780 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 21, 1912 
Bob concluded that he must have had a fifty- 
point head, and after further thought was of 
the firm conviction that this was the finest 
head lie had seen in Newfoundland in ten years; 
all of which of course made me feel very happy 
indeed. 
“After lunch we ran into- three ptarmigan, 
of which Ralph shot two with the little .22 
rifle. They appear to be the same willow 
ptarmigan as those which are found in British 
Columbia, though the throats of the males do 
not seem quite so rich and strong a rufous 
brown. A big stag was way down the bog 
two miles off at 3 p. m., but we could not see 
his horns. Twelve deer seen to-day. 
“Wednesday.—Bob has gone off to spot 
out a line to a still higher bog off south, which 
he has seen the edges of by climbing a tree. A 
good tree climber, Bob, as is also Lionel, who- 
at the slightest provocation swarms up a tree 
like a bear cub. Ralph and I watch ‘our’ bog 
near camp, and see a young stag drinking at 
10 A. M. I am just beginning to be able to 
think of that sleeping stag and the whole mis¬ 
erable business without sickening rehearsal of 
the scene, and fruitless wishes that I might 
only have the chance over again. It was surely 
a beautiful head, and might be mine right here 
in camp now, if only, etc., etc., etc. To ex¬ 
tract and to resolutely forget the sting, and to 
read and learn well the lesson of experience, 
that is the problem, as in all defeats and mis¬ 
fortunes of life. Now for the lesson. 
“A great brute like this, lying down, 
muscles bunched, fat rolled over haunches, 
makes a bad mark for a fatal shot. His bones 
are all slipped into unnatural positions and 
covered with heavy rolls of flesh. Make him 
stand up, and when he does, give him the 
shoulder shot. He has got to come down 
when he is shot through the shoulder; or shoot 
him through the lungs and he cannot possibly 
go over fifty yards. Shot through the shoulder, 
he is bound to drop in his tracks, for he is 
broken in two and cannot move. Shot through 
the lungs, his pipes will choke up with blood 
the moment he starts to jump. Of course, 
a shot in the neck is fatal, or one straight into 
the middle of the rump, raking him fore and 
aft, but the shoulder or lung shot is the safest, 
nine times out of ten. Bob tells me that he 
once shot a four-year-old stag with a .22 auto¬ 
matic, killing him with two shots through the 
fore ribs into the lungs. 
“To-day a southwest wind, the blue sky 
very deep, flecked with scattering white clouds, 
and a clear rim of purple horizon all around. 
A great sweep of green forest falls away to 
the north, thirty miles, to where Mount Peyton 
rears his bald summit against the sky. Ducks 
are passing overhead, the loons traveling and 
calling wildly. From afar comes the honk of 
geese, and about the little ponds the merry 
whistle of plover. Bob in at 4 p. m., reports 
fourteen deer, including a good stag. Total 
seen to-day, sixteen deer. 
“Thursday.-—A clear sunrise, and an early 
start. Several does and fawns about, their 
coats glittering in the frosty early morning. 
From a little island o'f white stones rising 
above the bog we spy the red horns of a great 
white-throated stag, and soon he comes out 
upon the bog a thousand yards away. A 
long crawl shows very thin tops. I decided 
upon a picture, and give Bob the rifle. The 
day turns warm. We ‘bile the kettle.’ A big 
flock of ptarmigan gets up near Little Dead 
Wolf River as we come down the bog, and the 
.22 automatic which Bob carries accounts for 
four of them. A big flock of black duck pitches 
down into a pond, and after a long, careful 
crawl the .22 adds two of these fine fowl to our 
bag. Said Bob: ‘That’s the finest bird that 
flies in Newfoundland.’ 
“Down the long bog comes a stag, mighty, 
but with thin horns. I crawl into a favorable 
position with the camera, and he passes within 
thirty yards of me, his dew claws clicking to¬ 
gether. When a band of deer are passing near 
the click of their dew claws is clearly audible 
at 100 yards, sounding like the rattling of small 
castanets. 
“Back to our white little, tight little, stony 
bog island, and then home to camp, a two- 
mile tramp in the falling shadows. Venison 
steak and rice pudding for supper, then the 
delicious fragrance of tobacco, and such won¬ 
derful sleep before the great snapping fire, 
while the stars glitter and the northern lights 
flash up across the heavens. 
“Friday.—The wind has gotten around into 
the northeast, and deer seem scarce. Only one 
doe seen up to noon. In the afternoon three 
stags came out upon the bog, but all with poor 
heads. Upon returning to camp we find that 
Lionel has come in from below and made a 
fine suet pudding. He says one never sees 
many deer when the wind is in the northeast. 
Ralph has gone down to main camp for a fresh 
supply of grub. It came on to rain at dark. 
“Saturday.—Lionel up at four-thirty, has 
combed his hair with a dry bough, and built 
a fire to dry us out after a night of heavy rain. 
Says he left the canoes ‘close hauled up in a 
spruce alder bed, and all tight.’ Ralph is back, 
and he and Lionel make off southerly to scout 
the high bog, while Bob and I go easterly, to 
our little white Spion Kop again. We photo¬ 
graphed a two-year-old stag at thirty feet. Saw 
a very big doe way down the bog, but no other 
deer. 
“We crossed the bog and climbed up 
through the timber by Bob’s blaze marks, on 
to the very high bog, and jumped a big stag, 
which I wounded with a quick shot, just clip¬ 
ping the skin across his neck. We tracked 
him a mile and lost him. 
“Coming out on to a very high point, six 
fine ptarmigan sat huddled together in the lee 
of a great rock out of the wind, all in fine 
plumage. From this point we could see miles 
upon miles of rolling bog and lakes, with here 
and there a deer, but no big stags. A lot of 
rain, altogether a cold, sloppy day. We arrived 
at camp as the storm increased, the wind and 
smoke whirling around the cooking outfit and 
into the tent, while Ralph wrestled with the 
frying-pan and rubbed the smoke from his eyes. 
“Ze wind she blow from nor’, eas’, sou’, 
Ze wes’ win’ she blow, too, 
Ze cook he’s say, ‘Monsieur Capitaine, 
Monsieur, vat shall I do?’ ” 
“At dusk a big flock of geese, storm- 
tossed, tumbled out of the fog into our little 
bog, honking loudly. Lionel predicted that 
they would ‘bawl all night,’ which in fact they 
did, departing, however, before breakfast with¬ 
out paying for their lodging the toll we had 
vowed to exact.” 
Thus the days passed. Ralph and Lionel 
went down to main camp again for grub and 
for my other boots, for whichever boots one 
happens to have in Newfoundland, he always 
seems to wish to have his others. 
We had not come nearly to the end of our 
September season, and while I had two fair 
heads, we had not yet got the great head for 
which we had hoped and worked, so Bob was 
feeling rather blue as we made off again for 
the big bog easterly from camp and settled 
down upon our little island of white rocks to 
watch. It was very raw and cold. We built 
a low fire among the rocks in the lee of the 
little island and spent some hours there, spying 
across the wide expense of marsh, making an 
occasional sally forth from our stronghold after 
wood; wrenching up the tiny dead spruces, 
rotten at the ground, but dry and hard as bone 
in the air. I cut off the trunk of one of them 
with my small pack ax where it was about 2^2 
inches in diameter, to count the annual growth 
rings, and as nearly as I could estimate, there 
were 230 of them. For over two hundred years 
SPYING FOR CARIBOU. 
