Oct. 4, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
435 
After New Brunswick Moose 
By L. G. LANGSTAFF 
Mosquito Hood. —This is cut to fit very 
snug down to or below the eyebrows and well 
over the cheeks. It has a good length and but¬ 
tons under the chin. With a dab of fly wash on 
nose and chin, Jong gauntlet gloves, veil and 
leggins, one may sleep fly tight without a bar, 
but I can’t help here recommending leggins for 
a sleeping potion. Even if one does not wear 
shoes and socks they will keep the blood down, 
keep the feet warm, and make him sleep in spite 
of sandflies and conscience. In regard to sand¬ 
flies I advise no one to make a bar for the 
Tropics of anything sold or used for that pur¬ 
pose in the States. The finest grades of cheese 
cloth and special fly barring are all worthless, 
as these sandflies carry a pneumatic drill. The 
only thing used and useful here is the very thin 
unbleached cotton called “manta.” A bar should 
have a bottom and spreaders at ends and middle. 
To get the best of the sandflies I once made one 
entered by a tunnel that I skinned over myself 
like an undershirt. The bar is one’s fortress, 
tower of refuge and defense, the last place 
where one takes real comfort after a hard day, 
and should not be ignored by those of calloused 
conscience who say they don’t mind mosquitoes, 
for it keeps at bay such niglu demons as centi¬ 
pedes, scorpions, tarantula's, mule killers, biting 
and stinging ants, poisonous snakes, vampire bats 
and the vicious bats whose urine blisters and 
blinds us, all night-hunting carnivora who have 
been my bed fellows, and whose proximity the 
sleeper knows nothing of till he views the 
morning’s debris of dead lizards and hanging 
skins. 
Field Glass.— A handy little seven or eight 
power monocular Galilean pocket glass, with 
oval objective and screw adjustment which can 
be quickly brought into use on a bird in flight 
is the right thing. I picked up my little copper 
one at old Nicklin’s pledge store in ’73, but its 
last vestige of plating has long since vanished 
without diminishing its value to me, for I like 
old friends. It, like everything else of import¬ 
ance, is secured with a lanyard attached to a 
loop of cloth or copper wire sewn to the cloth¬ 
ing about the shoulders. The only objection to 
being caught with a glass is every idiot that 
sees it wants to try it, and most of them look 
through the large end, and then ruin the ad¬ 
justment for its owner because they can’t see 
anything. There was one exception. After 
looking it over he asked, “What can it be used 
for?” 
Baggage is classified and with provisions 
carried in small round-bottomed bags, which 
accommodate themselves to the contents better 
than boxes. They are hung from hooks of gal¬ 
vanized telegraph wire upon a small horizontal 
galvanized rope with tarred ends, sometimes 
stretched over the fire. A tarpaulin hung over 
them protects them from rain and buzzards. 
Though this way is not certainly rat and ’possum 
proof, it is generally sufficiently so. 
Medicines. —We carry medicines to relieve 
us of the pains of disease, but as we never 
know what we may get, don’t want to encumber 
ourselves with a miscellaneous assortment. For a 
single medicine, morphine about fills the bill 
better than any other. Besides its curative prop¬ 
erties for many complaints, it relieves the pains 
of all diseases till they cure themselves, or one 
can reach help. Thus I cured myself twice of 
( Continued' on page 445.) 
T HE near approach of the hunting season re¬ 
calls vividly my moose hunting trip last 
year to the wilds of New Brunswick. 
Several unique experiences would seem to make 
a description of that trip of interest to your 
readers. 
I met my hunting mate, A. P. Gardiner, of 
New York, and his guide, Nick Vieno, at Mon¬ 
treal, then by the Intercolonial Railroad to Bath¬ 
urst, New Brunswick. This had been our sec¬ 
ond trip to that region on the same quest. Each 
of us had returned empty handed. 
On the 15th of September, as we received 
our licenses from the local agent, I noted that 
mine was number 13. I was then reminded that 
I had started on the trip on Friday the 13th. 
This, in view of the fact that I had been 
“skunked” before would have been disquieting 
to the superstitious. Plowever, getting my guide 
Tom Vieno and our cook and supplies together, 
we set out for Nepisiguit River. On taking the 
train for the Drummond iron mines, we noted 
that the engine was “No. 23.” Surely the “In¬ 
dian sign” was on me. From the river we struck 
off into the woods, reaching our camp on the 
afternoon of the 15th. For five days thereafter, 
our journeyings hither and thither in the neigh¬ 
borhood brought no success. We had seen three 
cow moose, a fox, some beaver, ducks and par¬ 
tridges, a few of the last we had shot. Of bull 
moose we had seen signs only. 
