VOL. LXXXV 
OCTOBER, 1915 
No. 10 
After Caribou on The Barrens of Newfoundland 
Story of a Trip which was Attended by Some Excitement but Ended in Success—Big Game Hunting at its Best 
In the fall of 1903. as I was slitting in my 
tent on the Gander River in Newfoundland hav¬ 
ing my tiffin, my guide came to the door of the 
tent and said that seven caribou were crossing 
the river just below. I went out and looked them 
over, and. as there were no stags among them 
with over forty points, I reproved my guide very 
severely for having disturbed my tiffin and re¬ 
turned to finish it. A moment later he again dis¬ 
turbed me by saying that there were five stags 
about to cross the river, just opposite the tent so I 
again left my tiffin and went to the door from 
where I shot three stags, one of fifty-five points, 
one of fifty points, and one with forty-five. Being 
very well satisfied with the day’s sport I then 
resumed my tiffin, etc. etc. 
Those who desire to read an account of a trip 
to Newfoundland along the lines indicated above 
will find numerous books written by British of¬ 
ficers and explorers. If, on the contrary, the 
reader desires an account of what actually hap¬ 
pened in Newfoundland in the fall of 1914, let 
him read the following pages and certain basic 
differences will be apparent. 
1. 
Nevermore will the great herds cross 
The deep, worn trails in the barren moss, 
And the hunter’s muscles flag and tire, 
Ere the lone stag drops to the Mauser’s fire. 
Newfoundland is one of the untouched wilder¬ 
nesses which still lie close to civilization. The 
railroad and fishing villages merely touch the 
edge of the country. The entire interior is a 
wilderness, some of it practically unexplored, 
without roads or trails, which can only be reached 
By Double Barrel. 
by canoeing or packing. As there are practically 
no horses in Newfoundland the pack sack and 
canoe are the only known means of reaching 
the interior. 
As night came on the train turned and began 
to cross the northern part of the island and 
Smith and His First Head. 
about half past two or three o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing my friend Smith and I were called by the 
porter and bundled out at the crossing of the 
Terra Nova River. We had taken the precau¬ 
tion to dress in hunting rig when leaving North 
Sidney and to have all our stuff packed and I 
was devoutly thankful to find our guide, Dan 
Burton, waiting in the dark with a lantern by 
the railroad track. We gathered up our rifles, 
two pack bags and a bundle containing tent, 
folding stove and sleeping bags and lugged them 
down to the river where Dan had set up a camp. 
There we found a tent with hot tea and baked 
beans waiting for us and we were introduced to 
the rest of the party, consisting of Dan Burton’s 
son, Piney Burton, and the two Sweetapple 
brothers, Ned and Tom. 
Dan was a big, swarthy woodsman of about 
fifty; his face lined with a thousand wrinkles 
from years of exposure. His son, Piney, was a 
boy of nineteen or twenty, six feet high, with a 
clean, pleasant face and the figure of an Apollo. 
Ned and Tom were stocky woodsmen, decorated 
with scrubby beards, short pipes and perpetual 
grins. The whole party looked very satisfactory 
and Dan voiced his impressions of us by saying 
that we looked as though we meant business and 
he was glad we knew enough to bring the right 
stuff along. 
After tea and beans we smoked and walked up 
and down the edge of the river watching the 
stars gradually grow dim and the sky begin to 
show color in the east. We also went up and 
visited the camp of a Mr. Reed, who had also 
left the train at Terra Nova. We found him 
getting ready to start up the river with Bob 
Saunders, a very old guide who formerly had 
been with Selous in Newfoundland. They were 
going up the river in one big canoe. Saunders 
looked to me so old that I wondered whether 
the trip would not be pretty hard on him. He 
spoke with the peculiar cracked, quavering voice 
