Marcs 2I, 
FO]^EST AND STREAM, 
k23 
He now became greatly enraged and hammered them 
over the back with his rifle, whereupon they set up a 
loud howling. At this juncture Club Foot rushed out 
and made for Bob, but when he was almost upon hint 
four of the dogs attacked the bear, and he turned to 
defend himself. In the scuffle the chief was knocked 
down; my snowshoe caught in a bush and I plunged 
head-foremost into a drift, and slid under a mass of 
fallen timber. I heard the bear and dogs fighting furi- 
ously for some time. After the battle appeared to be 
over I crawled out. Not a human being was in sight, 
three of the dogs were dead and another lay wounded 
upon the snow. I shouted, and in answer Jim slid 
down from a tree. Suddenly a mound of snow arose 
in front of me, and Chief Bob shook himself out from 
a drift, where he had crawled while the bear and dogs 
were fighting. Club Foot had made good his escape, 
but we knew that he would return, as the snow was so 
deep he could not travel far. We hunted up our guns, 
killed the disabled dog, and went to camp. 
"The squaws made all manner of fun of us, and said 
if we would lend them the guns and the remaining dog 
they would return and kill the bear. The chief was 
greatly chagrined at this, and came to me for advice. 
I told him that I proposed to make a cartridge from 
our blasting powder, creep close to the cave, light it and 
throw it in and blow up bear, den and all. He hesi- 
tated a few seconds, then asked, 'Who will throw the 
bomb?' 
"'Who will throw the bomb? That's a great ques- 
tion,' I replied. 'If I had asked to be chief, I wouldn't 
put such a question as that.' 
" Til blow him up ; I'll blow him up,' he answered. 
"We wrapped several sticks of giant powder tightly 
in strips of gunny sacking, bound them with heavy 
cord and soaked the bomb in water, which had no 
damaging effect on the powder, but strengthened the 
force of the explosion. 
"This time we left the dog behind and stealthily ap- 
proached the cave. The braves were halted about 50 
yards away, and Chief Bob, Jim and myself went ahead. 
I climbed a tree commanding a good view into the den. 
While Bob held the bomb, Jim lit the fuse and put 
down the mountain side. The braves saw him coming, 
and they too ran. I saw the fuse smoking and sputter- 
ing, and called to Bob to throw it, but he seemed not 
to hear me. The fire had burned to within two inches 
of the powder, and still the Indian stood looking into 
the cave as though petrified. 'Throw it, Chief! throw 
it!' I again shouted. Bob raised the bomb above his 
head, and was in the act of following my command, 
when Club Foot, roaring with rage, rushed out from 
the darkness. The chief hurled the bomb with all his 
strength and ran for his life. It was a good cast. The 
cartridge landed almost in the face of the bear. The 
infuriated beast grabbed the sputtering, smoking bundle 
between his teeth. There was a loud report and the 
air was filled with smoke, dust and flying pieces of 
rock. I was nearly thrown from my perch, and the 
chief was hurled several feet into the snow. The 
echoes vibrated and revibrated, then everything was 
still. 
"The Indians and Jim now returned, and after the at- 
mosphere had cleared we went into the den. Blood 
and pieces of flesh were spattered upon the rocks, and 
the remains of Club Foot were almost buried in debris. 
We hauled him out and found that the explosion had 
blown away half his body. Enough remained to prove 
that he was a huge animal. He must have weighed at 
least 1,400 pounds. On skinning his hips, we found 
nine buckshot and a navy ball was embedded in his 
club foot. 
"Chief Bob now became very boastful, and made long 
harangues to his followers. They sledded the re- 
mains of the bear, together with the four dead dogs, to 
camp, and for three days did nothing but eat, dance and 
be merry. 
"The following summer I visited the cave again, and 
found a gun, and the skeleton of an Indian near by, 
while the rusty remains of a hatchet were embedded in 
a tree." J. Alden LoRiNa 
A Maine Woods Walk in Sixty- 
One — L 
BY MANLY HARDY. 
Late in March in the spring of '61, wishing a vacation, 
I thought I would take a trip up north and visit some of 
my hunting acquaintances. As I wished to start from the 
head of Chesuncook, something over one hundred miles 
from Bangor, and as the stage went only to Katahdin 
Iron Works, about half way, I liired a team at Bangor 
to take me to the head of Chesuncook. 
It had been raining for two days and the snow was 
very deep, so I got only about thirty miles the first day. 
