368 
deer showed its shapely form in the underbrush in the 
distance. After following it for a few minutes an oppor- 
tunity presented itself for a shot which brought the game 
down. The buck was dead when I reached him. I dragged 
the carcass to (he tote road and had the team take him to 
camp when it passed by later. I now had the legal allow- 
ance of game — one moose, one caribou and two deer, the 
first time this happened to me in my many visits to the 
New Brunswick woods. The addition of the bear cer- 
tainly made me quite contented. 
On the trip from the woods to the settlement we met 
our Philadelphia friends. Dr. p[. had secured a fine moose 
head, the brow antlers each having four large points, 
while Dr. D. had a rather smaller head. He seemed to 
be very happy, particularly as he had shot it in his draw- 
ers, the explanation being that his ti'ousers w^ere so noisy 
that he found it necessary to drop them in order to be 
able to successfully stalk the moose. 
On the way back I shot a few more partridge, as I was 
intent upon taking a few home with me, together with 
some choice bits of the last deer shot. 
I was back in New York on Sept. 29, and had spent 
alone in. the woods (sixteen days, including the going 
in and returning) one of the pleasantest of the many 
hunts that I have had in New Brunswick. Most of the 
narratives that w'e hear about this province are about 
moose hunting, but from mj'^ experience it can readily 
be seen that there are not only moose but a number of 
other game animals, caribou, deer and bear. I saw alto- 
gether on this trip thirty-six moose, four caribou, three 
deer and one bear. It is likely there was another bear 
with the one I shot, as we saw the brush move after my 
shot, which I believe was caused by a second bear, but 
I did not get sight of it. 
-One evening on returning down the lake we heard, ap- 
parently not far away, a cry resembling somewhat a steam 
calliope, the beginning sounded something like the com- 
bined efforts of half a dozen loons, while the ending 
seemed equal to the best efforts of two dozen tomcats. 
The guide could not tell what it was that made this un- 
earthly wail, which was repeated three times. P. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
A Bit of Camp Surgery. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Several years ago Will Light, Fred Jones, Ollin Light 
and I were hunting deer from a lean-to camp up Moose 
River way. It snowed as we walked in, and our camp 
that night was as uncomfortable as breezes, insufficient 
covering and an obstinate fire could make it. 
The fire was made of soft maple and yellow birch, 
and aw^aj'’ down between the crevices of the six or eight 
mch logs we could see the red glow of warmth; but 
there waS' no chance of feeling it until the wood had 
been dried out and began to blaze. 
‘Tm going to have a fire,” Will Light said, and with 
that he took the ax and went kindling hunting in the 
night. He found a dry stub, pried off a chunk and 
rf:amc back to tlic camp, where, by the uncertain flicker- 
ing of the firelight, he began to chop up the dry kind- 
lings. We heard the ax racking down througli the 
wood three or four times, and Fred shouted, “Don’t 
cut yourself!” A few more blows followed, and then 
there was a sort of thump, followed by an exclamation. 
“Fve cut myself!” the kindling maker exclaimed. 
“Dod rat it!” cried Fred, “Didn’t I tell you to be 
careful how you handled a man’s tools!” 
Light had been teaching Fred and the rest of us 
woodcraft for fifteen years, more or less. He swore 
some at Fred and limped around into the lean-to, where 
we could see him. 
In the middle of the instep of his left foot was a slit 
where the ax had buried its blade. The cut was more 
than three inches long .and an inch deep, baring the 
bones, and we could see the white toe cord, which the 
razor edge had just missed splitting. 
“Get me some balsam!” Will asked Fred, and Fred, 
taking a candle, went tO' a nearby balsam tree (Abies 
balsamea) and began to' gather the soft balsom gum 
■^vhich is found in the tiny blisters with which the bark 
is covered. He pierced a blister at the lower edge with 
his penknife and pressed the thick fluid out on a lard 
can cover. In a few minutes he had a good tablespoon- 
ful. 
