FORfiSt AND STHeAM. 
falleti logs, so thick that a man could penetrate >ith 
difficulty, the hbgs chose their battle ground. The 
champing of the tUsks of the large boar told men as well 
as dogs that it was to be a battle royal. While the dogs 
charged and recharged, the hunters held a council and 
decided that the best plan would be to scatter the game. 
One of the half-grown hogs was forced into the water 
and made for the opposite shore of the lake, where he 
was met by Mosely. His quarter-mile run had not cooled 
his anger, and as the hunter dashed after him and caught 
him by the leg, he turned ferociously upon the hunter, 
who, by dexterous movements, kept ducking until the 
hog was half drowned. It was then securely tied and 
left squealing for the wagon to pick him up on the way 
home. 
While Mosely was busy with the shoat, Tiner and the 
tenderfoot chased the others from the jungle across a 
strip of low swampy ground. 
The other side of the jungle was a low flat ground, 
which was covered with water, except a high point in the 
center. The hogs had left the jungle and swam across 
the neck of water to the island. Tiner and the dogs 
waded across and left the tenderfoot on a stand, where 
it was expected the hogs would come out. From this 
point they scattered again, the boar coming back to 
the jungle, and here he took a stand from which he re- 
fused to be moved, charging the angry dogs right and 
left ' " 
The tenderfoot conceived the foolhardy idea of going 
to the dogs' assistance, which he did by crawling through 
the matted underbrush on hands and knees to within a 
few feet of where the enraged boar was held at bay. 
The monster's swift charges at the dogs awoke the 
hunter to the fact that" he was in an extremely danger- 
ous position, for had the enraged animal charged in his 
direction, there would have been little hope of escape — 
wedged in as he was in the tangled jungle. 
Watching for a favorable opportunity, he fired his 
gun, striking the hog in the jaw;' it broke from cover, 
only to be turned back by the other hunter and the dogs. 
Coming into the heart of the jungle again, the tender- 
foot succeeded in getting a fair shot at his majesty, 
when a ball from the .38 Marlin stretched him out. 
Mosfily, coming up during the commotion, asked of 
Tiner where the tenderfoot was. On being told that 
he was in the jungle trying to get the boar, he exclaimed 
with vehemence, "He will never come out alive !" but 
a shot and an exultant yell soon told that the tenderfoot 
was the victor. Minnie Moore-Willson. 
Across New Brunswick on Snow- 
shoes. — VL 
Running by Compass. 
The blazed trail upon which we found ourselves seemed 
to lead in the same general direction as that which we 
were wishing to follow, it being our only general under- 
standing of our route that it should lie for the most part 
to the south, and should hold in that direction a dozen 
miles if the nature of the country would permit it. It 
v;as now all running by compass. That is to say, we 
continually checked up the. course of the blazes with 
the compass. We found that we w^ere about five miles 
south of the last lumbering camp, and getting well up 
along the tributary of the little South Branch, when we 
finally concluded that the blazes were running pretty 
nearly on our proper course. At first we ran a little west 
of south, and then swung over a little east of south. We 
worked south about two and a half miles in this way, over 
simply frightful tobogganing, yet we found the grade 
ascended for the most part more gradually than we had 
reason to expect, and met only one very bad hill, up 
which the triumphant sleds none the less climbed in their 
customary fashion. In this hard going, where once in 
a while the sleds would break through the crust or slue 
around in the treacherous fir thickets, both Adam and 
Jack had the misfortune to break a sled shaft. I was 
with Jack when he broke his, and he seemed to look at it 
as a matter of course, and expressed no disagreement with 
Dame Fortune over the matter. I think he ought to have 
cussed a little, but he was. maybe, some shy. It was very 
cold, the thermometer still hanging low. so that by 11 
o'clock it was twelve below zero. We had before this all 
of us known such a thing as frosted feet, but in this in- 
tense cold we took pains that we should not get into 
serious trouble. Jack and Charlie both did their snow- 
shoeing in their stocking feet, each having on four pairs 
of stockings. In this way one's feet do not feel the cold, 
the dry snow never penetrating through the stockings at 
all. The frost hung in a thick white rime upon beards, mus- 
taches and hair, and even whitened the eyebrows, as we 
liibored along up the gradually rising country, the breath 
of the foremost men showing like a white cloud in the 
still, cold air. ' 
Plenty of Moose Sign. 
