APRIL 4, IQ03.J 
fdRESt AND STREAM 
^68 
he did not have jurisdiction in capital cases. The Judge 
knew very well that he did not, but that could be easily 
remedied. He proceeded to try the man again, this time 
for assault and battery, and fined him five dollars. The 
Judge may have used his office to line his pockets ; no 
doubt he did ; but he was not the only one who has done 
so. Cabia Blanco. 
A Maine Woods Walk in Sixty-One 
BY MANLY HARDY. 
In Three Parts— Part IH, 
The next morning proved bright and fair, as had every 
one for a week past, and we all started to go to the home 
camp at the inlet of Allegash. Instead of retracing our 
steps we_ went across country, an estimated distance of 
fifteen miles. Although my ankle was painful, I enjoyed 
the first part of the way, as it was through grand old 
woods, mostly of hardwood, among which were many 
giant white birches covered with shaggy bark. We 
lighted many of these as we passed and the flames would 
go roaring and crackling to the ends of the farthest 
limbs, the rolls of flaming bark falling hissing down, to be 
quenched on the snow. 
We had gone perhaps five or six miles, and were going 
lengthwise of a valley by the side of a ridge of hard- 
wood, when our dogs suddenly threw up their noses and 
started off at right angles, going across the ridge and 
down the other side. It proved afterwards that with the 
air perfectly calm these dogs had smelled a moose which 
was on the other side of the ridge more than a quarter of 
a mile away. 
We soon came to the end of the ridge where another 
valley joined the one we were following, and we could 
hear the dogs barking up this valley. As all parties had 
agreed not to kill another moose for the spring, Phil- 
brook and I wished to keep on our way, but Farrar and 
Billings wanted to go up and see the moose. They 
promised not to kill him, but wished to see how large an 
one the dogs had got. 
Philbrook and I sat down on a pack one of them had 
been carrying and waited. After a while we heard two 
pistol shots. We waited a long time, and as the barking 
still continued, we were a good deal puzzled, as, if the 
moose were dead, the dogs would stop barking, and, if he 
were not dead, why did they not fire again. Getting tired 
of waiting, we went up to see what the trouble was. We 
found an immense bull, one of the largest I ever saw, 
si an ding close by the side of a large spruce. Quite a 
space around him was trodden solidly. On coming up 
I raised my rifle, when Farrar asked what I was going 
to do. 
"Shoot the moose," said I. 
"You wouldn't shoot a dead moose, would you ?" asked 
he. 
On my replying that he did not look very dead. Farrar 
replied that he had two bullets right in the life nearly 
half an hour before. 
Farrar then proposed that if I would cover him with 
my rifle, he would creep up behind the spruce near which 
the moose stood and knock him down with his ax. 
Farrar rnissed his blow, and the moose plunged almost on 
top of him. I placed a bullet behind his ear, when, quick 
as a cat, he wheeled after me. Billings, on the other side, 
shot behind the other ear, and he left me and turned on 
Billings. 
We then retreated to a respectful distance to reload, as 
the moose would go no further than the snow was 
trodden. 
These maneuvers were repeated four times in the 
course of which he received from me four bullets behind 
Ihe ear in a space not bigger than one's thumb, two from 
Billings behind the ear and one in the neck. After 
each charge he would return to his old standing place be- 
hind the spruce, where he would grunt and slap his lip 
at us, throwing the blood which ran from the wounds 
behind his ears down upon his bell all over the snow. 
But he showed no sign of being troubled by our shooting. 
Finally I was detailed to go in front of him and shoot 
him in the curl of the hair. This was a difficult perform- 
ance, as the snow was well trodden in front of him and 
he was sure to plunge at me when the rifle cracked. 
Beside this, he kept his head continually moving, and 
one had to hit the size of a dime for the shot to prove 
fatal. I approached as near as I dared and fired twice, 
each time having to sprint to get out of his way, as I 
was within about twenty feet. At last Farrar crept up 
behind the tree and succeeded in knocking him down. 
It was then found that one of my bullets struck exactly 
on a level with the curl of the hair about one inch from 
it, the other about an inch above the first. Into one of the 
bullet holes I could, and did, put my little finger its 
length; the other merely broke through the skull, and I 
took it out welded together with pieces of bone. This 
moose had received eleven bullets in all — two directly 
back of the shoulder, one through the neck, four behind 
one ear, two behind the other and two in the forehead. 
The bullets were srnall, being about sixty of round ball 
to the pound, but mine were fired with heavy charges of 
powder. 
