18 2 FOREST AND STREAM. IMa^ch «, 1899. 
Gens des Bois.— IL 
Guy Ferguson. 
Though of Scotch ancestry, Guy Fet-guson has few of 
the traits that characterize the old Covenanter stock. He 
works when he has to, and has no more love for wrest- 
ling with knotty, problems than with knotty logs. Such 
jobs he leaves for others, provided he cannot, by the ex- 
ercise of his ingenuity, devise some easy way for cir- 
cumventing the difficulty. His fertility of resource at 
such times stamps him more certainly, perhaps, than 
anything else as a true Yankee. In physique Guy is of 
the greyhound type. 
He is a wiry man, aboA'^e the average height, Avith sandy 
mustache and hair, thin features, quizzical eyes that are 
equally good at pointing a joke or sighting a rifle, and a 
face that as a whole has a singularly expressive power for 
understanding other men. Some men accumulate flesh 
by eating; but with Guy every pound of food taken into 
his system and every plug of tobacco consumed goes to 
make nerve and sinew. 
In off-hand shooting, Guy's hand trembles notice- 
ably, but the organizer of a chicken shoot who knows 
him derives little comfort from the fact, for he ks well 
aware that it is only a question of how many chickens 
he can afford to sacrifice to that unerring aim before he 
may with decency b;vr the iniprofitable contestant. _ > 
Citfy is a quick, shifty farm laborer, but he is chiefly 
known for his ability as a coon hunter, "ginshang" rustler, 
fisherman and locator of wild honey. In these respects 
he has few equals and no superiors, and taken all in all 
he is the representatiA^e woodsman of the hilly Lake 
ChaiTtplain country bordering on the Boquet Valley. 
Bee Hunting. 
"I w^s up on Split Rock Mountain last Sunday, and 
1 got a line on some bees; but I didn't quite locate the 
honey," said Guy one day in September, while he was 
working for me at the Heathcote farm. It was just 
after dinner, and as Guy was fully aware, there happened 
to be no specially pressing work to be done that after- 
noon. He was also aware that on a farm no great waste 
of brain tissue is required to find an odd job to fill in 
the time; so he advanced an additional proposition. 
"It's right up at the head of that clearing back of 
Baldwin's, and when I was up there Sunday T saw a big 
flock of pa'tridge in the young hardbacks; must have 
been ten or a dozen." 
Guy knew his ground. The mention of bees had only 
recalled to my mind the fact that the strawberry bed 
needed hoeing ; but when he spoke of partridge — 
"Guy," I said, "this is no afternoon for work; we will 
go up there and be back in time for the chores." 
The season had only been open a few days, and as I 
was likely to get sitting shots at the partridge. I look 
along a .22cal. Marlin. Just before we reached Albert 
Baldwin's a gray squirrel dropped out of a little butter- 
nut tree by the roadside and ran along the stone wall to- 
ward a larger tree near by. I raised the rifle, but at 
Guy's suggestion lowered it again. 
Guy's Soft Streak. 
"i wouldn't shoot," he said, "that's one of Baldwin's 
pets. The old man feeds 'em corn in winter and likes to 
see them 'round." 
"There's a soft streak in you, Guy," I remarked.^ "I 
4on't believe you like to see other people kill game." 
"Perhaps so," was the reply. 
"You need to be excited even to like it yourself, I 
contintied. "If a coon gets clawing your old dog or a 
partridge fools you* half a dozen times, then you get 
worked up to enjoy hunting. By the way, Guy, what 
ever became of Topaz?" 
"Oh, I didn't want to kill the old cat. He ]ust disap- 
peared." 
"Yes, and he's come to life agam, after six months, to 
steal more chickens. Perhaps you don't know it, but last 
night he was Up at the cow barn waiting for his drink 
of milk, as usual." . , . 
Guy looked over toward the mountain and made no 
answer. < , „ , , , , , 
"Confound you! Guy!" said I; "when you re told to 
kill a cat why don't you kill it? You don't know Avhat a 
shock it gave me to see that beast come walking mto 
the barn. I naturally thought it was the ghost of its twin 
brother, Garnet, that I shot the other day with a chicken 
in its mouth." . 
Guy grinned. "I just naturally liked Topaz, he said. 
