850 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 29, 1909. 
directly before me, disclosing one of the little 
hilltop ponds which abound in this land of 
paradoxes, and fifty yards away near the shore, 
outlined against the water, the stag which I had 
dreamed about. It was a new sensation, this 
coming silently out of the fog of such an object 
of my quest. It was not buck fever—I had long 
been immune—but I confess I lost for an in¬ 
stant my presence of mind. 
I have read somewhere of an episode of naval 
warfare in which two vessels, under different 
flags, were groping in a fog, each unaware that 
the other was near, when suddenly the fog 
cleared away and disclosed to the men on both 
ships the proximity of the enemy. It do not 
remember when the engagement took place, nor 
how it is described in history—the incident, in¬ 
deed, may easily have happened a number of 
times since maritime nations first came to blows 
to settle their differences—but the sea can hardly 
offer a more dramatic situation than this. Think 
of the weariness of long waiting, the sleepless 
nights, the decks constantly cleared for the 
action which may come at a moment’s notice, 
and then—the curtain suddenly lifted and over¬ 
wrought nerves relieved of their tension by the 
opportunity to do something, to accomplish some¬ 
thing. 
It is too bad that my share in all the pictures 
which I am describing should be by comparison 
so unheroic. The man-o’-war’smen of course 
jumped to their guns, and in the excitement of 
a life-and-death struggle, covered themselves 
with glory which shall never fade. And what 
O NE evening at our favorite camp on the 
Glastonbury the talk was about wild 
animals, their habits, peculiarities, etc. 
Nearly everyone related some incident to prove 
the intelligence and cunning of our forest neigh¬ 
bors, at which Frank Rattler, who was apt to 
take the off side of any subject and defend it 
with vigor, scoffed loudly. 
“There is only one animal that I know of,” 
he said, crushingly, “that you can call really 
smart, and that is the fox. But then it is easy 
enough to outwit them if you only know how. 
I never had any trouble managing them. As 
to the other animals of which you have spoken, 
I deny their intelligence. Their nearest approach 
to man is that they imitate his vices whenever 
an opportunity offers. Why, a bear will get as 
drunk as an Injun if he is only given the chance.” 
“Ever seen one in that condition?” asked 
Wildair. 
“Lots of them,” replied Rattler. “The next 
one you capture give him your flask and my 
word for it he won’t leave a drop in it; in fact, 
I have known them after draining a bottle to 
break it and examine the inside in the evident 
hope of finding more. The critters have terri¬ 
bly poor judgment.” 
With this hit at the intelligence theory Rattler 
stopped, apparently satisfied. Not so Wildair. 
“Tell these gentlemen. Rattler,” he said sober¬ 
ly, ‘about your father catching the bear in his 
sugar lot. They have never heard it, I think.” 
“All right,” said Rattler. “That is to the 
did I do? I looked around to see where I had 
left my rifle. 
After half a minute I found the weapon lean¬ 
ing against the other side of the great boulder 
upon which I was sitting. Then I looked for 
the caribou, but the fog was closing in again, and 
whether the animal was still on the shore of the 
little pond I shall never know. I do not like to 
think that I was careless in leaving my rifle be¬ 
yond reach, but I called myself names much less 
complimentary. No one hurries in Newfound¬ 
land ; no one expects quick shots. When one 
usually begins stalking his game at a quarter 
or half mile distance he does not have to hurry 
about it, and in such a case my disposition of 
my rifle would have been as convenient as any. 
But hunting in a fog was a new experience for 
me and I did not know how to play the game. 
Talk about dissolving views! I groan in spirit 
every time I picture to myself that stately cari¬ 
bou dissolving into the fog on that desolate 
ridge, and I have to burn disinfectant every time 
I tell myself what I think of myself for not 
being prepared for a shot when the opportunity 
offered. 
If a man is old only when he feels old, one . 
whose memory treasures pictures like mine to 
keep him close to the years when the pictures 
were realities, will remain always in the prime 
of active hunting days. I have always been a 
still-hunter and I shall still be a hunter in 
memory when too infirm to travel or too de¬ 
ficient in 'vision to bring the sights of the rifle 
into alignment with the quarry. 
point. When I was a boy of eight years or so 
my father had a large sugar lot, and early in 
March preparations were made for sugar mak¬ 
ing. In those days we didn’t have the conveni¬ 
ences we have now. Instead of pails the sap 
was caught in troughs hollowed out of small 
trees and we had to carry it to the boiling place 
by the aid of a yoke fitted to our necks and 
shoulders with a bucket hung on each end. And 
we didn’t have sugar houses, either. Two up¬ 
right. forked sticks with a cross pole to hang 
the kettles on was about all, with perhaps a 
brush shanty near for the men who did the boil¬ 
ing at night, for in a good season it was neces¬ 
sary to keep things moving night and day.” 
