266 FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 3, 1897. 
but the buck, tossing bis antlers (be bad a ■fine bead) , seemed 
to ask wbat was tbe matter, and appeared undecided 
wbetber to follower not,tbeyoune; leaves and stems of the 
trees were so tender and good. Hesitate, and you're lost, 
is an old saying, but true; be hesitated too long and lost, 
for carefully sighting, with tbe previous experience fresh 
in my mind not to attract bis attention, the rifle cracked 
and the buck jumped and fled out toward dry land. As 
be went the gun spoke again, and the dee- disappeared 
behind a big pine tree. Rapidly following. I found the 
noble brute stretched out behind the tree — dead. My 
friend D. soon joined me, having beard the shot, and 
showed me bow to disembowel the deer. One ball bad 
gone through the lower part of tbe heart and another 
through the lungs, and he bad run nearly 200yds. after the 
first shot. The antlers bad four points on each and meas- 
ured 17in. from tip to tip between points. 
After some bard work (to cut this long story short) we 
got the buck home between us slung on a sapling (my 
shoulders ached for a week after), and skinned and hung 
him up for the night, and when weighed tbe next day 
tbe two hindquarters tipped the beam at 24 and 251bs,, 
and tbe forequarters at 211bs. each; and that was some of 
the best venison I ever ate — or ever expect to. Squikk. 
GETTING A BIG BUCK. 
It had been so long since I had killed a deer, that when 
Fred Jones and Will ^Miller, up at N-^rthwood, N. Y., two 
as hearty good woodsmen, as ever looked through sights at a 
tossing white 6*>g on a beech ridge, came to ask me if I didn't 
suppose ther& might be a deer up at Moose Eiver which I 
might find and get a shot at, I hoped there might be, and so 
away we went. I ought not to have done it. There was a 
sizable sort of chain, which should have been strong enough 
to keep me from going into the woods, fastened to one of my 
legs. I bad taken two weeks of a three-weeks' vacation by 
riding from Brooklyn to Westfield, 1^. Y., on mv bicycle, 
passing along Greenwood Lake, IST. J., to Port Jervis, to 
Lackawaxen, Pa., to Honesriale, Pa., to Mount Pleasant, N. 
Y''., through Binghamton, Elmira, Dansville, Batavia and 
BulTalo, pedaling over 500 miles on all sorts of roads, and in 
many kinds of weather. That trip should have satisfied me. 
But a rabbit cocked up to look at me in New Jersey, and I 
scared enough partridges on tbe road to make me think of 
bigger game, and, to my mind, more worthy of a hunter's 
pursuit up in the Adirondacks; and, as I said, away I went 
on Tuesday, Sept. 7, with three comrades: Will and Fred, 
and my brother Elgie. 
We left Northwood at '6 o'clock in the morning on a buck- 
board with three pack baskets on behind and Will Light's 
black team hitched on before, and Light was driving. Will 
Light vyill be remembered by Bisby Lake hunters. He was 
a boss guide over there for years, and now runs the Hiawatha 
House at Nortbwood. 
It is eighteen miles or so from Northwood to North Lake, 
where the buckhoard left us shivering in a rain which had 
come up, and it was dismal. 
Miller hadn't intended to go clear to the river with us, 
only to the lake, where he intended to go to work on a State 
job there, and bad not brought his gun with him. But we 
talked him into coming, and so he took a .22cal. Stevens tar- 
get pistol I had along and said he'd go and shoot chipmunks. 
We got a boat after some trouble and rowed up the lake to 
the landing. At the Canachagala trail it was pretty easy 
for all but iFred, who is big, and seemed to enjoy rowing as 
much as-anybody one ever saw. 
