FOREST AND STREAM 
660 
The Character of the Guides Forms an Important Problem in Any Big Game Hunt. 
few more cups. Then as soon as we arrived in 
camp we always found the tea pot on the fire 
and everyone had another round of tea, and, of 
course, there was plenty more for supper. In 
addition to this,, if anyone found time hanging 
heavy on his hands, the first thought was to boil 
the kettle and have some tea. Considering the 
health of the party and the amount consumed 
I believe the evil effects of tea are grossly exag¬ 
gerated. 
After lunch I put on my foot gear and we 
started toward Millais Lake. We went down the 
side of a ridge then around the edge of the lake 
and back toward home. It was getting late and 
I was beginning to feel tired out and about ready 
for a rest but it was absolutely necessary that I 
kill my third caribou in order to give Smith a 
chance though I began to feel that I might hunt 
for days without seeing a respectable head. 
I was plodding along looking first at one foot 
and then the other with my mind a perfect 
blank when Dan suddenly said, “There goes your 
stag.” In front of us were two small peninsulas 
of woods which ran out on each side of the 
marsh so there was a marsh between the woods 
about three hundred yards from us and about 
the same distance in breadth. Right across the 
middle of it a caribou stag was going at a fast 
pacing gait, sailing through the marsh as though 
it were an asphalt pavement. Dan said, “Shoot 
him, shoot him, you will never get any closer.” 
I said, “I can’t hit him at this range,” but I sat 
down in a mud puddle and raised my rifle and 
let go, holding high and in front. The stag paid 
no attention to the shot and again I fired, holding 
just at the top of his head. At the crack of the 
gun he collapsed in a heap on the marsh. 
When we reached him we found that the bul¬ 
let had struck at the base of the neck and had 
broken the bone. He had a very pretty twenty- 
three point head, with two brow points and beau¬ 
tiful tops but his bays were very poor. 
I was so glad to get my third head and to finish 
my hunting that I was fairly well satisfied with 
my luck, although sorry not to have killed a 
larger head. We skinned out the head and 
shanks and as the rut was now well over and this 
stag did not appear to be very musky we filled 
the knapsack with meat. I carried the knapsack, 
the glasses, axe and rifle, and Dan managed the 
head and robe. 
I was tired and cold and wet when I shot the 
caribou and now I had a heavy pack on my back 
so that by the time we reached the lean-to I was 
worn out. I think Dan had a fairly good test 
himself. Tom had lodged the lean-to up on the 
sides and had everything in fine shape. We had 
a good, hot supper and dried our clothes once 
more, then felt so comfortable that we stayed up 
until at least eight thirty. This is a late hour 
when darkness shuts in at five and you are 
through your supper by six and have nothing tc 
do but smoke until bed time. 
It was amusing to hear the conversations of 
Dan and Tom in the evening. Like all inhabi¬ 
tants of Newfoundland their greatest interest and 
most of their talk is of the sea, of trips after 
codfish or seal, and of the different schooners 
and the men who command them. I remember 
one sample of the conversation. “You know that 
Bill James, the one that lives at Alexander Bay 
and has got seventeeli children? The first time 
I saw him he came aboard the schooner, “Mary,” 
looking for a job as cook and had a pair of 
whiskers that he could tuck in his pants and I 
said to him, ‘You would make a hell of a cook 
with them whiskers in the gravy,’ and he came 
back the next day all shaved and I never knowea 
it was the same feller and hired him and he 
didn’t like the job and the next day we anchored 
he stole one of the dories and run away and we 
never seen him again that trip.’’ 
The next morning we left Dan at the lean-to to 
get a rest while Tom and I took the head and 
went back to the main camp. We left early and 
were at the camp well before lunch. Tom and 
Smith started back in the afternoon to the lean- 
to while I went into the tent and filled a big 
pipe full of tobacco and got out Barchester 
Towers. I never moved that afternoon or even¬ 
ing, except to poke the fire and to have my sup¬ 
per and it was pure pleasure to rest after the ten 
days of steady hunting. It was very satisfying 
to know that there were three heads waiting for 
me and I was perfectly content to stop shooting 
caribou. If my heads had not been very big 
ones, at least I had no misses to my discredit and 
I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had 
located two of my stags myself. 
I decided to stay in camp the next day and 
took another day of rest. Tom had made a large 
trough on legs out of the trunk of a tree and 
filled it with plenty of hot water and did the 
family washing for the trip, washing every bit 
of my clothes, except the few I kept on for the 
sake of modesty. As the tent was full of drying 
clothes, it was hot enough so that not many 
clothes were necessary. I also targeted the guns 
and gave them a thorough cleaning and sharpen¬ 
ed my knives and did the thousand and one 
things that can be done around a camp. 
By evening I was thoroughly rested and when 
Ned and Piney came into the tent for a smoke 
I suggested that we all go down to the log camp 
the next day and while they took the heads out 
to the river I would stay around camp and try 
to catch a few trout. So next morning we start¬ 
ed down without any baggage whatever, except 
my sleeping bag. They had some bedding at the 
log camp and there was plenty of food there. 
Piney took a twenty-two caliber rifle, while 3 
carried my three barrel gun with a half dozen 
shot-gun cartridges. Half way across the marsh 
we came upon a flock of eight ptarmigan. They 
rose fifty yards from us and then six of them 
lit in the open. I went to within fifty yards and 
was then requested not to go any closer but to 
shoot the ptarmigan on the ground. As ptarmi¬ 
gan are a very rare treat in Newfoundland I re¬ 
signed myself to this simple form of pot hunting 
and fired all six cartridges into the bunch. At 
the end of the fusillade all six birds were lying 
quietly on the ground. We walked over to pick 
them up when four of the wounded birds started 
off, one after another, across the marsh on the 
fly, each in a different direction. It was the most 
disgusting thing that I ever saw. Every twenty 
yards they seemed about to drop and then would 
take another spurt. Ned said that every one of 
them would be stone dead when they struck the 
ground. I had no more shells so we could only 
curse and watch our dinner disappear. Finally, 
we gave them up and took the two ptarmigan 
that were left and went on. 
I suppose this night will be considered a judg¬ 
ment on one for shooting the birds on the ground 
but I confess that I regarded it strictly from a 
pot-hunting basis and wanted some ptarmigan to 
eat before I left Newfoundland. Later that day 
we came up to three more ptarmigan which 
Piney succeeded in stalking and then shooting 
one with his twenty-two. This gave us three 
birds and it was the only time in Newfoundland 
that I saw ptarmigan within shooting distance, 
and during the whole trip I did not see more 
than fifteen. 
We reached the log camp about eleven o’clock 
and lunched there, then Ned and Piney each took 
one of the heads and started off to the river 
while I took a thin Spruce pole and a piece of 
string and a little meat and went up the brook 
about a mile to the outlet from a small lake. 
There I started fishing and when trout stopped 
biting I had sixteen fine fish. They averaged from 
(Continued on page 679.) 