In this battle with the moose I do not think that anyone 
engaged was in the least excited; in fact, had anyone 
been, firing as we were obliged to and ruiming about on 
snowshoes as we did, we should have been in great 
danger, both from the moose and each other. The snow 
v/as four feet deep or more, and all in the vicinity of the 
moose had been wallowed and plowed into pit-holes two 
or three feet deep with sharp, hard ridges between, mak- 
ing the footing vei-y uncertain. Yet not a man stumbled 
or tripped in the whole fight. All that was said was in 
low tones, and no one showed the least excitement either 
during or after the encounter. In fact, if all had not been 
perfectly cool, we should have been in more danger from 
each other's bullets than from the moose, although we 
all knew that if anyone fell his chances of coming out 
alive were small. The dogs, it may said, took no part in 
the fight; one, which was gun-shy, not coming back till 
after the moose was skinned. 
This moose was not at all startled when found by the 
dogs, and made no attempt to escape. He had trodden 
a yard of at least half an acre, so that it was very 
dangerous for the dogs to approach him in front, and he 
seemed willing to fight the whole world. Commonly 
there is no danger in shooting moose in the snow, as, 
whether hunted with or without dogs, they almost in- 
variably try to escape, and as soon as they are out of the 
yard, if they can be overtaken at all, they can be shot 
?t short range without risk. While a savage old bull 
like this might be shot with safety from a distance, to 
knock one down with a hatchet is a different proposition. 
This moose showed unusual tenacity of life, but out 
of a number of instances I will give one which I have 
known of similar fighting endurance, A. P. Willard and 
Henry Clapp, of BrowMville, while running a sable line 
under the side of Big Spencer Mountain, close to Moose- 
head, came upon an old bull which showed fight. Having 
Vvith them a double-barreled smoothbore they fired all the 
bullets they had, some five or six, which ran twelve to 
the pound, at short range. As they used a muzzleloadcr 
it was some time before the last was fired. They had with 
them several charges of shot and also an iron tobacco 
box, and when their bullets were gone they built a fire, 
poured the shot in the tobacco box and holding the cover 
in a split stick melted it down. Then they made a notch 
in a hardwood tree which they had felled for the pur- 
pose, and ran the lead into a long mass ; this they cut 
in two and pounded into slugs fit to be fired. Both 
these they fired into the moose, going close to him. After 
a while, as the moose lay down, Willard lashed his sheath 
knife to a pole with his handkerchief and, creeping up at 
the back of the moose, crouched and tried to spear him, 
steadying the pole over a cradle-knoll. The knife struck 
a rib and broke, and the moose sprang up so quickly as 
almost to come on to Willard. As each had a hatchet, 
they next tried to kill him by felling trees upon him, but 
when a tree was about to fall he would avoid it by step- 
ping out of range. Finally they had him entirely fenced- 
in. Then they tried to kill him by throwng their hatchets. 
One ax struck his nose, cutting it half off, but the battle 
ended by his getting possession of both axes and having 
apparently as much life and fight in him as when they 
began. As they had no other weapons and it Avas near 
night, they withdrew to the camp. On going out next 
morning with a fresh supply of ammunition, they found 
him dead. As both these men knew where to hit a moose 
and could place bullets just as they chose, they were so 
near, any one of these shots, under ordinary circum- 
stances, ought to have killed the moose in a few minutes ; 
but I believe that an enraged moose will bear a half 
dozen to a dozen wounds, any one of which would have 
killed him immediately if he had been still-hunted. 
We had intended to get through to camp before dinner 
and had nothing cooked with us. As it was near noon 
when we had finished skinning the moose, we concluded 
to dine where we were. So we built a fire on skids to 
prevent it sinking into the snow, making it close by the 
flayed carcass of the moose. We placed our snowshoes 
between the moose and the fire, in order to have some- 
thing to stand on, and, hauling the skin up over the 
moose, had seats equal to a spring sofa. Each one cut 
a piece of meat to suit himself, and roasted it on a stick, 
and each one also roasted one of the marrow bones. The 
eight marrow bones of a moose, as I know by actual ex- 
periment, will yield three pints of marrow, which, when 
salted, is fully equal to butter. It used to be said that old 
John Benwit, of the Penobscot tribe, could eat the con- 
tents of all eight marrow bones at a sitting. If so he 
must have had a stronger stomach than all four of us, 
as we found it difficult to finish one apiece. But we 
made a good meal, although we had not even salt to go 
with the meat, and had nothing to drink. 
