t?EB. t, 1902.] 
Disease Among: the Whitetails. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I went down on the Missouri River a short time ago 
on a little hunt, but only killed one whitetail. The 
whitetail deer are very scarce on the river this 
fall. There was some sort of a disease among them 
in September that killed a great number, mostly 
bucks. I saw three dead bucks in one point of the river. 
People living on the river say that the deer would get 
sick and die in from three to four days after being taken 
sick. Their lungs would swell up and be full of water, 
which would soon kill them. The disease did not seem 
to affect the blacktail deer or antelope, which seems 
curious. 
The game wardens have done some traveling around 
this fall, and have made quite a number of arrests. The 
Crees and half-breeds, I tell you, are very careful out 
here now. They don't drive the points and run deer with 
hounds as they used to. I saw a colony of breeds 
on a point across from Armell's Creek, but I never saw 
any meat or hide in their camp, and I can say it is the 
first breed camp I ever saw on the river that did not 
have a lot of deer hanging around in camp. 
We are having the best winter so far I ever saw in 
Montana; no snow and the finest kind of weather. 
W. J. A. 
Hays, Mont , Jan. 10, 
The Blacfcsnafce on the Trail. 
Editor Forest and Stream; 
One afternoon last summer while seated on a log m 
the woods, I saw a very small rabbit hopping past, and it 
ran into a heap of brush a short distance off. • 
Soon after that— perhaps two or three minutes after- 
hearing a slight rustling among the bushes and leaves, I 
turned and saw a blacksnake about five feet in length, with 
head some six inches from the ground, coming on the 
track of the rabbit. It seemed to follow in exactly the 
same place, and also went into the brush heap. 
Being much interested, I arose quietly and started for 
them. Just then the rabbit went out on the full run, and 
the snake after it, and I after the snake, which soon 
changed its course for a near-by swamp and got away. 
Now. until it got to the brush heap the snake was evi- 
dentlv following its prey by scent alone, for it could not 
possibly have kept the rabbit in sight through that growth 
of grasses, weeds and small bushes with its head ele- 
vated only a few inches. 
I have never heard that a snake ever follows its prey by 
sense of smell alone, but it looked very much that way 
in this case. I would like to hear through Forest and 
Stream from others who are interested in herpetology in 
regard to it. A. L. L. 
Milhurst, N. J., Jan. 21. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
86 
The Porcupine's Quills. 
Napanee, Ont, Jan. 13.— Editor Forest^ and Stream: 
In your issue of Jan. 4, re "Porcupine Quills," I do not 
agree with the fishery overseer that the animal has the 
power of throwing his quills at any time. I inclose a few 
taken by myself from a porcupine fourteen months ago 
while I was on a hunting trip out north. The dark end 
is the business end ; notice that the other end grows from 
the skin, and that the quills are interspersed with the hair, 
and it is not hard to pull them out. The fine point will 
enter a buckskin glove and pull from the animal about 
as easily as pulling hair. 
I have seen a number of dogs suffering from a dose 
of quills. They usually get the quills in the mouth large- 
ly, showing clearly to my mind they get them in an at- 
tempt to seize the animal in the mouth. 
Wm. Rankin. 
\mt{t §zg und §ttn. 
Proprietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Forest and Stream. 
Hunting with Henry Braithwaite. 
I. — The Moose Country. 
Remembering that November brings tracking snow in 
the great New Brunswick woods, my friend, Charlie 
Small, and myself rolled into the station at Fredericton 
on the first Monday in that month; and on the plat- 
form, true to appointment made the spring before, we 
saw the friendly face of Henry, looking earnestly for his 
boys. It is good to see new faces sometimes, but it is 
better to see old ones, when they light up with pleasure 
at the sight of you. And so, from Christy, the hack- 
driver, to Mr. Flewelling, the deputy surveyor-general, it 
made one feel among friends to be greeted with a con- 
stant stream of well-wishing. Mr. Small had never been 
in New Brunswick before, but in about half an hour he 
became convinced that he always lived there. We took 
the Canada Eastern for the fifty-mile run to Boiestown 
in a couple of hours, and this was perhaps fortunate for 
everybody. Even as it was, the expressions of friendship 
were so emphatic and varied that we never noticed the 
absence from the train of the little steamer trunk contain- 
ing all our ammunition and old clothes, until just before 
we got to'Cross Creek. Then, in looking over the stuff 
in the baggage car — everybody rides in the baggage car 
when he goes hunting via the Canada Eastern — we 
couldn't find the trunk. Well, we just telegraphed back 
to have it brought up by wagon that night, so as not to 
lose a day. Ambrose Holt was at Boiestown to meet 
us, and we went up to his farm at Pleasant Ridge to 
stay all night. His house is within a mile of the big 
woods, and he always hauls our stuff in as far as the 
Crooked Deadwater, which is the head of horse navigation. 