It wasn't easy for four miles thereafter. Fred, Will and 
I had packs— Will taking Elgie's, Elgie being merely a 
"sawed off kitten," as Will put it. The packs weighed 
about 401bs each, and my rifle, a .45-90-300 repeater, added 
several pounds more to my outfit. Fred had a .38 40 re- 
peater, and my brother a Remington single-shot rifle. The 
Remington used to be a .32cal. rim-fire, and was the weapon 
with which I killed my first deer. It now takes a .38 40 
shell and shoots to "eat raw meat," as Herb Conklin said 
when he tried to swap a watch and a deerhound pup for it 
jast yea;-, 
Fred's gun has a history, and looks it. It shoots thirteen 
times, and Fred says it shoots a lead bar and throws a brass 
tube at the breech when there is meat in sight. It has killed 
as many deer as any gun in the country. The blue enamel 
is mostly worn off, and tbe enamel has been replaced with 
deer tallow, till it would serve as a candle if the barrel was a 
wick. The target pistol also has a history. My father got 
it when he went up through Central America on a mule. 
His belt wore one side shiny, and it has looked lopsided ever 
since; but partridges, rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, etc , 
have been killed with it, not to mention a few cats that bad 
gone wild when kittens and lived in tbe brush, feeding on 
birds. 
Tbe way to Moose River was long and muddy. The water 
sloshed in our shoes and dribbled down our backs, I wore a 
bicycle suit, including cap. Tbe cap was all right when it 
came to still-hunting, but I'd have given our chance at a deer 
for a broad-brimmed hat that day. We rowed across Canacha- 
gala Lake, and walked to the river and along the south side, 
which is trailless to the head of Canachagala Stillwater, not 
having been able to borrow boats because a sportsmen's club 
objects to its members loaning boats. No matter, we got to 
the trail spite of briars, logs, brush heaps, spruce slashings 
and fallen branches, and after two miles of that stuff the 
four miles to the natural dam at the Plains was comparatively 
comfortable. 
We ate that night scandalously, and built a fire and 
warmed our dry clothes from the packs and lay down to 
rest and to sleep happy as any hunters ever were. 
Next day we hunted. Fred and Elgie went up through 
"the island." The island is a long strip of hardwood left 
when the pines were burned off years ago. Will and I went 
up tbe old logging road just below the dam. Fred and 
Elgie scared two deer off the island without seeing them, 
and they came my way just as Will got back into the woods 
hunting a red squirrel with his pistol. My rifle "did some 
hollerin' " and Will took it away from me when he came 
back, saying I was an unfit person to carry a real gun. He 
went off over the ridge where the deer had gone, and in 
fifteen minutes began to shoot slowly. He came back after 
a while ^vith a dry doe about the size of a small dog drag- 
ging by one ear. 
"That," he said, "is the way to do it!" Then he said tbe 
gun made so much smoke that he couldn't see to shoot, or 
he'd have had his two deer at once. 
I hadn't any excuses to offer for missing a nice buck, and 
the camp was too small for me till the others got to sleep 
that night. 
Fred took Elgie over to Balsam Lake next day and staid 
all ni£rht, taking my rifle bfcause it held up better on a long 
shot than his 38-40, and Will and I went out again. We 
got separated and all of a sudden I heard a yell and a whoop 
half a mile away, and directly Will came closer and closer, 
and pretty soon he came in sight bounding over logs with 
his hat in one hand and the nistol in the other. 
"Where (puff) the (phew!) thought ye'd (woof) got lost. 
My-y-y !" 
Then I knew that I was regarded as something of a sheep 
which was hable to go astray, and seventeen times a day I 
had to say that I had mv compass and prove it, to one or 
other of the boys, also matches. We'd get thirty rods from 
the river and one would ask, "Now, which way do you sup- 
pose camp is?" and when we got a mile back they thought if 
I could tell which way the river lav it was sufficient. 
One day the others went up to Kimble's to get some stuff 
to eat. I was left in camp with strict injunctions to carry 
mv compass in sight and to blazs a trail from the river if I 
left it. 
I took Elgie's Remington and went up the old road almost 
to where I had seen the two deer, then turned off to the 
left and followed the hardwood ridge there for about a mile. 
