S6 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tjAM. 31, 1953. 
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mid 
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Proprietor! of ihooting reiortt viU find it profitable to advertise 
them in Foxxst and Stkkau. 
The "White Flag" in Coos. 
It seems queer to find the compatriots of Molly 
Stark in 1778 carefully looking after the pelts of deer, 
when their own skins seemed much more in danger 
of being peppered. The preamble of a New Hamp- 
shire law, passed in November, 1778, discloses a bit 
of history of the actual conditions. It reads thus: 
"Whereas, the killing of deer at unseasonable times 
of the year hath been found very much to the prejudice 
of this State; great numbers thereof having been 
hunted and destroyed in deep snows, when they are 
verj'- poor and big with young, the flesh and skins of 
very little value, and the increase thereof greatly hin- 
dered." 
Therefore they created a close season, between Dec. 
31 and Aug. i, and fixed a very substantial penalty for 
violation of the law, fifteen pounds, making at the 
same time the possession of venison, "newly killed," 
proof of the crime. 
As early as 1740 there were laws in this colony for 
the protection and preservation of deer. This law of 
1778 seems to have existed but a short time, and a 
hundred years after the deer had ceased to be thought 
of as numerous enough in the greater part of the State 
to be hunted successfully. 
A recent article in the Forest and Stream spoke 
of good hunting in Coos County, and we thought it 
a proper time to apply a practical test. We bad been 
there a dozen years ago, and knew that then it was 
not "up to" the "Maine Woods." For ten successive 
years I have tried still-hunting on the snow in the good 
old State of Maine in early December, and have be- 
come a great lover of that locality. Last November 
rumors of small-pox near the hunting territory made 
us shudder with pictures of unvaccinated deer scatter- 
ing contagion through the woods. Surely it would 
never do to go there. 
The greatest authority, your paper, has recently de- 
clared that uncounted carcasses are exposed in lumber 
camps there, with no vigilant warden to record the 
manner or cause of their death. 
And so our party of three, on the 25th of last No- 
vember, took a morning train in a border city of the 
Granite State for far-off Colebrook in Coos. One of 
the party, John, had hunted tame deer in the Sports- 
man's Show, and to him we looked for surprises. One 
tipped the scales at three hundred, and to him we 
looked for a couple of "old big ones." Errol was our 
objective point and George C. Demeritt our host. 
We arrived at Colebrook early in the evening and 
found George C. at the station with assurance that 
early in the morning we could start to make the nine- 
teen miles through Dixville Notch to his home. Every- 
thing was working according to our schedule. 
The morning of Nov. 26 came out of her chamber 
sour, cloudy and raw. We had no snow at home to 
bring with us, and we looked to Coos to celebrate 
with a storm, because it was her reputation that was 
at stake. 
Eight o'clock found us covering the ten miles to 
The Balsams at Dixville Notch. There we restored 
our circulation by walking over the "pitch" and down 
the long incline of a very excellent road. No man 
can easily keep his eyes off the rugged, inspiring scen- 
ery of that famous gap, with its threatening wall of 
tall peaks sharply serrated against the sky. A bitter 
wind through the Notch threw squalls of snow in our 
faces, but so long as there was snow on the wing we 
were reconciled and cheerful. The last nine miles were 
soon over, and best of all the air was getting so thick 
with white flakes that we were beginning to wonder if 
we had missed it in leaving our snowshoes at home. 
After all they are of little use when actually hunting, 
however comfortable for getting from point to point 
in deep snow. 
We sat by the open fire that evening telling stories 
and discussing the morrow, and every now and then 
sent a watchman out to hold the "storm-blast" by the 
power of his "skinny hand" or "glittering eye." Thus, 
we held a tight grip on our fortunes until bed time, 
when we felt secure with full five inches of the best 
snow. That was not quite enough to smother tlie 
noisy bed of frozen leaves, but it was a mighty prom- 
ising foundation upon which to build hopes for Thanks- 
giving Day. We were off for the woods early in the 
morning with our guides, hunting three and a half 
miles to the log camps, where we were to make our 
home for the trip. 