That night it froze and the next noon we reached 
Katahdin Iron Works. Beyond the iron works there was 
only the regular tote road traveled solely by double teams. 
Any single sleigh had to have the thills "set over" so that 
the horse could walk on one sled track. As the sleigh of 
my driver was not set over his horse plunged so in the 
snow, which was over four feet deep, that we went only 
a short distance before he refused to go any further and 
urged me to return with him. However, leaving my over- 
coat with him and taking my rifle, snowshoes and a bundle 
containing a hunting frock, a pair of Indian moccasins 
and a few pairs of stockings, I started to walk fifty miles 
of the distance he was hired to carry me. 
Walking in a tote road, one has to keep exactly in the 
narrow sledshoe track, and this is much more difficult 
than walking in the main road. That night I reached B 
Stream Shanty, and as there was no other stopping place 
within ten miles, I stopped there for the night. 
This shanty was a long structure of logs, roofed with 
cedar splits, divided into three parts, the first like a regu- 
lar lumber camp, having bough berths and a fire in the 
center, the second was the dining room, and the third was 
reserved for the family who kept the shanty. 
By dusk twenty or thirty men had come in, parts of 
various crews who were going _ out of the woods. All 
were happy at the prospect of going out of the woods into 
"the States," and were full of joke and fun. Two or three 
of them posed as head lumbermen settling up with their 
crews. Calling up one of the others they would proceed 
to read from an old newspaper an imaginary account of 
his work and what he had had from the firm. The settle- 
ment would be about as follows: "You went in Novem- 
ber I at $20 a month; that makes one hundred dollars of 
wages due. You were sick so many days, board at a dol- 
lar a day. Add such a number of pounds of tobacco at a 
dollar a pound, and " then would follow an itemized 
bill of clothing at wangan prices, which are about three 
times the cost out in the States — and the employe would be 
informed that he was in debt five or ten dollars on his 
winter's work. Then would follow a consultation on the 
profits of the season : they had had a great deal of shovel- 
ing which was expensive, but had kept the crew mostly 
on beans and other cheap food, so that they were in hopes 
to come out with a profit. Some of the hits on the opera- 
tors were keen ones, very much relished by the crowd. 
One man, on being asked what he intended to saw his 
lumber into, replied that "two by tapering was the most 
salable dimension, and he should put all his cut into that." 
An old tote teamster who had broken his whiffle-tree and 
was trying to fit the irons to a new one had become the 
butt of the crowd. Everyone was giving him advice. 
"Uncle, you are getting that too small," one would say. 
Then he would have to pull the hot iron out of the fire 
and try it. Another would advise him another way. At 
last, thoroughl}' exasperated, he turned on them with: 
"Who the devil is making this whiffle-tree, you or I?" 
This night all was life about the shanty. It was a 
pleasant sight going ont'in the hovel to see through the 
air, thick with steam, twenty or thirty horses contentedly 
munching their feed. 
The next morning after breakfast I started again. Be- 
fore reaching the Roach River Shanty, ten miles beyond, 
a cold rain began and I was quite wet before getting 
there. It cleared about the middle of the afternoon, and 
I again started out, this time for the Grant Farm, fifteen 
miles distant. 
I had heard that on the way I should pass near the 
camp of my old friend, Henry Clapp, of Brownville. 
Finding the path to it, I visited it, but it was de- 
serted. It was not a great protection against a Maine 
winter, being simply a double lean-to of brush with a 
fire in the middle. On the way I learned that he and his 
partner had killed ten moose during the winter. 
I reached the Grant Farm about dark without having 
met a person on the way. At that time the Grant Farm 
was a large clearing in the middle of the forest. It was 
built of lumber whip-sawed on the spot. There was also 
a very large barri, all the boards of which had been whip- 
sawed. It was covered with long shingles of rifted cedar. 
It had been burned in 1857, and I was there when they 
were rebuilding it. 
As the next morning was Sunday, and I never traveled 
Sundays, I planned to stay where I was. After break- 
fast, as the proprietor, old Foster Wood, was sweeping 
up the floors, he asked me if I Avas going to start out soon. 
On _my replying that I intended to stop there for the day, 
he informed me that I should probably see some things 
T would not like, and perhaps should enjoy myself better 
traveling. On my asking what I should see that I should 
object to, he told nie that there would be a great many 
men coming in from the neighboring camps, and before 
night a good many of them would be drunk. On my ask- 
ing him if he sold rum, he replied: "Yes, I have to; I 
tried to get along without it at first; Mr. Coe did not 
want me to; but I can make more off from two barrels 
of rmn than off the whole of the rest of the shanty-keep- 
ing for the year. And besides if I didn't keep it people 
would go straight by to Joe Morris's" (which is ten miles 
beyond) . 
