April 24, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
655 
Moowin of the Serpentine. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
About the middle of last November I was on 
my way up the Serpentine River with J. J. Hale, 
lumber operator for Hillyard Brothers, of St. 
John, N. B., who was taking me with him to 
look over a piece of timber land that the firm 
proposed to operate on. We spent the night at 
the camp of a jobber who was working for the 
company. The man himself was away, but in 
his absence his son-in-law and two daughters 
were caring for the camp and cook house. They 
told us of an enormous black bear that had 
haunted the vicinity of the camp all through 
the summer and autumn, and had grown so bold 
that a few nights before he had smashed the 
window and come into the cook house, where 
the two women and the married man slept, and 
had eaten and carried off the cooked food pre¬ 
pared for the men. The bear made a practice 
springs and then ran away. 
In the morning I followed his tracks, hoping 
to see him, but true to the instinct of his kind 
the bear doubled back, and circling around be¬ 
fore he lay down, he readily scented me and 
escaped. As I had no dog and had little time 
at my disposal, I continued my journey, first 
taking the measurement of his enormous foot. 
Later, a couple of trappers, hearing of the cir¬ 
cumstances took up the trail, following Moowin 
for miles, until he crossed the rough and moun¬ 
tainous watershed of the divide toward Nepisi- 
guit, where they left him. 
This closed the first chapter of my experience 
with Moowin of the Serpentine. 
My second and last acquaintance with Moowin 
came later. Commissioned by the same lumber 
firm to look over their lands for the next year’s 
operations, and accompanied by their timber, or 
camp boss, John Sinclair, of Fredericton. N. B., 
tently watching the moose, no doubt intending 
to pounce on one of them, when they came 
close enough. 
In a couple of seconds I had thrown a car¬ 
tridge into the chamber of my rifle, and aiming 
behind its ear, fired, and Moowin, who a few 
moments before had been contemplating a feast 
of moose meat after his fast of four months, 
crawled back into his den, from which no doubt 
he had been summoned by the sound and smell 
of the moose. Fatally wounded as he was, he 
could not back all the way down the six-foot 
tunnel in the snow to the root and tree that 
had sheltered him, and I fired again at close 
range. John Sinclair came running up and gaz¬ 
ing down into the hole exclaimed, “My dream.” 
And, indeed, the dream was verified in the 
difficulty he found in getting the bear out of 
his hole. He was enormous in size and as fat 
as he could be. There had been no nuts or 
berries during the preceding autumn, yet his 
HALF TAME WILD DUCKS ON LAKE WORTH IN FLORIDA. 
of coming every night about midnight, to feed 
at the sink hole where the cook’s garbage and 
slops were emptied. He had also carried off 
nearly a barrel of pork, besides other food that 
he had picked up. They said that the bear was 
too smart to trap, and they had no gun. 
I at once volunteered to watch for the bear 
and shoot him, but to this the man and his wife 
seriously objected, the man becoming quite angry 
and using strong language. They wanted to 
take the gun and to shoot the bear themselves. 
After thinking the matter over for a few 
moments, I shoved the sights of the gun up a 
couple of notches and handed it to the man, 
and went out to the sleeping camp with the 
other men. About 9 o’clock we all crawled into 
our bunks to sleep, but my bed consisted of 
plenty of bunk, but no blankets and I was not 
very sound asleep when, at exactly 12 o’clock, 
the gun sounded. The younger Mr. D. seized 
a lantern and ran out to help his brother-in-law 
find and skin the bear. The shot was fired from 
the window about ten feet from the sink hole, 
where bruin was feeding. 
. I looked about in the snow which was a foot 
deep, and in which the story of what had hap¬ 
pened was plainly written. The only damage 
done the bear, so far as I could see, was to 
startle him so that he turned a couple of back 
I was traveling through the same region. 
On the night of March 14, 1909, as I lay 
sleeping beside John Sinclair iq an old lumber 
camp, I was awakened by his making curious 
sounds and peculiar motions of alarm. I awoke 
him and asked what was the matter. He told me 
that he was dreaming of an enormous black bear, 
which was trying to kill the cattle just below 
him, and which had got into a deep hole out 
of which we did not seem to be able to drag 
him, try as hard as we might. 
“Why.” said he, “it seemed as real as if it 
were happening.” We talked about this for a 
few moments, dropped oft to sleep again, and 
by morning had nearly forgotten the dream. 
The next day was spent cruising upon the Nepi- 
siguit side of the divide. About 2 o’clock, as 
we were looking up a bunch of black spruce, 
we came upon two large black moose yarded 
there and browsing on the undergrowth. From 
the direction in which we approached them there 
was no way for them to escape without taking 
to the deep snow and making a new path, and 
this they slowly proceeded to do. Just above 
them I saw another large dark object and step¬ 
ped toward it, thinking it another moose, as it 
was not clearly outlined in the thick timber. 
Suddenly it turned its head, and I saw it was 
an enormous black bear that had been in- 
excessive fatness showed that he had been well 
'fed the last of the autumn. In size the bear 
answered closely the description given of him. 
file had the same measurement of foot and was 
in the same vicinity that the trappers left him 
heading for. In view of all these proofs not 
a doubt remained in our minds that we had 
captured Moowin of the Serpentine. 
Besides this, his sleeping place showed that 
it was but a hastily chosen makeshift, not a 
nice comfortable den such as a bear usually 
makes, but formed very late. He had merely 
gnawed away a portion of an overturned tror 
near its roots and had dug away the earth from 
beneath. When we came to dig away the snow, 
in order to get the bear out, we found great 
chunks of frozen earth on top of two feet or 
more of snow. This showed to the experienced 
eye of woodsmen hunter and guide that this 
den had been made about the same time of the 
year as his former Serpentine experience. The 
pelt easily measured seven feet by four. 
I had felt disappointed the autumn before 
that I had not had the opportunity to kill this 
bear at the camp, but the events of the spring 
gave me much faith in the saying of an old 
friend. “All things come to him who waits.” 
Amos Gaunce, 
Registered Guide. No. 130. 