I had been practif^ing walking quietly while I had been 
there and had read Yan Dyke's "Still Hunter" through while 
in camp, which, with previous experience, had put me on 
my feet, so to say. and in about half an hour I .saw some- 
thing white flashing around about fifteen rods away. It was 
a deer's tail shooing flies, and the deer was walking rather 
fast. There was no time to lose. Tbe deer paused be- 
hind a tree quartering from me I forgot that the 
.38-40 wasn't a smasher like the big gun which breaks a 
deer down if held high up on the hip. It didn't matter, 
though. I got four shots at the bip, the deer not running 
till I knocked a birch curl off over its back Tbpn it 
went fast for a dozen rods and stopped. I followed, 
thinking the beast had gone a quarter of a mile, 
anyhow, and ran slap on to a yearling lying at the 
roots of a tree. The yearling ran when I sot about 15ft. 
from it, leaping from its bed when I caught its eye. I 
missed it. I put in another .shell and went smashing along 
angry with myself and things in particular. I broke a 
branch as big as my wrist, crashed through a briar patch by 
the edge of the swamp at tbe foot of the ridge, and there, 
six or eight rods off down a lane of tree trunks, was the first 
deer I had seen. I shot, and saw something the like of 
which I never heard tell of- The deer arched its back and 
made four leaps straight into the air and came down with 
its hoofs so close together that my feet covered all the marks 
of each jump. Then away it went. I followed it as far as 
I could, not quite half a mile, found neither blond nor hair, 
and gave it up. The deer was running yet, 16 to 20ft. to 
the jump, and clearing 3ft. high balsams when they were in 
the animal's line of flight. 
1 went back and looked into the swamp where the little 
deer had disappeared, and toward which I had seen a small 
buck's tracks leading. I had gone perhaps fifteen rods to 
the swamp when I came to a little opening, where swale 
grass grew and a few raspberry briars showed the nipping 
of a deer's teeth. While 1 was looking at the briars and 
some tracks I heard a twig crack, and on looking up 1 saw 
a deer broadside to me and wrinkling his nose curiously, as 
if I wasn't exactly his kind of a bcquet. He was about four 
rods off. I aimed carefully at his shoulder and fired. He 
turned and trotted away with bis head down like a whipped 
dog's. I found blood, but it wasn't encouraging, for I had 
evidently hit the animal too far back — in the paunch some- 
where I left him, and as it was near dark went to camp. 
"Well," Fred said, "I s'pose you've seen a dozen?" 
"And d rawed quarts of blood." Will added. 
"And haven't got hide nor hair to show for it," Elgie put 
in. 
And I felt sick and mean, saying to the boys that I'd seen 
three and sbot seven times, whereupon they said things, and 
as the meat of the doe was nearly gone guessed that 1 ought 
to let somebody who could shoot take the gun on the day 
following. The next morning, however, I found my buck, 
a three pointer still in the velvet, and dragged him to the 
river, and whooped and danced a while by way of exercise 
and jubilation. 
That afternoon a party from Beecher's Camp (put up by 
Col. Beecber, a son of Henry Ward Beecher) came down, 
having been invited to come down by Fred It sprinkled in 
the morning and it was 11 o'clock before they came down, 
then only two of the three and one guide came Fred had 
explained what he wanted to do and they thought Fred was 
sort of notional. 
Fred and John Jones (of Raquette Lake county, who is 
no relative of Fred's) beat up the island while we watched 
up-at the head. The deer were lig.ble to run away from us 
we thought, but kept a tolerable sort of lookout. I was 
down by the old road; thirty rods away, by a big rock, was 
another man, and so we stretched along to head the deer off. 
I heard Fred and John barking like dogs, and all at once I 
saw something that made me shiver. There was a pair of 
horns bigger than I'd ever seen before, and a patch of white 
just below it with two staring eyes between. I fetched 
up ray gun with a jerk and the deer dissolved into a sort of 
wabbly brush heap: but coming closer, ten rods away he 
stopped. I had followed him with my gun, and aiming ap- 
proximately at his white throat— all I could see of him — I 
fired and broke bis off hind leg. 