I had had all the moose-killing I cared for, and though 
it is over forty years I have never tried to kill a moose 
since. While I believe it is fully as honorable for a man 
who needs money to kill a moose for the hide as it is for 
one who does not need money to go into the woods and 
kill one only for the head and horns, still I think it is 
mean business for any man to waste the carcass of so 
large an animal merely to say that he has killed a moose. 
I have always made it a point of honor never to kill any- 
thing merely for the sake of killing, and would never kill 
a deer when I should be able to use but a single quarter, 
even though I was in need of meat. 
After dinner we folded the hide so that it could be 
dragged by one of the party and continued our journey. 
In a short time we struck the Allegash stream and fol- 
lowed it on the ice to the home camp, a distance of nearly 
eight miles, taking a mink out of a trap on the way. 
It was now April, and spring was coming on with a 
rush. In places where projecting points increased the 
flow of the current, the stream had already begun to open. 
We reached the home camp and as the next day was 
Sunday and we intended to rest we laid in a good supply 
of wood. Sunday we did some extra cooking, for here we 
had a baker and could have soft bread. Also it fell to my 
lot to cook some moose noses, of which we had a good sup- 
ply. The moose nose and the beaver's tail are considered the 
two great delicacies of the woods. As few now know 
how to prepare them, it may not be amiss to record the 
way the hunters did it. No amount of scalding will re- 
m.ove the hair from a moose nose, and the Indian method 
was to singe them on the coals and then to scrape them. 
But this always gives them a burnt taste, so I have al- 
ways preferred to skin them. This is most easily done 
by splitting the nose through the septum and pinning one 
h'Ai firmly (down with a fork, so that it will not slip about 
while working on it. Afterward the nose is boiled several 
hours till it becomes tender. Beaver's tails are usually 
rciasted on a stick before skinning, or sometimes made 
into a soup with rice. 
Philbrook and Billings had begun their hunt in Septem- 
ber, spending the first five or six weeks in building camps, 
spotting lines and making" traps. In the time they had 
been out they had taken about one hundred sable, twenty 
lynx, nine otter and about as many fisher, and quite a 
large number of mink and beaver, and had shot about 
forty moose. In 1859 I had hunted with Philbrook, hav- 
ing our home camp at the head of Caucomgomoc and our 
lines of traps extending over six different townships. One 
line which started from about six miles out on Baker 
Lake Carry and went northwest ended within less than 
half a mile of where we found Philbrook encamped. On 
this hunt before the last of November we took four 
bears, four fisher, three lynx, two otter, seven beaver, 
fifty sable, thirty-five mink and seventy-five muskrats! 
Although moose were so plenty, we saw the tracks of only 
four and only one live one, a bull which came to the 
sound of chopping and kept Philbrook prisoner in his 
camp for more than an hour, walking back and forth in 
front of the fire like a sentinel and grunting. 
Philbrook and Billings told me of two curious ex- 
periences they had had with otter that winter. They 
showed me the skin of one shot fairly through the body 
back of the shoulders. He was shot by Billings at a hun- 
dred and twenty-five paces (twenty-three rods) he said, 
and after being shot dived into his hole and went under 
the ice. Philbrook and Billings cut ice and, worked fish- 
ing for him with hooks on long poles nearly half a day, 
and after having given up one of them said he would 
make a last hook for luck. This time he was fortunate 
enough to fasten to the otter. On another occasion Phil- 
brook, when out exploring, was snowshoeing up the bed 
of a stream. On turning a point he saw an otter lying 
on the ice directly facing him. As it was useless to try 
to get nearer, he fired at him with his ten-inch pistol from 
where he stood. The otter did not move, and he sup- 
posed he had shot him dead. On going up and seeing his 
eyes look lively, he struck the otter on the head with his 
belt hatchet. When he skinned it he failed to find a trace 
of any wound. 
Monday morning we were up bright and early, Phil- 
brook to go back to his camp, Farrar to go across Cham- 
berlain to Eagle and Haymock (the lumberman's corrup- 
tion of Pongocquahamock), which lies on the right hand 
branch of Smith Brook, emptying into Eagle Lake, while 
Billings and myself .started for the foot of Caucomgomoc 
Lake, where he was going to get supplies from a lumber 
camp. 