Meanwhile, Henry stayed down at Duffy's hotel in Boies- 
town, to hustle up the rear-guard with that indispensable 
trunk. We were sorry for Henry, for when he stays down 
at Duffy's the boys always try to make the occasion 
memorable, and from what he said the next day I think 
they succeeded in breaking the record. 
Charlie Small and I slept like Christians in Mr. Holt's 
comfortable farmhouse, and when we were dressing the 
next morning, looking out of the window, we saw a spring 
wagon come tearing into the door-yard, with Eli Taylor, 
Henry and the trunk. The young man who had driven 
up from Fredericton to Boiestown, forty-eight miles, in 
the night, had never been over the road before, but he 
was dead game, and he waked them up at Duffy's at 
four o'clock in the morning. Eli and Henry had done 
the rest, and there was great joy as we opened up the 
trunk and disguised ourselves for the woods. We could 
have gotten along without the clothes, but we had to 
have the cartridges, because there were no others this 
side of London that would fit our guns. 
Henry and I have got the personal equipment business 
down fine. One pair of old trousers, any kind at all; six 
pairs of woolen socks, country knit; one pair of larri- 
gans; one pair of snowshoes; six or seven cartridges; 
one pair of mittens, one coat if you want it, though you 
will never wear it. This is all the luggage I take. Henrv 
looks after the grub and bedding. 
Out of the Pleasant Ridge settlement, as the team was 
being hitched, came Charlie Cameron, the surpassing 
cook; Jerry Fowler and Theodore Pond, of the lugging 
department, whose peculiar usefulness appeared after we 
had left the team behind and gone on into the real 
country. 
In all the years I have been going across William 
Carson's field, back of the Holt farm, I have often won- 
dered why there was no more clearing done; and I men- 
tioned it to Henry. He told me how it was, and it is 
mighty interesting. 
Seven or eight years ago, when Mr. Blair was premier 
of New Brunswick, a bill was passed allowing the lease, 
for lumbering purposes, of all the crown lands of the 
Province, at not less than $4 per square mile. Once 
leased, the lumbermen hold these lands for twenty-five 
years, on the payment of a nominal rental, whether they 
cut any lumber or not. When they do cut any, they pay 
a stumpage fee of so much per thousand.^ 
All the lartd worth lumbering (and this includes all 
the land worth clearing for cultivation) is thus locked up 
under lumbering leases. This makes of all central New 
Brunswick a vast forest reserve, which will not be open 
to settlement for years to come. So the boundaries of 
Mr. Carson's back field remain as they have been; no 
new clearings are being made; and between the last 
farmhouse and the first moose-gfound there is a strip, 
miles in width, of some of the most beautiful hardwood 
ridges and spruce forest that it has ever been my delight 
to see. If this arrangement is sending all the New Bruns- 
wick boys to the States to make homes, it is at least 
keeping the country a paradise for game, and in the 
past few years the moose have multiplied almost beyond 
belief, while the people have not. 
About six miles from the clearing, close by the portage 
road, lies a huge stick of square pine timber, moss-grown 
and decayed. Old Tom Hunter has often told me how, 
sixty years ago one Saturday, he overlooked that log 
when hauling for his father. Where, in any community of 
the United States, can one find a sixty-year-old sawlog 
lying where it was cut, with deep woods still all 
around it? 
To the man who is accustomed to hunt in Michigan 
or Wisconsin or Maine the experience we had in the 
very matter of going in would be notable and unique. 
With the exception of a lumber crew here and there in 
the lower country, around the Dungarvon. and along the 
Crooked Deadwater, the whole wilderness was deserted. 