It turned out about as he predicted. By noon from 
twenty-five to thirty men had come in from various camps 
within a radius of five or six miles. They took this op- 
portunity to come to a common center to exchange news 
and incidentally to get something to drink. Among others 
who came in was my old friend Roderick R. Park, one 
of the most noted shots and still-hunters in Maine. He 
informed me that he had lately shot ten moose in the 
vicinity. 
Although there was some drinking, there was no quar- 
reling, in spite of some pretty sharp joking. Fester 
V/ood, the proprietor, who had been drinking some, was 
very partial to the head men of crews who had come in. 
He had been talking some time with one named Jase 
Hamilton, a man who stood six feet four and had to lean 
over in order to get on a level with Wood. Some one 
across the shanty called him to come OA'^er to that side. 
He hiccoughed : "1^ — should be — glad to— but I've got so 
drunk — taking old Foster's breath — that I can't walk." 
In point of fact he was perfectly sober, not having drunk 
a drop. 
Later in the afternoon the crowd began to disperse. 
Just at sunset, when there were but seven besides myself, 
one of our best known lumbermen drove up in a jumper, 
and, seeing me at the door, on the strength 01 my having 
given him a dinner in the woods four years before, came 
in and ordered a bottle of rum and a tumbler of molasses, 
for which he paid a dollar. As I never drink, I declined. 
The others were invited one after another, and to my sur- 
prise not a man of them touched the liquor. Mr. Wood 
pocketed his dollar bill and kept his wet goods. 
Just at dark two young men named Butler came in, 
bringing two bear cubs. Their dog had found the old 
bear that afternoon in a den under the roots of a tree, 
where her breath had frozen the snoAV around so that 
after killing her they had a good deal of chopping to get 
her out. The cubs Avere a little larger than full-grown 
cats. On putting them on the floor they at once com- 
menced to walk around the room close to the wall, crying 
Wagh ! wagh ! as cubs always do when they are hungry. 
On my saying that they were hungry and needed to be 
fed, there arose the difficulty of finding anything which 
they could eat, as no cow was kept on the place. I sug- 
gested molasses. This seemed to agree with the cubs' 
ideas and they ate eagerly all that was given to them. 
That night we slept upstairs, all in one berth, hunters, 
lumbermen, tote teamsters and others, covered with one 
long spread. The bed smelled strongly of spirits of tur- 
pentine, which had been sprinkled over the boughs to keep 
oft' smaller bedfellows. I remember one of the men say- 
ing "It seemed as if old Foster had spilled some of his 
rum into the berth." . , 
Among others in the foft was the farm blacksmith, 
Alec Maxfield. He had an old-fashioned flat brandy bot- 
tle with an eagle on one side which he placed on a barrel 
at the foot of the berth with a candle behind it and said 
he had got him drunk down to the bill and he was going 
to drink him down to the tail. Occasionally he would get 
up and take a drink and pass the bottle back and forth to 
those who were similarly inclined. After one of his visits 
to the bottle, he suddenly remembered the bears, and 
thought that they ought to have a better sleeping chance. 
Going down stairs he soon appeared with the two cubs, 
which he slung into the berth. One of them made his way 
to me, and as I treated him kindly he first tried to nurse 
my nose, but afterwards found the lower part of my ear 
more to his liking, and we both went to sleep, he nursing 
my ear. 
I had taken the precaution to pay my bill the night be- 
fore, so when I judged that it was getting toward day- 
light, I left the bears and the other occupants and started 
in the dark on the ten mile walk to Joe Morris's. 
Although it was bright star-light overhead, as soon as 
I had got under the shadow of the woods it was very 
hard work keeping the sled track. After going two or 
three miles I came to where a tote road branched to the 
right, and hearing a loud crackling and seeing the woods 
lighted as by a fire, I went in to investigate. I found a 
large set of camps nearly burned to the ground. I could 
see within the remains of the baker's and other cooking 
tools now red with the heat. I had heard before that 
a man named Frank Black had committed suicide at this 
camp and that the crew, being superstitious, all had left. 
Some one of those visiting one of the shanties had prob- 
ably set it afire. It gave one a weird sensation, standing 
alone there in the forest in the darkness before dawn 
lighted only by the burning camp. 