Our host followed with the supplies on a buckboard. 
We scattered to the right and left of the road, and in 
the middle of the afternoon met at the camps and 
compared notes of what we had seen. Only one of 
the party had burnt any powder and no one had drawn 
blood. 
As usual, the sum of the first day's work was infor- 
mation upon which to act on the morrow. Our 
x-quantity, John, had found powder would go off, and 
so would the flicker of a "white flag." We had a 
generous increase of appetite at the evening meal and 
discovered that the buckboard had anticipated this. We 
had packed a big box of extras, and at the head of the 
table sat McGregor, for five days dispensing turkey, 
chicken, sausage, hogshead cheese, cranberries, jelly, 
olives, mince and apple turnovers, popcorn and what 
not. He was a very square-jawed fellow, deep and 
capacious. There he presided and accepted our re- 
spects and humble petitions until exhausted, not a 
spoonful was left to line his internals. 
It was hard to come down to spring beds, matresses 
and sheets, when for years we had been tickled with 
coarse blankets and medicated with fir boughs. We 
endured the change with some kicking, there being no 
alternative. We had a camp all to ourselves, a great 
liardship because we could not watch the preparation 
of Giur meals and gather the fragrance from venison 
stews, that celestial incense that makes camp life a little 
foretaste of better things than conventional mortals 
shall ever enjoy. 
But now, what about hunting? When you have 
spent a day in getting the "lay of the land" and have 
found where the animals are roaming and feeding, you 
cannot get into camp the second night and sit at the 
table on a ticket of flimsy excuses. Something in the 
shape of a liver must come in on a forked stick. We 
were off bright and early and each on his mettle. Our 
road into the camps was flanked on the west by a 
long ridge of hills, broken by a few gaps and valleys, 
and way back of the hills was low ground, swampy in 
places and stretching four miles or more to the Swift 
Diamond. On the east of the road it was about evenly 
divided into ridges and swamps; the ridges good hunt- 
ing, the swamps a useless temptation, a waste of ef- 
fort. A large buck led one of us over the heights to 
the west. He played the usual trick of watching while 
we climbed the hill, and when we reached the crest 
we could see where he had made his bow and gone 
jumping for the flat country of swamps. We did not 
expect to catch him with a shot when we saw where 
he was going, but we have often found a jumper lead- 
ing to the territory where deer were feeding. This 
experience was again repeated. Just a little down the 
slope we struck a logging road, and, going very slowly 
but a little way, on our left, all at once we saw a 
buck watching the hill from which we had come, stand- 
ing in the midst of a clump of small trees. This was 
not the one we had jumped. The eyes of deer seem 
slow to catch glimpses at the side. Carefully our 
.45-70 came to shoulder, and the next instant we saw 
a floundering brown patch under the trees. It was 
a safe shot through the back over the fore shoulders, 
and a good test of the operation of the new "high 
velocity" special cartridges for this rifle. We were 
satisfied with the result: a six-prong buck, young, and 
as fat as the best "stall-fed." One of his prongs was 
broken off short; but never mind, we had got tired of 
using the taxidermist; we had had our sport, and it 
was only ten o'clock in the morning. Up over the 
crest, the guide, sweating and puffing, dragged him, 
and down the hill he went tobogganing against the 
trees. In an hour we had him hanging up in a lumber 
camp at the foot of Beaver Pond, and then the guide, 
Bert, and I consulted the mince turnovers and sausages 
to see what course we had best take for the rest of 
the day. It took us a half hour to get the oracle into 
good deciding condition, and then a "bluff" of a hunt 
to keep our legs in shape for the next day seemed to 
be the wisest answer. Such we made it, and at night 
we came in proud with a red liver on a forked stick. 
This gave us undisputed seats at the evening table; 
but we were not alone in our glory. Our heavy com- 
rade reported a spike-horn hanging upon a stump by 
the road, and John brought back a lost guide, after 
making him climb a tree for bearings, a matter of 
great consolation to us. 
