A Still-Hunter’s Memories 
“Attention, Company V* — The Palmist of the 
Woods — The Guide’s Memory Picture — 
Silhouettes—The Lifting of the Fog 
By SAMUEL MERRILL 
(Conclusion.) 
A PICTURE familiar to all of us, whether 
on canvas or on the parade ground it¬ 
self, and always impressive, is that of 
a body of soldiers at attention in the presence 
of a commanding officer. I'he rigid figures of 
well-trained men are always striking in their 
potentiality, and in many variations artists have 
made much of this theme. J\Jen in uniforms of 
many colors, arrayed under many flags, with 
presidents and emperors as reviewing officers, 
have been immortalized by famous artists, and 
in such pictures it is always the rank and file 
that hold the attention, and not the man who 
chances to wear the most gold braid. This is 
preliminary to describing one of the smaller and 
least pretentious of the thousands of pictures 
which my memory treasures — pictures collected 
on the hunting trips of many years. 
iNIy companion and I had started out one 
morning in November, in the year of grace igo8, 
m quest of moose, each with his guide taking a 
different direction. Perhaps a quarter of an 
hour had elapsed after quitting our little, camp, 
when there was a rifle shot perhaps half a mile 
distant. It was Mr. Farley’s rifle, for he was 
fortune’s favorite that day. The same instant 
that Atkins and I heard the rifle shot we saw 
three deer fifty or sixty yards away. They were 
between us and the sound of the shooting, and 
at the sound they suddenly became rigid and 
stood, ears up. immovable as bronze figures, fac¬ 
ing the shot, for all the world as if they were 
well-trained soldiers, and some martinet in shoul¬ 
der straps had shrieked, "'Tention, company! 
E\ es front!” and it was a question of instant 
obedience or the guard house. 
For three or four minutes we stood watching 
them, they serenel}" unconscious of our exist¬ 
ence, and they would perhaps be standing there 
yet, waiting for the next command, but as I 
said, we were in quest of moose and could not 
waste time on the small fry. A few steps and 
they were startled and off as if we had yelled, 
“Break ranks — march !’’ at them through a mega¬ 
phone. 
Since then whenever I hear a rifle, shot in the 
woods I picture to myself all the woodsfolk 
within a radius of a mile or two, except those 
within the immediate danger zone, coming to 
attention and standing immovable, eyes front, 
as if a major general or an emperor were re¬ 
viewing them; indeed, I have no doubt this drill 
is executed thousands of times every year in 
the game country, but generally unseen of men. 
IMost readers will recall pictures, generally 
called “The Palmist,” different treatments of 
the same inoiif, in which an aged crone, hold¬ 
ing in her wrinkled hand the dainty hand of a 
young woman—always a young woman, I be¬ 
lieve—is supposed to be telling the future as 
revealed in the various lines of the girl's palm. 
The life line is read, and then the line of the 
heart—this latter, quite likely, being the chief 
subject of concern on the part of the young 
questioner of the future. I, too, have seen such 
])ictures, but I have seen also the palmist of the 
woods, the skilled hunter who employs his 
palmistry in the pursuit of game. 
Many is the time I have seen William Atkins, 
guide and trapper, stop and study—not exactl}' 
palms, but hoof prints in the snow or in the 
earth. A little study of the impressions in the 
ground, as if there were life lines and lines of 
the heart to be unraveled, supplemented by a 
glance at the trees and 1 ushes, and Atkins, grave 
of face, slow of speech, of few words, will tell 
the character of the anim-’l ard the sex, approxi- 
mateh' the age, and the time that has intervened 
.since the animal passed that wav. His palmistry 
reaches into the ♦uture. too. and he can tell al¬ 
most to a nicety how long the animal has to 
live and that his death will be by violence— 
from a gunshot wound. What palmist of the 
Gheiro school can do more? Ard what palmist 
of the Cheiro school can tell also the caliber 
of the weapon that will cause the wound and 
the name of the company which manufactured 
it? Oh, it is a wonderful thing, this palmistry 
of the woods, as practiced h}' those who are 
adepts in the art. 
In these da^'S of moving pictures I must in¬ 
clude one in my collection. Imagine a stout 
man, looking unduh' stout from the loosely fit¬ 
ting, short and thick hunting coat; a moribund ■ 
moose, moodily meditating on the uncertainty* 
of life in the open season; the moose groggy,® 
as they say in the squared circle where lightly-® 
clad young men make violent gestures with® 
three-ounce gloves. The moose had traveled less i 
than 200 yards since being disturbed at his morn- | 
ing meal, but the journey was rendered difficult t 
by the burden of an ounce or two of lead ju- j 
diciously placed. This was the situation when J 
the kinetoscope was set in motion. 1 
The moose had disappeared through some un- ^ 
derbrush. The stout man, rifle in hand, jumped | 
up on a log in the pursuit of the wounded game, J 
and from this vantage point could see beyond > 
the thicket the big animal on his feet, but dis- J 
inclined to travel. If the stout man jumped off 1 
the log, the thicket would hide the object of his ^ 
chase; if he traversed the thicket to seek a 
nearer position, the moose would perhaps make 
another run for safety—and the log lay at ex¬ 
actly right angles to the line of fire. So the 
stout man, armed with a light weight rifle which 
was considerably overloaded, fired from his 
position on the log. , 
From the muzzle came a bullet which added ' 
to the life problems of the moose; from the 
breech came a kick which sent the hunter back 
off the log. Again the stout man clambered up 
to his former vantage point; again he fired; 
again he was kicked back to the ground in the 
rear of the log. A third time he managed to 
reach his firing position, wondering the while , 
why that log could not have fallen diagonally 
across the line of fire to make it possible for a 
hunter to brace himself to resist the effect of ' 
recoil. But this time it was evident that the i 
battle was over, for the moose lay at the foot 
of a large tree, gathered to his fathers. 
Now, I did not see this picture which I de¬ 
scribe, though I was there, but my faithful guide 
assures me that it was one of the funniest things 
he ever saw in the woods. It was some years 
ago—in November, 1902. to be exact, for the 
views in my picture book know no chronologi¬ 
cal sequence—and the picture in my mind is 
framed in the woods bordering the shores of 
Munsungan Lake. 'I'he head won that day is 
one of the chief prizes in my collection of 
trophies of the forest. 
One of the weirdest of the pictures associated 
with my hunting trips, and one which a hunter 
with the camera could not have placed upon the 
sensitized paper, shows a tent pitched on an 
ancient caribou trail in the edge of a ribbon of 
stunted timber skirting a lonesome Newfound¬ 
land lake. 
These old caribou trails—what highways in 
the world can compare with them? In use very 
likely before the ancient engineer in Roman toga 
first set the grade stakes for the Appian Way, 