"He was one of the best barn cats I ever saw before he 
took to reaching through the wires of the brooder and 
hooking out chickens on his claws. Ever see him kill a 
rat^ 'Tain't safe to hold them first time they're caught, 
you know. Old Topaz 'd give 'em a fling in the air, and 
when Mister Rat come down he nailed him like a flash, 
and you'd lose no more grain through that leak in the 
box." 
The Old Ctearing. 
Crossing a meadow that became poorer and almost 
gave out before reaching the line of forest trees, vve 
climbed a fence, and passing through a sugar maple 
bush, came to a decaying orchard. The trees were 
sprawling and rotten-hearted, and the apples pithy_ and 
about as satisfying to chew upon as imitation griddle 
cakes made of colored flannel. At the further end of 
the orchard were the ruins of a house, contained withm 
the cellar walls, and near by Guy picked up the sole of 
a babv's shoe. t, '» t 
"There was a woman here once, and a baby, he re- 
marked. "They liked it better than the county-house, 
though in winter time thev saw no more people than 
a bear sees in his den. Might just about as well have 
been dead, it seems to me." , , , , , , ^ , 
A tiny brook came down back of the house, and fol- 
lowing this, we made our way up the narrow clearing 
through scattered hickory trees, or walnuts, as they 
ar6 called locally, and isventually^ reached it§ Jimit 
t$pnf\y at the summit ot Ih'® ftf^ii^itafe. \ " 
Setting Up for Bees. 
Guy put his hand under a clump of junipers and 
brought out two smoky brown honeycombs, which he 
set up on broken mullen stalks on a little knolL Bees 
were flitting hither and thither, and soon several had 
settled on the combs. From another clump of junipers 
Guy produced his box, and slipping it up beside the 
feeding bees, snapped the lid down and had one a 
prisoner. The box was divided into two compartments, 
connected by a sliding door. Light was admitted to 
the rear one of these through a glass window, and when 
Guy had seen the bee enter it he pulled the door shut 
and had him where he could again use the first com- 
partment to trap other bees. 
When he had caught four or five for use further along 
the line, we crouched close to the ground to watch 
the flight of the bees on leaving the honey. Guy was 
not quite sure of the direction in which they flew, and 
he wanted to be positi,vc before setting up again.' 
A bee rose lazily from the comb and hung an mstant 
above it, as if suspended by an invisible thread. The 
next it had vanished as lightning vankshes from the slcy, 
leaving an impression of form on the retina, but to 
the uninitiated eye no clue as to its course. 
"See that big maple over there?" said Guy; "didn't 
the bee go just a shade to the left" of it?" 
"It would be too great a tax upon the imagination to 
giv^e an opinion just now," I replied. "I feel as if I 
had just waked up, and my eyes, ateii't suiBciently wide 
open yet." 
After watching several bees pitch off into vacancy, I 
rather imagined Guy was right. If they did not go to 
the left of the big maple. I certainly did not see them 
go elsewhere. We moved ahead into the woods fifty rods 
or so, and then I helped Guy break down some young 
pines, so that he could see over the tops, and wa.tched 
him release single bees, permitting them first to fill 
up on honey before taking flight, so that they wwild 
go straight to their storehouse to unload. A few trials 
sufficed to show that we were on the right line, and 
Guy decided that the bee tree was within a very short 
distance of us down a ravine sloping toward Lake 
Champlain. 
A Brace of Grouse. 
I left Guy walking slowly along, peering into the tops 
of the trees to find the particular hollow trunk in which 
the bees had their honey, and after a little search suc- 
ceeded in locating the partridges in a tangle of brush 
and blackberry bushes. Some one had apparently been 
after them, for they flushed wild and made long flights 
before alighting. Presently, however, I saw one walk- 
ing on the ground at a distance, and followed it along 
a hollow, where the rich black muck gave nourishment 
to thick-leaved, moisture-loving plants. The partridge 
voiced its nervousness from time to time by its whistling 
twitter, as it walked along in its jerky, hesitating way, 
something after the manner of an old muscle-bound 
rooster. It seemed at any moment to be on the point 
of taking flight, but it couldn't quite make up its mind 
to the necessity for such vigorous action. When the 
opportunity ofi'ercd, I aimed at the neck next the body, 
and the bird was mine. 
Walking back toward the hardbacks, I surprised a 
pair on the ground, and by an easy shot bagged a 
second grouse. 
