in the hole. A few 
experiences of this kind will soon convince a man that it 
is the safest policy to wade through everything. 
Soon after emerging from the swamp we found the old 
tracks of the moose. We worked along the ridge in the 
direction we supposed him to be, pushing our way 
through the thick balsam growth and receiving copious 
showers from every tree, till we were as wet as if we had 
been in the lake. 
We scoured every foot of this part of the ridge, keep- 
ing 50yds. or so apart, but always within sight of each 
other, and at last found what we bad feared, that we had 
jumped the moose. We had no doubt been close to him 
when this happened, but the growth was so thick that we 
had failed to see him when he made off. 
Partly out of curiosity and partly with a view of locat- 
ing him for another hunt, we followed the trail of the 
moose for a mile or more. At first he ran directly south, 
but soon we saw that he was heading more to the east, 
and evidently with a purpose. He swung around on the 
arc of a circle and then headed straight for the rapids at 
the dam on Wadley Brook, This was the only open 
water on the stream for a distance of perhaps five miles, 
and his course showed the perfection of bis sense of direc- 
tion. No doubt the place was familiar to him, and 
though badly scared, he would not attempt to cross on 
the ice. 
We left his trail before reaching the open water, but 
one of the other hunters who came by the dam the next 
day said he had crossed there. J. B. Buenham. 
"That reminds me." 
And that reminds me, that back in the 70s there lived 
in Surprise Valley an old gentleman named McG, and his 
son, William. Old age and its attendant ills had put him 
past the bread- winning stage, and now in his son's home 
he took life easy. 
That summer the Indians had been very turbulent. 
Night after night signal fires on one mountain had 
been answered by flashes on another. Ocheho's band 
had joined forces with the Bannocks, who were on the 
war path. The settlers bad undergone a thorough Indian 
scare, and under these conditions the little models of '66 
and "73 had given way to the latest in repeaters, the 
model of '76— .45-75. Winchesters cost money in those 
days, especially when an armed guard had to accompany 
the team that hauled them 200 miles from the railroad. 
But William was prosperous, and had bought one of the 
big guns. 
Game was plentiful, especially waterfowl. The wild 
geese, in their semi-annual migrations, would tarry a few 
days to glean the stubble fields, and they were estimated 
by the acre instead of by the head or doz?n, as now. 
One warm October afternoon, when William and some 
of his neighbors were branding calves at the corral and 
the old gentleman was sunning himself in his chair in 
front of his house, he espied in a field half a mile away an 
immense flock of geese. The field was literally white 
with them. The old gentleman got out the new gun, took 
a rest over the fence, and when his palsied arms had 
pointed it in the general direction of tbe flock pulled 
trigger. A babel of honking and roar of wings followed 
the re echoing explosion. 
When the cloud had lifted all but one had gone. Our 
infirm friend hastened to the spot in triumph, lifted his 
prize and carried it to the corral. The bullet had struck 
just below the head and nearly severed the neck. 
Holding up the bird so all could see, he said: "Bill, that 
new gun o' your'n seems to be a pooty good gun, but I do 
believe it shoots a leetle low," L. 
"What the Signs Did." 
My subscription expires Jan. 1, and I inclose 84 for the year 1896. I 
would not mis3 reading another piece of writing like "-What the Signs 
Did,'' by El Comancho, for twice the amount. It is grand, and was 
written, I judge, by a true sportsman. J. F. H. 
Game Laws in Brief. 
The Game Laws in Brief, current edition, Bold everywhere, has 
new game and fish laws for more than thirty of the States. It covers 
the entire country, is carefully prepared, and gives all that sUooters 
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I REPORT YOUR LUCK j 
With Rod or Gun 
| To FOREST AND STREAK, t 
