690 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nelse, as one of his oars was threshed from his 
grasp. 
“Git ’im in shaller water,” grunted Captain 
Jack. “Then he can’t git such a purchase to— 
he-elp! He-elp ! Both on ye !” 
The manatee made an unusually heavy lunge, 
striking that rent part of the net close to the 
skiff, almost jerking Jack into the water. He 
held, however, and Nelse, dropping his oar, 
clung to the captain’s legs, while the skiff was 
suddenly drawn backward. 
Then the pressure ceased. I saw through the 
dark water a huge shape rising under one gun¬ 
wale. The skiff rose upward, tilted sharply and 
dumped the captain and Minorcan into deep wa¬ 
ter, not more than ten feet from where I stood 
on the sand bar in mid-waist depth. Jack, splut¬ 
tering, swam to the bar, while Nelse clung to 
the boat. After getting back in, we all searched 
for the released net. But there was no more 
pressure. The manatee had gotten away. 
It was found that the two nets were badly 
entangled, with various holes in both, where the 
thrashing about of the imprisoned manatee had 
torn them. It had doubtless freed itself when 
it overturned the skiff. 
With much grumbling the two nets were taken 
ashore, mended, then restaked again, some of 
the posts being replaced by new ones. As there 
were manatee still about, Captain Jack deter¬ 
mined to have another try for our vanished 
game. 
For several days nothing happened, except that 
stray saw-fish made such havoc of one net that 
Captain Jack declared if they did not soon have 
better luck we would go on down to the mouth 
of Broad River, another favorable locality. That 
night we heard more sounds from the creek 
mouth, indicating that something big was feed¬ 
ing near the old crawl. Next morning Nelse 
and I were in bathing, while Jack sat moodily 
in camp. Looking up, he saw Nelse climb up 
on the crawl, to dive, probably, then gesticulate 
excitedly, and coon it hurriedly round to the 
big drop gate and raise and open it. Jack saw 
the gate drop heavily. Meantime I climbed up 
and the captain next saw us both waving and 
heard us whooping—acting to him like escaped 
lunatics. 
“What the h— 1 !” he shouted, getting into the 
skiff and rowing across. “Are ye both gone 
dippy?” 
“Climb up here and see for yourself,” I said. 
“We got one—sure!” 
“No use gittin’ egsited over a shark,” he 
growled, climbing up laboriously. “That’s about 
what you’ve got, if you got anything—wow!” 
The “wow” came when the captain saw. 
Floundering leisurely about, nibbling at the 
grasses and young mangrove branches, was a 
good-sized manatee and her calf. The big one 
might have weighed eight hundred pounds, and 
the little fellow looked much like some kind of 
dun-colored water hog, with flippers instead of 
legs. 
“There must be such a thing as pure luck, 
after all,” was Jack’s conclusion, and we all 
agreed. Attracted by the unusual display of 
food gathered by Nelse, the pair, coming in on 
the flood, had strolled, as it were, right into our 
accidental trap. 
Now came difficulties. The launch must re¬ 
turn to Punta Rassa for lumber to make a 
tank and return. With our manatee safely 
tanked, we might get them by schooner to the 
railway terminus, then above the Caloosahatchee 
River. 
Captain Jack went back alone, agreeing to re¬ 
turn in two days. Nelse and I were to watch 
and feed the manatee. 
We had an easy time. Being well fed, they 
were so gentle and playful that we would raise 
the gate, go in, and play with them in turn. 
It was pitiful to think how we were imposing 
on them. Luring them into content, only to take 
them a thousand or more miles into permanent 
captivity. 
But luck favored them, if it deserted us. 
Jimso, a Seminole, came in with a message for 
me to return with him to Moccasin Bend, ten 
miles up, where Captain Jack had got stalled 
with his lumber. I went. The next day Nelse 
appeared, looking wrathfully dejected. 
“’Nother injun come in from Big Cypress. He 
B RUIN was given to us ;n the spring, a mere 
infant, and our interest in all animal life, 
enhanced by 'our ever-increasing affection for 
him, caused us to watch him very closely. 
When the cub came into our possession, we 
gave him quarters in a vacant hen-house, which 
was enclosed by a three-board fence, and for 
several months Bruin was a privileged character. 