We now were entirely clear of the lumbering opera- 
tions, and as quick as we did get thus clear, we began 
once more to see moose s'gn. All the forenoon and all 
the afternoon we were practically all the time among 
moose yards or moose sign, much of it bull sign and a 
good deal of it pretty fresh. Adam was very much 
pleased with the look of this country, and from this time 
on it will be annexed to his domain along the Tobique. 
The lumbering operations at the Branch camp are to be 
concluded thi sv.'.nter, and Adam falls heir to the aban- 
doned camp which hereafter will be one of his regular 
camps. We can testify that it wHl be on the edge of a 
magnificent game range, indeed in the heart of that range, 
for as soon as the lumbermen go away the moose always 
come in all over the country they have abandoned. 
Some Problems. 
We stopped to "boil the kettle'' at 11:30 this morning 
and had rather a frosty lunch sitting around in the snow. 
No Joe Ellis was in sight as yet, and we began to doubt 
whether we should get to see h m before we had entirely 
lost all touch with the northern side of the divide. At 
no time did we suppose that our distance across was a 
very great one, but we were uneasy because we did not 
know how the country was going to look after we got 
atef. We did not even know whether there were any 
lumberiftg operations going otl in the doUUtry south of the 
divide. If it happened that there Were lumbering camps 
as dose Up to the south side of this unknown country, as 
there Were on the north side, then we would be all right, 
for we Could easily get supplies at the camps. As much 
could be said in case we found Braithwaite's trapping line, 
but we were not sure that we would find it, or if we 
d.d, that We would find any grub in his shacks. We knew 
perfectly well that when one stands on the mountain side 
and looks off across twenty miles of wilderness, a blazed 
trail is mighty hard to see, and even a well-brushed out 
tote road or a hauling road cannot be seen at any great 
distance, unless one knows where to look for it. One 
may at any minute run entirely arcross a blazed trail and 
never suspect its presence. It would be fatal for us thus 
to run through Braithwa te's trail. Naturally, therefore, 
we were anxious to hold on to our Indian, Joe Ellis, as 
long as we might, so that even if we did not take him 
through with us he might help us on our way back if we 
had to take the back trail. We did not know how far we 
could go with the supplies we were able to take along. 
Lost Man's Camp. 
At 3 :30 we stopped for the day, and went about build- 
ing our first camp in the unknown country. All hands 
worked as briskly as possible for nearly two and a half 
hours — that is to say, until after the fall of darkness — in 
getting ready the bivouac. The busy little New Bruns- 
wick axes soon dropped abundance of big firewood, dry 
pine and frozen birch. We scraped out a hole in the 
snow, used a couple of stumps for supports, rolled up 
against them three sections of heavy birch logs, and then 
\yent to work as fast as m ght be splitting up equal por- 
tions of birch and pine fagots. It is necessary to use an 
abundance of light wood such as pine or fir to keep the 
icy birch wood burning, although the latter lasts longer 
and produces most of the desirable bed of coals which is 
the thing to have in an open camp of this kind. 
_We had a little open tent of the Nessmuk pattern along 
•with, us, but we knew perfectly well that if we put it up 
close enough to the fire to get any warmth from the 
fire, we should certainly burn the tent down. Accordingly 
we simply folded it up and threw it at the back of the 
camp, over some sticks which we thrust in the snow. It 
extended far enough forward to cover the face and per- 
haps a part of the shoulders, so we fancied wejiad some- 
thing over us, and so slept very well content. A big log 
served for a pillow, and as for our bed, we made a dis- 
covery which proved a valuable one. Every one knows 
that evergreen boughs are highly cracked up as a wilder- 
ness bed, but not every camper knows that these boughs 
are cold as ice and worse than ice when, as we found 
them, they are covered with frozen snow. The warmth 
of the fire simply melts the snow, and as quick as the fire 
goes down your bed simply freezes up again, so that while 
lying on these boughs you can't very well keep warm. 
While Charlie and I were scooping the hole in the snow 
w^e carne upon a rotten pine stump, and as we began to 
beat this to pieces with the axes, we found that it crum- 
bled into soft bits, which served excellently well to fill in 
the hollows of the ground. This gave us an idea, and at 
once we fell upon certain other dry-pine stumps which 
were found about, and we pounded these up also, making 
our bed out of rotten pine wood instead of pine boughs. 