We were going where for a month we. should not hear 
a rifle shot except our own, where no rival camp-fire 
smoked heavenward. As a matter of fact, Henry had 
three hunting parties in before ours this year, and Tom 
Pringle, Henry's efficient lieutenant, had piloted a St. 
Louis gentleman and his daughter to the edge of the 
great game kingdom, where on the fifth day each had 
slain a fine moose. William Carson had guided one party 
a day's march into the moose pasture, where their .30 
calibers lost them seven wounded moose. And in the 
vast forest extending north, east and west, no other 
sportsmen had been all this year, till you reach Adam 
Moore's ground on the Tobique, or the waters of the 
Nor'west Miramichi. In all North America I know of 
no such combination of game profusion, accessibility and 
freedom from other hunting parties. New Brunswick is 
as yet an unknown field to most Americans, and I have 
had a very good little map engraved, which shows where 
we went, for the benefit of the readers of this article. 
Moose hunting in winter is no boy's game; and as we 
had to walk more than fifty miles to come to Henry's 
home camp, you may think ^ve had a sore-footed time of 
it, soft as we were, just from city offices. But it was 
hard traveling for the horses, with the wooden-shod 
sled, and they moved slowly. Charlie and I went ahead 
of the team, and every little while, as we stepped easily 
along the old portage road, we would sit down on a 
providential log, and wait till it seemed as though the 
men and horses must have gone some other way. Then 
at last we would hear the distant voice of Ambrose, 
encouraging Bob and the Colonel to struggle on with 
the sled. Henry had about 800 pounds of a load on the 
vehicle, and it was bare ground in the road. Such a 
fine open fall had not been known for years. We only 
made twelve miles that day, and tented in the door-yard 
of a decayed lumber camp on the banks of Salmon 
Brook. 
The tent was soon pitched. Then came the moose- 
birds. I thought Henry and I had thinned them out 
some when we were bear hunting in the spring, but there 
were as many as ever. After we saw a moose-bird — 
hereafter in this article called by his local name of gorby 
— rob a poor little chipping-bird of her darling brood, 
murdering them in cold blood, I registered an oath that 
no gorby should rob any more birds' nests if I could 
get a look at him along a gun barrel. Charlie Small 
had a beautiful .30-30 along with him, and it was great. 
I have seldom seen any rifle more deadly on gorbies. 
Its penetration and shocking powers on these birds were 
excellent. I only saw one gorby that had been wounded 
by a .30-30 this fall, that had lived. This is gospel truth. 
Up at the Moccasin Lake camp one of Henry's parties 
in September shot at a gorby and knocked off the end 
of its beak. When we got up there I caught this gorby 
in a box-trap and had it in the camp. Its bill was a 
misfit, but it was in good health. The bullet evidently 
had not expanded. 
The men had a fire of their own that night, and scorned 
any tent, curling up under their blankets, their heads 
inside, and no roof between them and the stars. In the 
night a little owl made a noise like the filing of a saw. 
I heard him in my dreams, and felt the biting caress of 
the cold air; and I felt happy beyond all words that now 
I was really at home again. 
The second morning out we were passed on the road 
by Warren Malone and Charlie Patchell, going up to run 
a line for Tim Lynch, who has a block of timber on the 
North Pole branch. They went on ahead, talking and 
laughing, and half an hour later we, following on behind, 
came to where the road skirts Hurd Lake for half a mile. 
As soon as I looked the lake over I saw two moose stand- 
ing in the water at the lower end. We followed the 
portage down to the end of the lake, and turned into an 
old hauling road that ran within ten feet of the shore. 
Of course a partridge flew up. Henry and I have often 
wondered what wages the moose pay the partridges to 
keep watch for them. But these moose were doubly 
warned, for the 'partridge scared up a deer that was 
lying in the logging road, and he ran straight for the 
lake. A hundred yards further on we caught the gleam 
of the water through the bushes, and beheld as pretty a 
sight as God ever made. The two moose had not moved, 
but were looking fixedly at the spot in the bushes where 
we were. They had surely heard us. The old cow was 
a little uneasy, but her calf was consumed with curiosity. 
Every second or two he would take a -step nearer to us. 