“But about the bear,” suggested Wildair, who 
evidently knew Rattler’s weakness for enlarg¬ 
ing a subject. 
“I have just got to him,” said Rattler, calmly. 
“But first you must know that on these moun¬ 
tains in the spring, though the days may be warm 
and the snow soft and skimpy, yet the nights are 
cold and a hard crust forms that will bear a 
man or even a horse sometimes. Now you will 
understand what follows. In gathering the sap 
in the mornings my father was surprised to find 
that the troughs by quite a number of trees were 
always empty. He could not account for it. The 
trees he knew were good ones and never failed 
to yield well in the day time. At last the 
mystery was solved. The previous night had 
been warmer than usual, and in the snow he 
found the footprints of the thief—a bear. It 
was nothing unusual, for a bear is fond of 
sweets, and I have since known of several in¬ 
stances in which they have haunted orchards 
during the sugar season. Knowing his weak¬ 
ness, my father determined to capture bruin 
alive. Emptying the sap from all the troughs 
but one, he placed in that about two quarts of 
New England rum mixed with molasses, and 
awaited the result at a distance. Just before 
daylight the bear made his appearance and went 
directly to the trough containing the rum which 
he had probably scented, nor did he stop to 
breathe until he drank all of it. 
“Then the fun commenced. First he per¬ 
formed a bear dance all by himself and cer¬ 
tainly seemed to enjoy it; then he tried stand¬ 
ing on his head, but failed and rolled in the 
snow. As it became daylight he appeared to 
realize that it was time to go to his den, and 
gravely staggered about, but made little head¬ 
way. Then my father put his plan to the test. 
Approaching the bear he held to his nose a bottle 
.of rum with which he had provided himself. 
The bear’s dull eyes brightened. He reached 
eagerly for the bottle, but my father kept it 
from him and moved slowly toward the house, 
the bear following and fairly crying for a drink. 
I don’t know that you will believe it, boys,” said 
Rattler impressively, “but that animal actually 
came to the house, the silliest beast you ever 
saw, and when he got sober found himself caged. 
And you cannot imagine what a chop-fallen, re¬ 
pentant bear he was. It was the best temper¬ 
ance lesson I have ever seen.” 
“Speaking of foxes. Rattler,” Forrester began, 
“reminds me of a little incident of my boyhood. 
My native town of Stratton is thinly populated 
and the wild beasts have disputed the ground 
with the settlers inch by inch. If driven into 
the neighboring forests they made frequent 
forays on exposed points when pressed by hun¬ 
ger, and sheep raising, for which the country is 
well adapted, has been nearly abandoned on ac¬ 
count of the ravages of bears, wolves and an 
occasional panther. 
“One fall a large red fox was seen prowling 
around the barns and soon our hens began to 
disappear. Every night for a week one was 
missing and my father concluded to try to cap¬ 
ture the robber. He was not much of a trapper 
himself, so he got the boys of our nearest neigh¬ 
bor to set their traps for the fox. Though too 
young myself to be a hunter, except for small 
game, I took a great interest in the matter, and 
every morning the first streaks of light found 
me examining the traps. It was not long before 
my curiosity was rewarded. The fox had made 
a mis-step and was securely caught by one fore 
foot. He was a beautiful animal and his small 
bright eyes had a pitious, pleading look that at 
once aroused my sympathies. To kill him be¬ 
cause he had a taste for poultry was too hard, 
I thought, and perhaps he had a young family 
awaiting his return with their breakfast. Only 
the night before I had heard some half-grown 
foxes barking on the hillside. All the time he 
watched me steadily and now his eyes had such 
an innocent expression that I fully believed he 
had never seen a hen in his life. I stepped upon 
the spring of the trap, the jaws opened a little, 
and the fox limped away on three legs. At a 
short distance he turned and looked at me, hold¬ 
ing up his wounded paw, and if ever I saw 
gratitude on an animal’s face, I saw it on his.” 
C».mp-Fire Tables.—III. 
By FREP L. BALLARD 