It was very much softer than the boughs, and in every 
way better for that kind of a camp. We can recommend 
it as a hunter's expedient when the thermometer is twenty 
below zero, and you have not an}^ better bed along. I 
wonder where a man would have been about then with 
an air mattress in this bivouac in the snow, Avhich we 
called "Lost Man's Camp." 
That night was the coldest of the winter thus far, the 
thermometer going twenty-one degrees below zero. We 
stretched a line across the front of the camp, back of the 
clothing, but we found it almost impossible to do anything 
iri this way, for though the socks would thaw out on one 
side, they would freeze stiff on the other. The water froze 
continually in the water pail in front of the fire. Of 
course it was necessary that we should take turns in firing. 
The night was perfectly still, the sky blue, and the stars 
very bright, and the big, white-covered, solemn pines stood 
all about us. It was one of those experiences such as 
one would not willingly let go from his memory. 
In winter work of this kind there is danger if one does 
not know how to take care of himself, or if he be with 
men who are not good woodsmen. It takes a good ax- 
man to make himself comfortable in weather like twenty 
below zero, and for the best of axmen a comfortable camp 
under such conditions means two or three hours of the 
hardest sort of work. We pursued our wood cutting by 
moonl;ght and firelight, after we had eaten our supper 
on the spread-out blankets. Even Adam complained of 
being cold that evening, for the heat of the body had 
caused the snow to wet his jumper quite through during 
the day, and now that the perspiration was drying out 
aad the wet cloth freezing, he foitnd himself very un- 
comfortable. Adam was so big that none of the rest of 
us could very well fit him out with clothes, but by dint of 
much turning and twisting in front of the fire, he finally 
got dried out. 
Whichever way we looked in this country, we saw not a 
stump, save of our own making. The fallen trees and 
the smoke of the woodman's fire for the first time broke 
this sanctuary of the moose. This was indeed the 
Wilderness. Upon our intrusion the moon looked coldly, 
unsympathetically down. The stars shone malignantly 
bright. 
Exploration, 
On the next day we found the temperature not mitigat- 
ing. This was excellent for traveling purposes, for it 
kept the snow hard and dry. It is altogether probable 
that had we met a deep, soft snow, or a very wet snow, on 
our way across, we should never have made it through, but 
luck stayed with us as long as it was apparently neces- 
sary. 
Adam and Charlie started out in the morning to explore 
a bit before we broke camp, and started ahead with the 
sleds. We did not care to cast ourselves loose entirely 
so long as we had even so good a stopp ng place as this, 
for we could not tell what was ahead. It must always he 
remembered as a great complicating feature in this sort 
of traveling, that the country is so heavily timbered that 
it is simply impossible to see ahead at any distance. In 
§26 
the Rockiies one can always look aroitrtd and sfe wtiefe 
the mountains are, but in New Brunswick, densely over- 
grown as it is, there may be a hill a quarter of a mile 
ahead which you cannot see. All we knew was that we 
had now reached nearly the head of the lillle Iribiitary 
01 the Little South Branch, which we had been follow- 
ing, but we were not sure whether it was Little or Big 
South Branch waters. On our way Up we had found a 
cross line of blazes which we took to have been made 
by Ellis, or some unknown trapper. So far as we could 
tell, this cross line led over toward the Serpentine, whose 
rough country we were studiously avoiding. We found 
also an east and west line, and the blaze on the tree 
marked with the name of "Charles Cameron & Wilson 
Porter, of Andover, New Brunswick, June 4, 1895." We 
afterward learned that these were members of a surveying 
party which ran a line across that country and had got 
jolly well lost while doing it. As for ourselves, we were 
lost just as much as anybody ever was, and our little 
scout, ng party was a very necessary preliminary at the 
time. 
Jack and I lay in camp, finding enough to keep us busy 
in chopping wood for the coming night. All about us lav 
the silent icy calm of the wilderness, not a breath of wind 
nsing to disturb the white masses of snow which lay 
all over the forest covering. It was bitterly cold, and we 
found that we would freeze very quickly if we were not 
careful. Adam and Charlie had started out in their stock- 
ing feet, for no one felt 1 ke taking chances of freezing 
his feet. Adam's last injuncticn was that we must be 
verycareful while chopping wood. "One little slip with 
an ax up in liere, my son," he said, "would mean a mighty 
serious trouble for everybody in this party"— advice which 
surely was well worth follow ng. Adam told me before . 
he started out that day that the foregoing was the coldest 
night he had ever "lain out" in his life." 