Returning to the main tote road I had walked several 
miles further and it was getting just light enough to dis- 
cern objects, when I sav/ a tall lumberman coming at a 
dog-trot down a slight elevation. He was clothed in 
white overalls and a red shirt. Some time before getting 
to me he reached into the breast of his shirt and drew out 
a roimd bottle of the sort commonly known as Cherry 
Bitters bottles. As he was passing me in the opposite 
sled track, without stopping his trot he reached the bottle 
across to me, saying: "My friend, do you ever smile?" 
On my answering in the negative, he said : "I do myself 
sometimes," and pursued his way without another word 
or stopping his trot. This was the only sign of life in 
ten miles. 
I reached Joe Morris's before breakfast. The Morris 
Shanty consisted of a log house and a medium sized barn 
situated in a small clearing about one mile from Caribou 
Lake. In the barn I saw the mother of the two bear cubs 
and four moose, the latter having been killed by a man 
named Horatio Powers. 
After breakfast I started for the head of Chesuncook, 
eleA^en miles distant. I arrived there a little before eleven 
in the morning, not having seen a living thing on the way. 
They often speak of "Maine miles" as being good 
measure, but these last were the longest miles I ever saw, 
excepting those on the Tobique River. 
The stopping place at the head of Chesuncook was the 
same so minutely described by Thoreau in his "Maine 
Woods." At that time the building was a very long 
log structure like four or five camps joined together, and 
was kept by Ansel Smith. In 1859 I happened to be there 
when they fastened on oxen and tore out the middle sec- 
tion, replacing it by a frame section, so that now the cen- 
ter was frame and the wings were the original log struc- 
ture. The place was now kept by Pete Walker, who was 
noted as being a man who never wore a hat, no matter 
how inclement the weather. 
Here I was met by A. B. Farrar, who had heard from 
someone passing up on Sunday that I was coming, and 
had come down seven miles to meet me. Farrar was a 
rather slender man with black hair, fine and silky as a 
woman's, which came down around his shoulders. He also 
had a very long jet black beard and mustache. A large 
double-edged knife hung from his belt at the left side and 
a twelve-inch two-shooter in an elaborately carved leather 
case hjung by a strap from his shoulders. He had with 
him his two moose dogs, small, dark colored dogs, just 
alike, having round yellow spots over each eye, making 
them look as if they had two pairs of eyes. He had come 
to meet me to see if I would not pilot him over into the 
Allegash country to see two hunters, Philbrook and Bill- 
ings, with whom I was acquainted, but who were 
strangers to him. He wished to engage one of them to 
go hunting bears that spring with him. There was here 
at Chesuncook a hunter named Joe McClaren, who re- 
ported that he had been hunting with a St. Francis Indian 
named Frank Capino, - near Harrington Lake, and that 
they had killed about forty moose. 
After dinner I started with Farrar on a seven mile 
snowshoe trip to the camp where he had been stopping. 
I had left my boots at Joe Morris's and replaced them 
with a pair of moccasins. On reaching the camp where 
Farrar was staying, I found that it was one of Strick- 
land's camps on Rocky Rips. The crew consisted of about 
thirty men of six nationalities, the boss being a Tobique 
Indian. As they were to break camp the next morning, 
the crew were having an unusual amount of fun that 
evening. 
Next morning was bright and pleasant, but we were 
obliged to wait until nearly seven o'clock for Farrar to. 
settle some business. While we were there the crew broke 
camp, after hiding their chains under the camp floor, .as 
they expected to occupy it the next season. The camp 
equipment they took out with them on their sleds. 
At this camp every time the camp door opened it would 
scare up a flock of nearly two hundred crossbills which 
had been feeding about the door where the cook's slops 
and tea grounds had been thrown out. These sang very 
sweetly, the first time I had ever heard of crossbills sing- 
ing. 
Farrar and I started at about seven o'clock without an 
ounce of anything to eat, as the crew were to take dinner 
at Northeast Carry and nothing cooked could be fuf- 
nished us. 
Farrar had with him a beautiful two and a half pound 
ax made by the same Alec Maxwell whom I had seen 
drinking at the Grant Farm. This later I bought of him 
when he went to war, and afterward lost on the south 
end of Long Island in Bluehill Bay while porpoise and 
seal hunting with Louis Ketchum. - 
We had no plan, and Farrar was unacquainted witH the 