• The mate of this bird flew into a thick, bushy tree 
at the sound of the shot, and I waited fully ten minutes 
without showing myself, thinking it would come into 
view. At the end of that time 1 heard Guy whistle, and 
advancing to pick up the dead bird flushed the one in the 
tree. 
Treeing a Coon on a Man's Head. 
Guy had succeeded in locating the bee treCj btit it was 
then too late in the day to think of cutting it down. 
I suggested returning after dark, but Guy said it was 
safer to cut a tree in daylight. "You can see what you 
are doing then," he said. "It's easy enough to .stop up 
the hole and smoke out the bees, but at night, if the bees 
once settle on you they'll crawl down your neck and 
up your pants on the inside,^ and you're much more 
likely to be stung. I'd rather ' wt hajf a :^zen trees in 
daylight than one after dark, 
"Speaking about the dark," continued Guy, "makes me 
think of coons. Parker Torrence wanted to come out 
with me one night to see what coon hunting was like- 
We knocked a coon out of a tree, and the first thing 
he knew the coon was running 'round between his 
legs, dodging the dog. Parker naturally yelled and 
kicked, for he was between two fires, as you might say, 
with his legs as the battleground, and the coon and dog 
were both a-working their jaws like steel traps, and like 
as not the coon would mistake some of his tender parts 
for the dog, or the dog would take a-hold, thinking he 
had coon; and I don't blame Parker for being a little 
excited-^think I should have been so myself. 
"I got a club as soon as I could, and went for the 
coon, and between me an' the dog it got a litte more'n 
it bargained for, and the first thing we knew it run 
right up Parker Torrence's back and set there on his 
head grinning like one of these here tooth powder ad- 
vertisements. 
"Parker was afraid to grab the coon, for fear he'd get 
his hands bit, and he was afraid to fall over, for fear 
the dog and coon would have it out on his face; and 
he couldn't think much anj'how, for the way the old dog 
was a-climbing over him, trying to reach the coon. After 
a while I got in a whack and did the William Tell act, 
but Parker he said he'd had enough of coon hunting. 
"He said it was worse than joining a lodge, and if 
any one had to get clawed up next time it wouldn't be 
him. He guessed his curiosity was satisfied, and he'd 
know enough to stay home evenings with the old 
woman." 
Seven Coons in One Tree, 
"How many eotJfls- did.yotl ever get at one time, Guy?" 
I asked. 
"Seven," said Guy. "And got em all in one tree. Me 
and Ernie Mather were out back of young Charlie Staf- 
ford's over by South Mountain" — ^he indicated by a twist 
of his head in its genera! direction the mountain^ whicb 
0et§ its name "tewnjse it's 'smth. Nartli llptsntaw^" 
^ "Hunter, my old dog, struck the trail where the coons 
had dim up on a fence and by the way he told about it 
I knew there was more 'n one. Pretty soon we come to 
a big basswood tree that must 'a' been all of 3ft. 
through. I says to Ernie, 'Bet you that's the tree,' but I 
knew well enough I didn't want it to be. Hunter circled 
round two or three times, and each time he came right 
back to the tree and stood up on his hind legs and smelt 
it. He made up his mind the coons was there all right, 
and there he hollered bloody murder. 
"It was a terrible big tree. Well, I tell you, it was the 
biggest basswood in all them woods. Ernie says, 'How 
in thunderation are we ever going to get up there ?' There 
wasn't a limb for 40ft., and it did look to be a pretty ■ 
tough proposition. 
"I remembered that Charlie Stafford had an awful long 
ladder down at his house, and so me and Ernie went 
down there, and we couldn't wake Charlie up or any of 
the folks, but we happened to stumble on tlie ladder 'long- 
side the woodshed, and carried it back with us. 
"Ernie he went up the ladder, and when he came to the 
top, he says, 'Golly, Guy,' he says, 'it's loft. from here to 
the first limb if it's an inch. Is there any soft place down 
there to fall on if I miss connections?' 
" 'No,' says I, 'nawthin' but rocks. YotiVe got to make 
that limb, my boy.' 
"So Ernie dim the tree, and presently he called down. 
'I see somethin' looks like an old nest,' and then, 'No, 
'tisn't. it's a coon. Gosh, there's- two of them.' Then he 
dim up a little further and he says, 'Golly, Guy, I see an- 
other. Guy,' says he, *the tree's full of coons.' 
" 'All right,' says I, 'send us down one for a sample.' 