He tussled with the dogs of the neighborhood, 
performed for passers-by and romped with the 
children as they went to and from school. 
By the first of September Bruin had so gained 
in size and strength that we realized that he was 
no longer a safe playmate, so we chained him 
in his yard and cut an opening in his house 
near the ground, leaving him free to go in and 
out at his pleasure. As cold weather came on 
we wondered hew Bruin would dispose of him¬ 
self. The latter part of November we found 
out. 
A small hay-stack stood outside of his enclos¬ 
ure. One day we discovered him reaching 
through the fence with his paw and pulling back 
a wisp of hay, which he carried into his house. 
The stack was too far away to make Bruin’s 
work easy, or even satisfactory, but he worked 
persistently all that day. Next morning we 
pitched some of the hay nearer the fence and 
that day he accomplished much. By the end of 
the third day he had quite a stack of hay inside 
his house. He next burrowed into the stack, 
crawled in, and covered the opening after him. 
We did not detach the chain by which he was 
secured, and it lay on the ground as motionless 
as though a living creature were not at the other 
end of it. The snow came and covered the chain, 
and then melted and left it coated with ice and 
frozen to the ground. 
December and January passed and the first 
day of February came. The sky clouded up in 
the afternoon and many were our conjectures as 
to whether Bruin would come out on ground¬ 
hog day, and whether he would remain out, re¬ 
gardless of the weather. 
February second dawned clear and bright, and 
all the morning we made frequent trips to the 
want to look. I stay in camp, makin’ turtle soup 
—good! Jimso come back, too. Leave gate 
h’ist. Forgot, mebbe. Mebbe didn’t care. Him 
dam fool, anyhow. In mornin’ when we go with 
fresh mangrove—manatee gone.” 
“Wha-a-t?” yelled the captain. “Both gone?” 
He gasped and stared. 
“Yes, yes. Dam fool injun! I draw’d my 
gun; he run; mebbe drunk.” 
“Why, you infernal, piny-woods tacky! You— 
you—you—” 
Here Jack went for his helper with an oar 
blade. But being fat, Nelse got away, consider¬ 
ing himself discharged. 
So there we were. I may say that I also re¬ 
signed from further manatee catching. The gen¬ 
tle, playful ways of that sea-cow and calf, their 
trustful unsuspiciousness, taken in conjunction 
with their enormous strength, somehow, gave me 
a permanent distaste for further adventures of 
that kind. 
window to watch for indications of Bruin’s 
awakening. About ten o’clock we noticed that 
the ice about the chain was cracked as though 
it had been slightly disturbed. Soon after this 
u was moved out of its icy bed. We then took 
some food out, set it near the stake by which the 
chain was held, and hurried back to our positions 
near the window. 
About noon Bruin came through the hole in 
his house and walked around leisurely, and 
though he stopped near the food he did not ap¬ 
pear to notice it. One of his old friends, a 
neighbor’s dog, ran into his yard and tried to 
renew old acquaintance. But Bruin paid no at¬ 
tention to him, but stood in the same position 
for nearly an hour, motionless, except that his 
head swung from side to side, as we have seen 
the polar bear do in his cage. 
Then, apparently without having noticed any¬ 
thing, Bruin crawled back through the hole into 
his house and again buried himself in the hay, 
covering the opening as before, the chain was 
unmoved for six weeks longer, and then he again 
appeared, a wide-awake bear. 
ALASKA REINDEER MEAT IN MARKET. 
The first commercial shipment of reindeer 
meat from Alaska to California arrived recently 
at Los Angeles from Puget Sound, via San 
Francisco. 
It is said that reindeer meat is sold in Alaska 
for less than beef costs in Los Angeles and that 
the shipment is a forerunner of many future 
shipments offering competition to the packers 
from an unexpected quarter. 
Under Government supervision the reindeer 
herds on the Seward peninsula have grown to 
such proportions that the animals are now be¬ 
ing slaughtered and marketed. Large herds 
now'exist from a new species imported several 
years ago from Lapland. The meat is very ten¬ 
der and has a gamy flavor although slightly 
coarser than beef. The meat is shipped in cold 
storage to Puget Sound for distribution along 
the coast. 
Baby Bruin Takes a Nap 
By Mrs. W. N. Smith. 