Big as four deer he looked, and while his mother ran 
splashing to the shore and hid in the woods, he simply 
gazed as though he would stare us out of countenance, 
while the water dripped from the corners of his lately 
submerged mouth. Charlie and I both had our rifles 
in om hands, and Charlie said afterward that it was fine 
training in steady-handedness to hold the bead on the 
black foreshoulder for a full minute with no thought of 
I'r ? inall y we stepped out in plain view, and then the 
youthful moose concluded to see why his mother had gone. 
Charlie began from this time forth to take more than 
a perfunctory interest in the assurances of Henry and 
myself that he should surely have a shot at a moose. 
A little after noon that day we came out on the old 
Rocky Brook portage, which for seventy-five years has 
been the scene of lumber operations. It is one of the few 
historic highways of the wilderness, dating back to the old 
days of square timber. Nowadays the lumbermen cut 
a new portage road every year or so. I once asked 
one of them why this was done, instead of all uniting and 
making a good road. He said there wasn't money 
enough in spruce logs for one man to improve another 
man s road, so each man cut his own ! The roads all fill 
up with trees every winter anyway. 
It took four days of tramping and three nights of 
tenting out to reach the first of Henry's camps on the 
Crooked Deadwater. By this time I came to the conclu- 
sion that we were a lucky crowd. Beside Ambrose who 
was going back with his team, there were six men in the 
party, four of them employed to smooth the way for 
two ; and no matter how cold the night was, everybody 
had a smile and a cheery word in the morning. 
The lumbermen have closed in around the Crooked 
Deadwater ra the last few years, and this winter they 
are cleaning out the last marketable spruce. The log- 
ging has not jarred the moose any, for they stick to 
Rumseys ridge and somber old County Line Mountain 
as of yore. Next year, when all this country is quiet 
again, there will be great doings in moose here, because 
of the new feed. Now Henry uses this camp merely as a 
stopping place on his way to the home camp at Little 
Sou west Lake. The only regular residents of the camp 
now are the white-bellied mice, which Henry says would 
let him- get rich if they would only stop cutting up his 
blankets. He wages war on them incessantly, and there 
were ten of them in a wooden bucket, under a layer of 
floating meal, collected since he left camp the week be- 
tore going out. 
At this camp we began to see left-over ammunition of 
former hunting parties this year and last— cartridges of 
all the new shapes; .30-30S, .30-40S, Savage .303s and 
Mannhchers. 
"And every one of these different kinds of cartridges 
for small-bore rifles," said Henry, "has wounded and 
lost a lot of moose this fall." 
The next morning we went over to Henrv' s home camp 
on Little Sou west Lake. The men made two trips, half 
the way before dinner and half-way after, and as there 
were partridges along the road, I undertook to pilot 
Charlie over ahead of the others. There were a good 
many roads leading down to the lake, and I kept to the 
mam portage. But when- I had gone about half as far 
again as the camp should be, I began to suspect mv 
ability as a guide. I told Charlie I thought I had got him 
lost but he didn't seem to mind it much, and when, half 
an hour after we sat down to consider the matter, we 
saw the rapid approach of Messrs. Cameron, Fowler el 
al. concealed beneath large packs of provisions and bed- 
ding,, we were very proud, and bragged of our ability to 
keep the right road. We revealed our secret to Henry 
that night, and he said, "Always remember, when you 
are traveling in the woods, to go twice as far as you 
think you ought to, and then a little further, and you will 
be almost there." 
On the way we passed the place where Dan Kelly, lum- 
ber boss at the Crooked Deadwater dam, saw a big 
wounded moose, a victim of a .30-40. just able to keep out 
of Dan s way, so he could not kill the poor animal with 
his axe. but not strong enough to run fast. Dan said the 
moose was so poor that his ribs showed pitifully, and he 
was dragging one hip. Henry said he was certain this 
was one of the moose out of the nine wounded and lost 
by small bores this fall in the hands of portsmen he 
had taken into the woods. 
Henry's home camp is the cook's half of a former lum- 
ber outfit. It is large and commodious, and fitted up 
with a long bunk, a cook stove and "ram down" or sheet- 
iron heating stove that gets red hot in three minutes; 
benches, a table, a gun rack and all the enn forts of a 
woodland palace. 
The next day after we reached there, Henry and I 
thought we would attend to the meat question. Four or 
five inches of snow had fallen, the wind was hlowing so 
