FOREST AND STREAM 
687 
For An Adirondack Panther Hunt 
Certainly Two Big Cats Still Exist in a Mountain Fastness. An Unarmed Forest and Stream Reader Meets One. 
Guns Still Needed in North Woods Camps. 
A FRIEND of mine, from his boyhood a 
hunter, trout-fisher and camper in the 
Adirondacks, and owning a handsome 
bungalow up there, named after a man-hating 
and dangerous animal formerly abundant in our 
deer forest regions, refuses to accept your edi¬ 
torial dictum that the trusty old rifle or shotgun 
shall hereafter be banished from the hardware 
outfit of the ordinary open camp. He even 
slyly hints that, perhaps, you made that state¬ 
ment just to get an expression from your read¬ 
ers on the subject. 
Talking the matter over in a cosy corner at 
the Salmagundi Club last night, he broke away 
as follows: “Go into camp without a gun or 
rifle! Why, that would be as reckless a thing 
as Joe Knowles’ trip into the Maine woods with¬ 
out clothes. You’ll agree with me, old man, that 
there’s nothing quite so soothing, even to a vet¬ 
eran camper, one who knows the woods down to 
the ground, as the feeling of that faithful old 
friend lying by his side, when he drops down 
without human companions under a little shel¬ 
ter of loose boughs on some dark night in the 
awful stillness of those thick forests. You know 
how a hunter will awake from a death-like sleep 
at the unearthly hooting of an owl toward dawn. 
A sort of terror seizes upon him before he re¬ 
members where he is. At first the weird sound 
produces a sort of panic that only those know 
who have been in such situations and have ex¬ 
perienced the feeling. Will not his first move, 
before throwing a bit of dry wood on the 
smouldering camp-fire, be to lay hand upon that 
steel-hearted friend, always so true, and actual¬ 
ly warm from the heat of his body? That will 
surely be your solitary camper’s first act before 
making a little tour about. 
“To the novice, contemplating a first night 
alone in the forest, miles from a human habita¬ 
tion, the club defense suggested by your journal 
would prove an obstacle, and forever prevent 
that fellowship, comradeship and communion 
with old Nature and her wild creatures of the 
woods which he should be early encouraged to 
cultivate, if he would become a sportsman in 
the highest sense of the word. 
“Landing in the greenwood after ten months’ 
active city life, and, particularly, following an 
escape from the occasional awful June heat here 
in the city, that almost loosens the skin from the 
bones, I could sleep under any old bush, or 
even beneath the stars, and feel perfectly safe, 
were old ‘Betsey Baker,’ my never-failing and 
faithful old comrade on such trips, resting silent¬ 
ly by my side, yet ready to speak up quickly 
for me in case of need. 
“However they may dislike to handle firearms, 
you will find that the ‘women folks’ tenting out 
alone in the wilds, as the fashion now prevails, 
or else in company with their husbands or 
brothers, always favor the presence of rifles and 
shotguns in camp. These arms give these nat¬ 
urally timid ones an additional sense of security, 
in localities where big black bears are compara¬ 
tively abundant, such as the wild blueberry fields 
on recently burned-over mountain plateaus, or 
in the more boggy districts out Boreas River or 
By Peter Flint. 
Wolf Pond way, where the fruits of moose and 
shad trees and the fragrant strawberry abound 
in the ‘bresh,’ or make crimson the green sod of 
the clearings. 
“A friend and I had a large open camp out 
near the North Woods Club, in Essex County, 
about three years ago. It was not so very far 
from Aiden Lair, which, you know, was Colonel 
Roosevelt’s favorite bear-hunting lodge at the 
time of his memorable ride with Cronin, his 
guide, to take that train for Buffalo when Presi¬ 
dent McKinley was shot. 
“We took our wives along, and they were hav¬ 
ing their first experience in this sort of life. 
My ‘parter’ was remarkably handy with the light 
rifle and revolver, and I had encouraged her and 
“Knowing that we would all want more fish 
after a day or two at the flesh pots from North 
River, the men of the colony decided to spend 
a few hours after trout in the various feeders 
of the noble Boreas. I ‘drew’ a brook that my 
father, now about eighty years of age, has fished 
every year since his youth and intends to visit 
again this year. My basket was about half full 
of large trout by noon time, and I was sitting 
on an old mossy log, one of the prostrate forest 
monarchs of a previous age. My resting place 
was on the left bank of a level portion of the 
stream’s course and this big stick ran across- 
water over and close to the surface of a deep 
pool from which I had just coaxed several splen¬ 
did fish. As I sat there, musing over the beauty 
Trout Caught in an Hour, in the Vicinity of Moose Lake, Maine, Combined Weight, 40 Pounds. 
the other ladies to do a lot of target shooting 
with my old .303 Savage, using the lighter game 
cartridges recommended by that firm, because we 
had the best guide in that section, and I fully 
expected to secure a deer or two and perhaps 
a bear or lynx before breaking camp along in 
October. 
“Finally provisions got low, and there were no 
unprotected animals like raccoons, woodchucks 
or red squirrels that could be readily ‘treed’ or 
‘holed-up’ and made to do service for fresh meat, 
because we had no dog. 
“Accordingly, one fine morning Xavier, our 
trusted Canadian adviser and one of the best 
natural-born naturalists I ever knew, undertook 
to canoe it down the Stillwater to the outpost 
country store for a supply of canned stuff, salt 
pork, flour, Indian meal, sugar, fresh beef and 
eggs, with which to break the daily diet of brook 
trout that had become quite monotonous. It 
would require two full days, going and com¬ 
ing, he said, and in the meantime we had planned 
all sorts of improvements and surprises for him 
upon his return to duties as camp chef and head 
forester. 
of the scene, something caused me to turn my 
head, and there, half-way across that natural 
mossy bridge, was the most beautiful creature 
I had ever seen in the Adirondacks or anywhere 
else in the world; and I have traveled some. 
It was big, long, graceful and tawny in color, 
and very much resembled an overgrown kitten 
in its actions.” 
“A young panther, was it?” I broke in. 
-“Nothing else,” replied my host, warming up 
in recollection of the unusual event, and order¬ 
ing up another bottle. “And he was stretched 
out on that log with one wicked paw ready to 
hook out the very first trout that rose to take 
any insect that might happen to float down un¬ 
der his resting place. That was just what the 
big cat was there for, and I at once learned 
how creatures of his kind manage to catch fish 
so easily. I tell you he was a beauty as he 
crouched lengthwise on that old tree trunk. I 
would have given the world for a camera just 
then. 
“No; I had no gun nor pistol, not even a 
hunting knife. But, all the same, I felt no fear. 
Suddenly the big cat-like creature spied me. He 
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