4 , 1CK3|. 
In the meantime I got out my ditty bag, an oilcloth 
pocket with a flap and half a dozen cloth leaves full of 
needles and thread. From this Light selected a three- 
cornered straight needle and some white thread. I didn’t 
have the curved surgeon’s needles. Then he calmly 
sewed up the cut, very much as he would have sewed a 
rip in his coat. 
Perhaps a dozen stitches were taken, and the wound 
was drawn shut. Having sewed it up. Light smeared,. 
the cut over with balsam. Then he wrapped it with a 
piece of white, undershirt, put on , several pairs of 
woolen socks and went to bed, while Fred stirred up 
the fire. 
On the following day Light looked, out on a wilder- 
ness a. foot deep with soft, fluffy snow. For the first 
time in at least si.x years be had come into the .woods 
and lomnd a "good tracking snow.” Now he was crip-, 
pled. Flis foot swelled up and sore. He was the most 
melancholy looking woodsman I e'ver saw, but Light 
never did squeal, however hard hit he was. He "re- 
bathed the cut with balsam at intervals during the day, 
and when the rest of Us came in that night we found as 
fine a hot supper as one could, wish. We told him we 
hoped he’d monkey with axes every time we hunted with 
him again, and he replied in kind. 
On the following day he went up the hill a few rods,- 
but the cut was too painful. The third day he went out 
and killed a fine buck, and thereafter he hunted with 
the rest of us. When we went out he carried a back 
load of venison, and went about his work as usual at home. 
He didn’t catch cold, although he repeatedly got his 
feet wet in snow-hidden streamlets, and slept in a camp 
open to the wind. The lips of the wound closed firmly 
together, and in a few days he drew the cotton thread 
stitches, having a foot as well as ever. The balsam has 
saved many a woodsman much pain and trouble due to 
bad cuts. It is also used as a “kidney clarifier,” what- 
ever that may mean. A few drops constitute a dose 
which regulates the kidneys, especially when they have 
been disordered by whisky, as log and hunting camp 
kidneys are prone to be disordered at intervals. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
The Biography of a Bear* — VII. 
With an Exposition of the Influence of Attitude open 
Hjman Vigor, 
How Jack had descended from his dizzy perch some- 
where about midnight was and is a mystery. He had 
done SO without sustaining any injury — not so much as 
a scratch. The only theory we could form to account 
for his safety was that somehow he had rigged a para- 
chute from some of the old branches, or that he had 
Utilized a slab of bark as an aeroplane. During the re- 
mainder of our travels, however, he was not known to 
exercise his surplus energy in such lofty evolutions, 
although he became each day more active and restless, 
as did we all. 
It is a recognized condition that men and animals are 
more vigorous, hardy and energetic in the zones furthest 
from the equator, or until polar zones chill them into 
inactivity; but it has not been generally understood that 
altitude or elevation may exert the same influences as 
animals ascend from the sea level or from lower planes. 
We had left the sultry, humid valley, feeling calm, ener- 
vated, indifferent, insipid, lazy, sleepy and in fact, fash- 
ionable. As we ascended the mountains day by day, we 
became alert, hungry, ambitious, still hungrier, actively 
ravenous and somewhat primitive in our tastes and 
desires. At the summit we did unnecessary things, 
even to chopping wood after climbing about all day.', I 
could even watch from a reasonable distance while my 
grandfather sank a seven-foot crosscut saw into a4§ix- 
fooj; log, while Enochs and Dick in their verdancy, or 
absence of mind or intelligence, several times took 
hold of the saw. 