Days of deer hunting are very much the same in 
Maine and Coos. All of us had settled the question 
of the abundance of game. The difficulties in the way 
of getting a successful shot were just the same as in 
other sections; the nature of the ground was practically 
the same and the deer were equally wild and wary. 
There seemed to be more large bucks and less does 
proportionately than we had met with in Maine. We 
would have had better sport and equal success had we 
stuck to our log camps, but one of our guides de- 
clared that over at Millsfield Pond the "woods were 
full of 'em," and as John had been creasing too many 
trees, and shooting at too manj' flickering tails to 
make him perfectly happy, we packed our duffle after 
five days and hunted our way out to the house of our 
host, while he came in with the buckboard. There was 
another good reason for the change. The large man 
and his guide had got on to the fresh track of a cub 
bear. They found where he had caught and eaten a 
"Whiskey Jack" that day, and it was not clear that his 
appetite would not change to a desire for the human. 
To be out of his den in such cold weather looked very 
desperate, and we had nothing but .45-70 pop-guns for 
protection. We couldn't send for Roosevelt, and to 
depend on a little black dog, wont to curl up under 
the stove, was plainly foolhardy. 
And so we went where "the woods were full of 'em." 
How do you suppose we came out? Just as all un- 
easy fools do. We wasted two days in discovery, and 
made but one happy find, and that was John's, namely, 
that the back sight of his rifle would stay anywhere 
his stray thumb or a stick would push it. Thus he had 
been shooting everywhere for seven days, missing 
nothing so certainly as the deer upon which he turned 
his weapon. Lots of chances gone into the land of 
waste! A clean miss with a short range and a deadly 
chance disturbed him the second day at Millsfield. 
When he came home that night he set about unearth- 
ing some explanation that would secure our forgive- 
ness. The use of the target disclosed the trouble, and 
so the guide fitted him out with a little .38-40 carbine 
for the morrow. Every fisherman knows the impor- 
tance of testing a leader when angling for landlocked 
salmon or large trout. No doubt it is equally wise to 
watch the sights of a rifle, making sure that they are 
firmly wedged into their sockets and closely centered 
on the barrel. It saves lots of vain repining and long 
waiting for the next year in which to redeem one's self. 
Our unknown quantity, John, had now but two days 
in which to do the whole work of the trip. Pie had 
shown exceptional staying powers, and one day had 
been manipulating a forked hazel stick. There might 
be a ragged edge of surprise right upon us. When the 
northeast wind opened her door Friday morning she 
had a wide apron full of snow and she shook it with 
wild and rugged will. All day long that door stood 
open, and that apron was still scattering snow when 
the shades of night came down. 
A drive of two miles brought us to Errol Hill, where 
we were to scatter in various directions. The first 
fresh track fell to John before we had separated, and 
ten minutes later we heard his little carbine beating a 
rapid tattoo. It was a cheering signal to us that had 
waited so long for the untried. 
We were in a position to be reached by any frighp 
ened deer, and as none came by us, our confidence 
was strong that the shots had counted. After a long 
day's fruitless hunt over against Umbagog, with snow 
falling so fast that old and new tracks in half an hour 
were undistinguishable, we pulled our weary legs back 
over the hill to where we had separated in the morn- 
ing, and there found our comrades just getting ready 
to drag to the road an eight-point buck, the fruit of 
the early shots we heard. 
Now, of course, a man who comes to the front with 
a desperate rush will be expected to take breath and 
not go tearing ahead the next moment. We tried to 
convince John that he had scored a bullseye and need 
not count on doing it twice in succession. He did not 
believe in the mathematics of chance, nor would he be 
kept down by Dame Fortune to one bullseye. 
Next day we divided up the territory nearer our 
home quarters, and the victor of Friday took the 
swamp and low ridges north and east of Aker's Pond. 
At half past nine he was on a fresh track, one that he 
followed steadily for four hours, expecting every mo- 
ment to sight his game. At half past one Mr. Buck 
was holding up a set of eight prong antlers against 
the branches of a small spruce, all unsuspicious that 
any friend had been so long trying to overtake and 
salute him. The introduction was informal, short, and 
sweet; a heartier greeting could not be conceived. 