That may seem like a foofish proceeding to some folks, 
hitting 2ft. under, but this is how it happened. I've got 
three sights on my rifle — a Lyman front sight, an ordinary 
Bight on tbe barrel and behind the hammer is a Lyman rear 
sight. I put up the rear sight and use all three when deer 
hunting. I'm liable to see all the front sight and half the 
barrel if I don't. I aimed low at the deer and hit where I 
aimed. 
It was as if a man had come up behind him and laid a 
raw-hide whip across bis flanks then, for he leaped mightily 
toward me, and at his second jump I fired again, at his third 
and f oarth jumps I fired too, and be went out of sight. 
There was a crash over the knob in a little swamp fifteen 
rods away, and a tearing along as if some one were dragging 
a hemlock stub through the woods there. The silence that 
followed was sickening. I ran over and there was blood, on 
the leaves of the briars, on a log the animal had jumped 
over, and on the ground where it was mossy. I followed it 
a way then went back where I heard Fred yell. 
Fred had a spruce V ranch about 3ft. long with a nub at 
tbe end, and he waved it around his head. 
"No man," be said to John, "can shoot so fast and see the 
sights." . 
"Where's that big buck— did you get him, er hit him, e? 
anything?" he said to me when I came up. 
I showed the boys the blood and Fled threw the club 
awav. 
"He's yom-3, sure," they said, and I felt better. We 
tracked him, and pretty soon we came to him. He lurched 
up on to his trembling legs and made a plunsie. I started to 
aboot, but Fred grabbed my rifle., while Will grabbed the 
deer's horns, and such horns. Will sat down 10ft away. A 
knife was put to the animal's curl at the base of his neck, 
and in a few moments the largest deer I ever saw was dead 
at my feet, and the boys were all congratulating me. I felt 
as if it must be a dream. Some of them had seen larger deer, 
but none of them bad ever seen a finer pair of antlers taken 
from an Adirondack deer. They were massive rather than 
long, and very regular. At Northwood the hunters told me 
the horns were the heaviest that have come out of tbe wo'ods 
on a pack during the past fifteen years. I had hit him four 
out of four times. 
Tbe rest of the trip I parsed in sitting on a stump before 
the camp, looking at the big head. No more deer were killed 
that trip, but W3 had all the meat we could carry out. 
RAYMOfiD S. Spears. 
3Tew York. 
NEW BRUNSWICK GUIDES AND GAME. 
During the past six months I have received so many 
letters of inquiry on tbe above head that my ingenuity has 
been taxed to the breaking point to answer them. I have, 
however, done all I could to ."upply the information asked 
for. With the kindness of Forest akd Stream I would 
like to make a few remarks that would, perhaps, in large 
measure, meet the points raised by these correspondents. 
First, as to tbe game supply. I am satisfied from my own 
observation and otherwise that moose and caribou are far 
more numerous in this Province than in Maine or Nova 
Scotia, while as yet our deer supplv, though increasing 
yearly, is not nearly equal to that of Maine. The forest of 
New" Brunswick is stil: to all intents and purposes a yirgin 
wilderness. For the past quarter of a centurv the number 
of sportsmen who have availed themselves of the magnificent 
hunting afforded in the autumn months could almost, in any 
given year, have been counted on the fingers of one's two 
hands. They have produced practicallv no effect whatever 
on the supply of moose and caribou. What has decimated 
the moose in past years has been their rutblesa slaushter by 
loggers, wandpring hunters and Indians in the deep snows 
of winter. Of late, however, public spntiment has been 
educated up to a just conception of the value of the big 
game interests of the Province, and a sharper lookout is 
being kept for these gentry. If our Legislature could only 
be prevailed upon to expend a fraction of the large amount 
annually devoted by that of Maine for the preservation of 
game, the illegal destruction of these animals would be re- 
duced to a very small item indeed. 