It seemed strange, these evenings late in the month 
of August, to go into the log cabin and sit before the 
wide stone fireplace heaped with blazing logs. After 
our first night in the open air, upon finding our blankets 
stiff with frost in the morning, we were pleased to 
accept the pri'vilege of spreading ourselves, the dogs^ 
and Jack, upon the ’floor of the cabin, the larger room' 
of which accommodated Us all comfortably.. sun- 
down, each evening became chilly, and at dark we were, 
satisfied with nothing more moderate than a roaring 
fire. In dressing the trout that we caught during the 
day, down in a canon, our fingers would become be- 
numbed and blue with the cold water from the spring 
arid with handling the fish. Sitting about the fire after 
supper we exchanged such observations as each of us 
had garnered, and concentrated into truthful reminis- 
cenes. It is true that Enochs sometimes trimmed his 
stories with a little fretwork border of fantastic orna- 
ment, but I had implicit confidence in my grandfather’s 
and Dick’s anecdotes, -while of course I could depend 
upon my. own without any very painful solicitude. 
One evening I remarked that it was wonderful how 
vigorous and different we felt at that altitude; how 
hungry, how full of vitality, how almost industrious. 
My grandfather stxidied a while, looked at me in rather 
nonrcommittal way, but said, “It may be the mountain 
air; or perhaps you are not verj^ well. After you have 
been in the mountains a iew weeks you feel different; 
you will feel like moving about 'more, and your ap- 
petites will pick up some.L . , 
At that point I went out to the wagon and tookvan 
inventory of the amount of flour, bacon and other 
provisions. I refrained from a thrifty impulse that 
almost persuaded me to carry off a sack of flour and 
place it in some secluded place of safety. I decided to 
be honest as long as Enochs and Dick were, but I felt 
more confidence in them, and in my own invincible 
resolution, with an inventory of the provisions in my 
pocket. I had heard of men upon the further frontiers 
who became so solicitous for their future welfare that 
they would get up in their sleep and steal their own 
supplies, carry them off and hide them, and go about in 
the morning with consciences utterly untrammeled and 
blank. 
When I got back to the fire, the old gentleman was 
saying, —“can bolt and split a thousand shakes, or five 
hundred cedar rails in good timber; he is beginning to 
show signs of vitality. Several years ago, over yonder 
near Susanville, a feller moved on to the Patterson 
place, which had been left deserted when Patterson died. 
'His name was Slocum: he wasn’t thought to be of much 
account, and he settled in the worst kind of a place for 
a slow man. The Patterson place— Patterson Holler, 
it was called — was too low down, sultry and malarious. 
Slocum was slow enough when he went there, but after 
he had been there a year he was given up for good. 
His nearest neighbor, who lived about four miles way, 
got to going over once a week regularly to see if 
Slocum needed a funeral, but, as near as the man 
could tell, Slocum was alwus alive. The road at one 
time went through Patterson Holler, but it had to be 
changed so as to go around on the upper side. Noth- 
ing much could be hauled through on the old road; 
the teams would get to going slower and slower until 
they reached the bottom of the holler, where the horses 
and mules alius went to sleep and stalled. The team- 
sters would go to sleep also, and if they carried watches 
the watches always stopped; they could never tell the 
time, nor how long they had been on the road when they 
did wake up. They seldom woke up until some one else 
overtook them and wanted to get them out of the way. 
Everything alius stopped opposite Patterson’s. Sur- 
veyors tried to run a line through the holler, but the 
compass wouldn’t work, the needle wouldn’t even quiver 
till they got upon higher ground; and they had to give it 
up and depend upon scientific estimate for the real dis- 
tance and levels. j 
. “Slocum had been warned, but he seemedrcareless;, 
and after he was there a while, and found everything as 
sleepy as he was, he seemed to enjoy it in an easy kind 
of a way. At last he wouldn’t move a finger except 
when he wanted a cracker to eat, and he would hold 
that in his mouth until it soaked into his system, just 
to save the trouble of chewing and swallowing it. His 
neighbors supplied the crackers, as they didn’t want 
Slocum to die altogether on account of expenses, and 
because they had begun to consider him a public insti- 
tution. He was of some use, too, for they could point 
to him as a terrible example and a danger signal. The 
deestrict was altogether too conservative and optimistic 
any how. So they kept a box of crackers alius at his 
bedside, and Slocum’s greatest trial was to reach out 
for one when he could stand it no longer. He would 
have starved, but when he got just so far along, he 
just had to have a cracker to keep from kicking. 