On the way down Billings showed me where he had 
shot a doe caribou a short time before. This, as far as I 
can learn, was the third caribou killed in Maine after they 
began to return, and although a cow she had horns nearly 
two feet long. To show the tenacity of life of a caribou, 
after being shot through fairly behind the shoulder, she 
wheeled and ran the other way. Billings then gave her a 
second bullet behind the other shoulder. When he was 
quite near to her she jumped up and started to run, and 
he finished her with a shot through the neck from his 
pistol. 
: Near to the place where we left the lake was an eagle's 
nest on a, large pine and two adult eagles, one standing 
on the nest and the other close by it. This is the earliest 
I, have ever known eagles to be so far inland. 
Going out we took a different route from the one I had 
corne in by in order to strike the foot of Caucomgomoc, 
which we reached after a walk of about eighteen miles. 
As Billings was an extra good man on snowshoes, it was 
quite painful for me to keep up with him with my swollen 
ankle. 
The crew of the lumber camp were hauling spruce 
almost entirely. Two years before not a spruce tree had 
been cut anywhere on Caucomgomoc waters, the lumber- 
ing being confined entirely to pine. In 1857 I did not see 
a single spruce cut aroimd Caribou or any of its tribu- 
taries, but in '61 most of the camps were largely cutting 
spruce. If the pine was almost exhausted before '61, one 
can judge how long the spruce will last with so much 
greater demands upon it. 
After dinner I parted company with Billings to take my 
lonely journey to the head of Chesuncook, some twelve 
miles distant, which I must reach before dark or lie out. 
I had to follow the road. The April sun had in many 
places almost turned the road up edgewise, the side to- 
ward the sun being more than a foot the lower. On snow- 
shoes one could not travel and without them it was very 
fatiguing, as one slumped half way to the knees at every 
step. I was carrying my snowshoes slung on my rifle, 
when, on turning a bend in the road, I saw a large lynx 
standing with his hind feet in the sled track and his fore 
feet up on the snow. Although I worked very carefully 
to remove the snowshoes from my rifle, he heard them rat- 
tle a little and sprang into the woods before I could fire. 
When I came out on Caucomgomoc Bog the road was 
so soft that it was almost impossible to travel in it, so I 
put on snowshoes and started across the bog — to me an 
unknown country— for the West Branch, but I made a 
good strike and came out a little below the piers in the 
( hesuncook flowage, v^hich all who have been down the 
West Branch will remember. Crossing the West Branch 
I made a straight strike through the dead timber killed 
by flowage for Pete Walker's (now the Chesuncook 
House), and arrived there a little after sunset, having 
traveled thirty miles in bad walking with an ankle 
swollen out of all shape. 
When I was coming in rumors of expected trouble 
with the South had reached the woods, and at every 
shanty was the chief topic of discussion, a great many 
saymg that they were going to enlist if there was any 
fightmg. When I reached Chesuncook I found the ex- 
citement was still greater, and the usual talk about lum- 
ber and horses had given place to talk about the ex- 
pected war. At Chesuncook I met my old friend, Charles 
Locke, head man of the great farm situated on Chamber- 
lain Lake, fourteen miles distant. He reported that the 
Fairbanks brothers, Frank and George, had killed eighty- 
two moose north of Katahdin, between Telos and the 
Sowadnehunk Mountains. I may say here that both the 
Fairbanks brothers enlisted in the Seventh Maine within 
a week of getting out of the woods. Joe McClaren and 
Frank Capino both went to war and neither returned. 
Farrar also enlisted. Billings enlisted and rose to be 
first lieutenant, was badly wounded at Fair Oaks, and, 
I believe, went back again after his recovery. Philbrook 
could not be accepted on account of a disabled foot. I 
know no class of men who furnished a larger proportion 
of their number than our hunters. 
The year of '61 has been called the year of the greatest 
slaughter of moose ever known, and has often been held 
up as an instance of wholesale butchery. I took great 
pains to ascertain the number of moose killed that year 
and had good facilities for doing so, and by my estimate 
the number was under rather than over four hundred 
though about half of this number were killed by four sets 
of partners. This present year of 1902, according to 
the report of the Game Commissioners, sportsmen have 
killed (including 109 killed illegally), a total of 461 I 
feel very certain that less of the meat was saved this 
year than in 1861. So we see that the number killed by 
sportsmen merely for heads and horns is greater this year 
than that killed by the hide hunters in the year of what 
is called the greatest killing ever known. In all my trip 
m '61 I did not see or hear of a single moose having 
been killed by any lumberman. I will also add that in 