The rest of us at four o'clock were toasting and re- 
freshing ourselves by the open fireside and talking 
about another set of antlers that had a spread of 
twenty-one inches, and could not be dragged in till the 
morrow. We did not know what had happened over 
beyond the swamp, and as the moments passed the 
mirth and cheer began to desert us and give way to 
uncanny speculations as to where the other boys were, 
for it was growing very dark and the day had been 
bitterly cold. With the mercury but a little above 
zero, the snow a foot deep, it was no night to bunk in 
the woods without ax and "grub." Would they resort 
to some abandoned logging camp, or would they find 
none, and, stirring to keep from freezing, get deeper 
and deeper into trouble? Everyone had a suggestion 
and nobody any helpful project except to fire a signal. 
No answering shot! The mercury of our thoughts was 
sinking little by little. But someone announced that 
the moon was up and doing pretty well for its size. 
What should we do with the supper, all hot for the 
table? We could not think of sitting down at once, it 
would taste so much better to have our full company. 
It seemed like sacrilege to be eating, with the glory 
of the preceding day lost in the swamp. But in the 
midst of all this tangle of conjecture and anxiety, we 
heard the stamping off of snow on the porch, and 
rushing to the door we fairly yanked the boys into 
the house, where we broomed the snow off and put 
them through the catechism. They "hadn't been lost" 
and "they hadn't fallen into Aker's Pond." They had 
been running a road through the woods, and hanging 
back, just to scare us and let us find out how well 
we liked them. When we found out what the young 
man had done, we expressed fervent thanks that he 
had not discovered the trouble with his rifle the first 
of the trip, for if he had he would have been ready 
to go home the third day. That would have used us 
all up, for if there is anything we can't stand, it is less 
than a ten days' trip. 
But supper was ready, and how it tasted after such a 
happy return. There was an old-fashioned chicken pie, 
baked in a dish as big as a milk pan. It was done to 
the finest brown, with upper and lower crust. There 
were all sorts of the best things to go with it, and 
when we arose from the table we rejoiced that the old 
county of Coos is rich enough to "spread" with two 
Thanksgiving dinners. 
And now the long-looked-for hunt is over, and we 
must wait for another Thanksgiving time, following 
the sport in our minds meanwhile, and outwitting many 
a wary listener on the ridges, chewing his cud with 
eyes on the back track. 
If the State of Maine passes a hunter's license law 
and it disturbs the feelings of those who "want the 
earth" at the other fellow's expense, here in Coos is 
a fine chance to keep up the sport under the most 
promising conditions. Dan Hole, 
Maine Game* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Some of those who write of Maine game and a great 
part of those who read their articles have a very im- 
perfect knowledge of our laws and the conditions of 
our game. Two recent writers state that unless the 
laws allowing one moose, one caribou and three deer 
to be killed by one person are repealed our game will 
soon be extinct. 
Now, as to caribou, we have had none for several 
years. They were not killed off, but migrated. Be- 
sides this, there has been an all-year close time on 
them. 
As to deer, it is years since any one was allowed to 
kill over two. A writer in a Boston paper tells us 
that we only have 100,000 deer in the State; that this 
year 20,000 were killed, and that at this rate they will 
last only a few years. Allowing his statements to be 
correct (and they are not), we should now have 80,000 
left. As deer are usually born in pairs, one of each 
sex, it is fair to call one-half of these does — each doe 
has two fawns. Now allowing a loss of one-half for 
barren does and fawns which died before maturity, and 
we should have an increase of 40,000 a year for the 
first year. I should like to know how long it would 
take for a ra.ce" to become extinct, which increases 
40,000 in a year and only loses 20,000. 
I have had, perhaps, as fair a chance to estimate as 
most men, and I believe that 10,000 is a plenty large 
enough estimate of all killed in this State, and as to 
the 100,000, I think we have twice that. Our commis- 
sioners have tried to ascertain the number killed by 
having the guides report the number killed by parties 
they guided. They make out some 6,000. Doubtless 
they intend to be earnest; but as often only two men 
will have three guides, and larger parties four to six, 
I 