Now. as to the exact location of the best game regions of 
New Brunswick opinions differ. I have only explored a 
very small part of the vast interior, and will only speak of 
what I personally know or have gathered from :teliable 
sources. Perhaps as convenient a mode of classification as 
any would be to take up each district in its turn. 
Cannan River. — This locality is perhaps the most noted 
moose region in the Province. It lies close to the settlements, 
has been much hunted, but is still well supplied with both 
moose and caribou The best way for the American sports- 
man to reach it is to proceed to St. John and thence up tbe 
Intercolonial to Apohaqui or Sussex, or else by tbe Washa- 
deraoak boat, which tri-weekly runs from St. John to Cole's 
Island. A good man to write to for guides is S. E, Mac- 
Donald, Cherry Vale, Brunswick, Queens county. Two ex- 
cellent guides, whom I can personaHv recommend, are Rich- 
ard Cole, of Sussex, and Cyrus Kierstead, Fork Stream, 
Canaan, Queens county. 
Cains River, — A very large section of country is com- 
prised in this geographical term. Moose, caribou and bear 
are all abundant, Sportsmen going to this locality should 
come to Fredericton, and here take the Canada Eastern Rail- 
way for Zionville or Doaktown. William Chestnut or John 
A. Edwards, of Fredericton, will supply accurate informa- 
tion as to guides. I believe that Chipman Bartlettand Fraok 
Bartlett, Mersereau's P. O , Blissfield, Northumberland 
county; Charles Beek, William and Alex, Storey, Doak- 
town, and James Logan, of Marysville, are reliable guides. 
SoTT-WEST MiRAMTcm. — The sportsman who wishes to 
bunt on this river and its branches should come to Freder- 
icton, thence proceeding to Boiestown and up the river, or 
else up the Gibson Branch of the Canada Pacific Railway 
to Bristol, and thence across country to the Forks. The 
North Branch is a good moose country, and there is more 
than an even chance for success at Miramicbi Lake, McKeil 
13Dgan and Otter Brook, which lie within a few miles of 
each other, about fifteen m'les below the Forks, I am not 
acquainted with any guides residing at the he^d of the river 
whom I should care to recommend. At the Boiestown end 
letters addressed to Edward Norred ©r Alex. McKay (Boies- 
town) will be promptly attended to. The lakes at the head 
of Rocky Brook and the Sisters are within easy striking 
distance of Boiestown, and moose and caribou are plentiful. 
In November, as soon as a good, tracking snow has formed, 
the visiting sportsman may locate at Dafty's Hotel, right in 
Boiestown, and enjoy excellent caribou hunting on the plains 
not more than five miles away, returning to the hotel every 
evening. Mr. Charles Duffy, who runs the hotel, or is run 
thereby, will supply all needed information on this point. 
Perhaps in this connection I might refer to the Little Sou- 
west Lake country, which is reached by way of Boiestown, 
though properly it belongs to the Nor west system. Here is 
where the celebrated guide IIenry,,Braithwaite has control 
of one of the finest hunting regions in the Province. Henry 
has so many scores of applications more than he can attend 
to that he will hardly thank me for any further advertising. 
However, his address is Stanley, York county, and fortunate 
is the man who can secure his services. 
Nor West Miramichi. — The proper point of departure 
for big game expeditions on this river is Newcastle, on the 
Intercolonial Railway. Robert Armstrong, of that place, is 
fully acquainted with all the essential ingredients. The 
upper portion of the Nor- West is perhaps the best country 
for caribou in the Province. It is here that another noted 
guide, Arthur Pringle (of Stanley, York county), has his 
camps. Arthur has few, if any, superiors anywhere as a 
guide. His brother, Tom Pringle (also of Stanley), has 
lately branched out for himself and is a thoroughly reliable 
guide. 
Nepisigttit River. — The beautiful town of Bathurst, on 
the historic shores of Bay Chaleur, is the jumpine-off place 
for all bunting parties on tbe headwaters of the Nepisiguit. 
Henpy Bishop, the local postmaster, is the best man I know 
of to consult about guides. William Grey, Jr., and William 