Sample Coons. 
"So Ernie he shot a coon with his twenty-two pistol, 
and the next one was so close he was touched some way 
and knocked off, and the two came down together. Hunt- 
er he went off for the nearest, which happened to be the 
wounded one, and the other started around the basswood. 
"Thinks I, mister, you got to do something quick, or 
that sample coon '11 be a sample for somebody else, so I 
grabbed the one Hunter had by the tail and give it a sling 
up against the tree thcit settled, it, and sent the dog for the 
other. 
"The coon lit out across a medder, and Hunter wa'n't 
mor'n a foot and a half from her hind parts, but seemed 
as if he couldn't make it an inch less. They went across 
the medder straight as a rocket, and into a piece of 
woods beyond, and Hunter still a foot and a half from 
her tail. 
"The coon went up a Httle pine tree, and Ernie he 
yelled to ask if I wanted him. I said I didn't suppose he 
could get down out of his basswood, and he didn't .say 
nawthin' for some time. By 'n' by I yelled to ask if he 
was coming, and he didn't answer. I was scairt, I can 
tell you, for T didfi't know but what he might 'a' fallen 
out that cussed tree. So I took a piece of rope and tied 
Hunter to the pine so 's to watch the coon, and I started 
back to see what had happened to Ernie. He'el been 
down in the thick woods and hadn't heard me call, and 
about half-way back I met him. 
" 'Where you goin',* he says, and I says, 'You're trying 
to play smart, young feller, making me think you fell out 
of that tree,' He said he hadn't heard me call, and we 
went back to the pine. 
Hunter Gets Revenge. 
"Ernie he dim the tree, and the first thing I knew he 
yelled: 
" 'Look out; the coon's jumped.' Never knew 'em to 
jump 'thout they -vvas knocked out before, but that coon 
done it sure enough, and down she came and started back 
for the basswood. 
"Hunter he put for her and she didn't go a great ways 
before he caught her, or else she ketched him, one or the 
other. At any rate, when I got there she was a-sittin' 
astride Hunter's neck clasping him with her fore pawi; 
and chewin' the top of his head zif it had been an ear of 
green corn. Well, sir, I kicked that coon off in short 
order, and Hunter he set to and finished her savage — had 
his mad up, and I don't blame him either. 
More Coons. 
"Ernie come down, aixl we went back to the basswood, 
and to show you how big it was, he'd taken off his coat 
and wrapped it round the tree to keep the coons up, and 
the two arms just touched the two sides of that ladder. 
"Well, Ernie dim the tree and shot a young one, and 
it squealed some when Hunter took a-hold. Ernie says, 
'Hurry up, Guy,' says he, 'let me send down another. The 
old one 's dim down, an' 's got her front feet on my 
arm, and she's a-pokin' her dirty old face into mine and 
snarlin' and snappin' so 's I don't like her actions !' ' Guess 
he was thinking of the one that had Hunter by the head. 
"I grabbed the young one and slung it up against the 
tree. 'Now,' says I, 'let her come.' So Ernie shot that 
one. Let's see, that's four, ain't it? Yes, four. We got 
three more out'n that tree, that's seven. I never had 
more fun in all my life. 
"There was two old shes, an old he, and four young 
ones. We skinned five of them in the woods and carried 
the other two home to eat. 
"Talk about your dainty dishes ! Ain't in it with a nice 
fat young coon, parboiled and baked. Me and Ernie, we 
had-ourn, and I want nawthing better, lemme tell you. 
No, sir; a nice young coon with all the fat cut off so 's to 
take out the coon taste 's a dish for a king, that's what I 
call it." 
Sense of Direction and Speed. 
Guy was striding along at a great rate, and his stories 
had whiled away the time and we had almost reached the 
house. 
"Were you ever lost in the woods?" I asked. 
"Once in a while on a dark night I've been puzzled a 
little getting my bearings," he replied. "Most generally 
I have an idea though which is the shortest way out." I 
■ recalled the stories I had heard of Guy's marvelous power 
of finding his way at night over the neighboring moun- 
tains, and remarked: 
"I don't wonder you like bee hunting, Guy. You are 
something of a bee yourself in your sense of direction, 
I believe they oocild put you in a tight box and turn it 
round an?! ttitiiri^ thp ws.y DarWia S-i'isJ with the hsfM K§ 