On the afternoon of the 21st my guide and 
I made our usual trip to a large spruce barren, 
two miles distant. This, which was about 200 
acres in extent, covered by grass or weeds, 
marshy in character and perfectly level, was re¬ 
garded as a favorite haunt of moose. We had 
advanced into the barren about 150 yards, the 
guide leading about eight feet. Suddenly I spied 
through a paneled opening in the spruce trees 
just ahead of us a deer, seemingly a hundred 
or more yards distant. It stood facing us in 
open-eyed astonishment, apparently a doe. The 
guide’s position somewhat to the left placed her 
out of his view. He knelt down and told me 
to shoot. Fearing she would take fright and 
run (it was the first wild deer I had seen), I 
also knelt down. In this position her head was 
obscured by the growth in front of me which 
necessitated my rising to both knees, when I 
could see her head and throat. Taking what 
seemed to me an unsteady aim with my .30-30 
rifle at her throat—the plainest mark—I fired. 
A mere shake of the head seemed the only re¬ 
sult of my shot. She stood looking at me just 
as before. I then rose to my feet (kneeling on 
both knees in a marshy wet soil is not a good 
shooting attitude) and aimed at her chest—the 
largest mark—and with a much steadier aim, 
fired again. With a convulsive jump she bounded 
away to the right. I felt that I had hit her and 
the guide thought so, too, he having changed 
his position so as to see the last shot. We 
immediately ran around a clump of trees into 
a view of the large open space, but the deer was 
nowhere to be seen. On looking about close by 
I finally saw her legs sticking up out of the 
grass, shot through the throat, one-half inch to 
the left of the center, the ball passing through 
the spinal cord. She was a fine fat doe of good 
size, and we soon had her skinned and one hind 
quarter removed. While skinning her I had 
noticed about fifty yards distant an oval pro¬ 
jection above the grass which looked like a 
moose’s horn or perhaps a piece of birch bark. 
Telling the guide, before he put the load on his 
back, that I would satisfy my curiosity, I ran 
over and beheld to my astonishment a buck, stone 
dead, shot fair in the center of the chest. I had 
not dreamed there were two deer. The first one, 
whose head and throat only I had seen, dropped 
dead in its tracks, disclosing to view her mate 
in the rear, precisely in the same attitude as her¬ 
self. The buck’s horns being very small and “in 
the velvet” could not be seen that distance at 
that time of day, late afternoon. A moment’s 
reflection, though one never reflects at such times, 
would have made it plain that there must have 
been two deer. A shot through the spinal 
cord near the base of the brain would prevent 
any deer from moving a step. Leaving the car¬ 
casses on the ground, for it was getting late, we 
returned to camp. 
The next morning we returned, and to our 
disgust found that a bear had “beaten us to it” 
and had eaten, commencing at a hole in the chest, 
all the skin off one side of the neck, while the 
warm morning had brought blue flies in abund¬ 
ance. As we had arranged to break camp the 
next morning for a new location, I had to forego 
a good chance to shoot a bear on his return for 
another meal. I did gloat some, however, at hav¬ 
ing made two bullseye shots on the first wild 
deer I had ever seen. On our way we came 
upon a lumber camp in preparation that was glad 
to learn of two freshly killed deer in their neigh¬ 
borhood. 
We went a few miles distant to Red Pine, 
where we camped on a hillside near a running 
brook. Here we had better luck, although dur¬ 
ing the night an incident occurred which shows 
how careful one must be to avoid accident. The 
night being cold, we did not sleep well. Hear¬ 
ing a noise as of footsteps at the rear of our 
tent, which we fully believed was that of a wan¬ 
dering moose, we both seized our rifles. Mr. 
Gardiner pointed his, with the hair trigger set, in 
the direction of the sound, watching, as he after¬ 
ward said, for the appearance of horns. A 
moment more and the cook appeared, bringing 
some branches to rebuild the fire. In this state 
of expectancy the power of suggestion is very 
great. Had anything been seen, however re¬ 
motely resembling horns, it is not unlikely the 
cook would have been shot. He explained that 
he made as little noise as possible in order not 
to awaken us, but seemed unconcerned about the 
danger he had been in. 
The next day brought us luck. In less than 
an hour after starting from camp, Mr. Gardiner 
shot his moose, a huge animal with a fifty-eight 
inch spread. The following morning I was equal¬ 
ly successful. We had not gone more than 250 
yards, when I shot a younger moose with forty- 
four inch spread, twenty-two points and of beau¬ 
tiful symmetry. 