Mistake as to Where a I oats. 
In our ignorant guess at the situation, we now thought 
that we were nearing the top of the Tobique Divide, and 
that presently we should break our way to the southward 
to the Miramichi country, it being Adam's intention to 
put in a half day finding the way down on the south side 
of the divide. We felt that we were free of the dreaded 
Serpentine, and figured that possibly we were nearing the 
head of the Big South Branch of the Nipisiguit. In the 
latter case we had noth ng by way of a stream to follow 
down, as that river wouKi not lead us in the right direc- 
tion at all. As a matter of fact, the top of this easy ridge 
which we had been ascending for more than three miles 
in a general southern direction, was the divide between the 
waters of the Little South Branch and Bubar Brook, the 
latter being a Serpentine stream. We were to cross, be- 
fore we finally got into the Miramichi country, no less 
than, three such divides. Ail of which shows how little 
we knew about the countfy we were crossing. 
"Jumped." 
Before we went into camp on the preceding day, we 
crossed a very large bull moose trail which might have 
been made two or three days earlier. Jack thought he 
would like to go and see what was on the other end of" 
that trail. Hence he left me in camp later m the day 
and started out. He followed the trail, as appeared later; 
for about three miles, and found himself in the middle of 
a fresh moose yard. He took off his snowshoes and went 
along the trail for a time and got within fifty yards of 
the moose, which, after their contemptible custom, were 
hiding just behind a heavy thicket. He heard them smash 
the brush as they went out on the gallop— one splendid 
bull and two or three cows. These moose we later learned 
canie right over toward our bivouac, and went across the 
trail of Adam and Charlie less than 400 yards from the 
camp, 
The Return of the Native. 
Jack got back at noon, and with him whom should I 
see, as they came up the trail, but the long-lost much- 
sought Indian. Joe Ellis. Joe's friend, John Moulton, had 
become homesick and left him for the settlements, carry- 
ing by the way, some letters which we gave him 'against 
such a contmgency, and which in due time turned up in 
the Dead Letter Office at Halifax. We gave John AIoul- 
ton some- money to pay postage, etc., on the let.ers, but 
reason on the premises that John needed gin more 'than 
he did postage stamps. 
Jack had found Joe Ellis getting ready to boil his tea 
kettle in a little camp which Jack simply blundered over 
and which we had missed as we came up the hill This 
was loca.ed on the side 1 ne of b azes which we had dis- 
covered, and had we followed that line for a half-mile 
we should have discovered Joe's shack. ' 
Presently Adam and Charlie came back from their little 
exploring trail, and we had a sort of reunion and jub lee 
by the, camp-fire. Adam and Charlie had discovered that 
we were not yet at the top of our divide by any means for 
they had found much higher country further on. On the 
summit Adam had climbed a tree and thence obtained a 
panoramic view of the country lying out to the south and ' 
west. He and Charlie had made search for a certam tree 
vyhich, accord ng to the tradition of the Ellis trapping 
line, once bore an inscription made by the hand of no less 
a person than Henry Braithwaile himself. This tree ac- 
cording to Joe. he saw four years ago near the top of 
this divide. On it was Braithwaite's name, and the advice 
that his camp was but a few miles south of that tree 
Such are some of the vague means of information in the 
wilderness. If only we could find Henry's tree how 
glad we would all be! Adam said that it was not an im- 
possible trail up to the divide from where we were but 
that there was a haul of about a half mile or so which 
was as bad as ever lay out of doors. Ellis said that when 
he went up that hill he never attempted to take his sled 
at all. but stopped at the foot of it and packed his stuff 
up on his back in relays. Adam and Charlie declared 
their intention of returning up the hill and putting in the 
afternoon m brushing out. so that the sleds could eet 
through the next day. Ellis returned to his own shack 
to sleep that night— another mistake which we made We 
ought to have kept h m right with us all the time al- 
though, as It proved, we lost nothing more serious than 
a few hours' time. Joe told us that he had seen a big 
moose trail made the day before, made by a bull, and one 
which had evidently been driven some distance' since it 
was leaving blood on the snow cru§t and must have 