“The rieighbor, a Swede by the name of Jensen, or 
Yenson, as he claimed, finally got tired of going to the 
holler, so he moved Slocum up to his ranch, four miles 
alorig the road. Slocum objected, but made no resist- 
ance. It would have been too much of an effort for 
him to remonstrate, so Yensen took him along peace- 
fully enough. After Slocum had been at Yensen’s place 
a while he began to get uneasy and moved occasionally. 
One morning when Yensen was out he tried to stir the 
fire and a burning stick rolled out upon the floor. It 
was too much work for him to put the stick back or 
throw water upon it from a nearby bucket, and he was 
too lazy to shout to Yensen. He only managed to get 
out of the house after most of his whiskers had 
burned off. 
“Yensen, who was after a stray cat, smelled Slocum’s 
whiskers burning, but got back too late to save his 
house. He exhausted himself so in trying to, though, 
that he dropped down alongside of Slocum, and the two 
were lying there apparently dead when a man with a 
wagon came along. Seeing these two men he hauled ■ 
them along, after loading them in his wagon, to a 
deserted sheep camp about six miles up the road. 
After a little, Yensen was able to make a sort of shack 
of fence rails, and, the two stayed there. Yensen alwus 
would work some, and the change of location and ex- 
citement improved him. He was doing quite well in 
cutting at a tree that he ’low’d to make posts of, and 
Slocum began to take interest enough in things to look 
around, listen when it thundered and sometimes to 
growl a little when Yensen tried to sing Swedish 
psalms. He even took interest in things besides crack- 
ers to eat, and began to chew such food as he could 
get with some little appreciation. They were doing 
well when a sheep man claimed the ranch, and as a com- 
promise moved them- ten miles further up the side of 
the mountain to another sheep camp. 
“This change was a sudden elevation to higher ground, 
and it nearly killed both the Swede and Slocum, espe- 
cially Slocum. Their blood got into circulation so sud- 
denly it exhausted their capacity for inaction and al- 
most laid them out. Some stray cows happened along 
and the Swede managed to round them up and milk 
them, thereby saving them both. Slocum liked milk, as 
it was easy to take, and in a few days he got so’s he ’ 
could sit up and let Yensen drive a cow near enough 
to him so’s he could shoot the milk in a stiff stream i 
into his face. Sometimes Yensen shot him in the eye ■: 
with it, but he centered most of the time, being an ex- 
pert at milking, and Slocum wasn’t particular, or, if he ; 
was, couldn’t explain it. ' 
“They did very well until the cows started for sum- ' 
mer range higher up in the tall timber, then they found 
it easier to follow the cows than to keep them rounded 
up; and so they left the neighborhood, little by little, 
finally getting up into the northwest corner of Lassen 
county. For some time all track of therri.was lost, and 
they were almost forgotten, when a stockman- ran . 
across a clearin’ about a mile square over near Eagle , 
Lake. He found a double log house of hewn logs, piles ■ 
of posts, rails and shingles, and a couple of hairy-look- i 
ing giants squaring timbers for a barn, and working | 
like steam engines. It took people some time to find 1 
out for sure that these formidable giants were Slocum 
and Yensen; but in a year or two they had all kinds 
of live stock, had been arrested a dozen times for 
cattle stealing, and the Government agents had war- 
rants out for them for slashing timber over the line. 
“In fact, Slocum in particular had developed into one ; 
of the leading citizens of the region, and the people of i 
the county wanted him to run for election as tax ' 
collector, but he refused on account of having almost 1 
all he wanted where he was. He said it was all he could I 
do to find work enough to keep him busy, but that he j 
wasn’t so stuck after a job as to try to collect tax 
money in Lassen county; said it was all he could do to ' 
collect tools, ammunition and stock enough from the I 
