Jan. 15, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
99 
soon returned to camp. The next day we cir¬ 
cled around the brush into which his trail had 
led, but could find no tracks leading out. Being 
of retiring dispositions we debated seriously 
whether we would be brave or foolish—go in 
after our game or stay out. Deciding to be 
brave, we cautiously made our way through the 
tangled alders and finally found the bear huddled 
in the center of the thicket, dead. 
Upon examination we found that the bullet 
had passed clear through the body, cutting the 
artery above the heart and lodging behind the 
shoulder blade. He measured nine feet two 
inches from tip to tip. The task of skinning 
him was not light, but we persevered, and after 
the expenditure of a good deal of energy 
finally had the hide stretched in front of the 
camp. 
While taking our smoke by the fire that eve¬ 
ning we decided that bear skins were highly 
ornamental and desirable, but that hunting for 
them with a six-shooter only should thereafter 
be barred from our duties, and that we would 
confine ourselves strictly to the task of discover¬ 
ing the hidden resources of Alaska. 
Charles Norton. 
Wyoming Elk Again Starving. 
Cheyenne, Wyo., Jan. 7.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The magnificent herds of elk in the 
Jackson’s Hole in the western part of Wyoming 
are threatened with starvation this year more 
than at any time in the history of the State, 
and unless the weather moderates sufficiently 
for the State’s agents in that section to get hay 
or other food to the elk, the loss this year will 
be tremendous. 
Last winter a large part of the 50,000 wild 
elk in the Jackson’s Hole country were fed for 
several weeks in the spring months and about 
5,000 were saved from starvation at that time. 
The cost of saving these animals was afterward 
estimated by the State game warden at only 
one dollar per head, and the animals are con¬ 
sidered one of the State’s best assets. Hun¬ 
dreds of tons of hay were purchased from the 
ranchmen at five dollar^ per ton and men were 
hired to take the hay out on sleds and distribute 
it on the snow where the elk could eat it, as 
described in your New Year’s issue. 
Thus far this winter has been the worst in 
the history of the State for the last twenty-five 
years, the depth of the snow being greater and 
the temperature lower, according to the weather 
bureau reports, than during any other Decem¬ 
ber since 1885. The snows have frozen over 
with a crust too hard to be easily affected by 
either wind or sunshine, and the grass was 
weeks ago covered over by several feet of snow 
in the elk grazing country. 
It is almost impossible to tell just how badly 
off the elk are this month, because the telephone 
wires are down in many parts of the State, the 
roads are impassable except by sleigh, and there 
is little communication between the Jackson’s 
Hole and the outside world. The State game 
warden made preparations last winter to have 
a supply of hay on hand, and whether he has 
secured enough to keep the elk from starving 
to death this winter is a question which is hard 
to answer at this time. One thing is certain, 
large quantities of hay will have to be fed to 
the elk this winter. W. A. Bartlett. 
Getting the Best of the Geese. 
Come, gather around me, ye Forest and 
Streamers, and listen to the tale of how I got 
the best of the wild geese for the first time in 
my life. Oh, I see you seasoned sportsmen shake 
your heads and hear you murmur, “We are 
from Missouri,” but I bid you keep your doubts 
to yourselves until my tale is told. 
With my father I was in Broadwater Bay at 
Conover’s gunning shack on a marshy island 
opposite the Hogg Island Inlet during the first 
part of January and there was very little to 
shoot at. The brant and other wildfowl had be¬ 
come so used to avoiding the bough blinds which 
were stuck up all over the flats that they pro¬ 
ceeded leisurely across the shoal water, quietly 
feeding as they swam along, and as they ap¬ 
proached a blind divided into two groups, calmly 
swam by two gunshots away and united again 
the same distance beyond. In one morning I saw 
twenty great flocks one after the other do this 
mr. Norton’s bear. 
same thing and never a single bird among them 
came within range. 
If I had not often had my revenge upon their 
kind from my battery in the Great South Bay 
I should feel an unquenchable desire for ven¬ 
geance upon them—such a desire as I cherish 
toward the geese. 
Conover told us of a sandy point upon one of 
the islands in the middle of the bay, some eight 
miles to the south where, he claimed, every goose 
in the Broadwater and Cobb’s Island bays came 
at low tide to sand. Now, I have made many 
fruitless trips after the wily geese, but the lure 
of this statement was too strong to resist, and 
I fell. 
We set out at daybreak one morning in Con¬ 
over’s launch towing a small sailboat, there 
called a batteau, and proceeded through the 
winding channel until we were opposite the 
sandy point of the island. Leaving the launch 
anchored in deep water, we got into the batteau 
with guns, ammunition and decoys, and shoved 
to the shore of the point. We placed our decoys 
close to the shore and a half a dozen on the 
beach, and then Conover and I took shovels and 
began to dig a hole to hide in. We picked out a 
spot some fifteen yards from the water in a 
ridge where the sand had piled up above the 
level of the surrounding meadow, and there we 
dug a place six feet long, five feet wide and two 
feet deep, taking care to throw the sand from 
the hole around over the grass where it would 
not attract the attention of the birds. 
We gathered a lot of dry seaweed which we 
placed in the hole to make a bed to lie on, and 
then father and I got in and lay down at full 
length side by side, he with his ten-gauge gun 
and I with my eight-bore. Conover then buried 
us under a mass of seaweed and drift stuff, cau¬ 
tioning us to pull our caps well over our faces to 
keep the stuff out of our eyes. When he had 
filled the hole level with the ground, he looked 
at his work with a satisfied air and said: “I 
guess that will do the business.” 
“But, Conover,” I ventured to remark, “we 
can’t see anything but a glimpse of blue sky 
overhead, and that only faintly through the sea¬ 
weed.” 
“So much the better,” he replied; “if you can't 
see anything the geese can’t see you. You don’t 
have to see anything, for I am going to make a 
bed beside you and will tell you when it is time 
to rise. When I saw ‘Now,’ you sit up and give 
it to ’em.” 
We heard him fussing around for a few 
minutes and then he got into his hiding place 
and covered himself up almost as he had covered 
us. For fifteen minutes we lay there, snug and 
warm, and were beginning to feel drowsy, when 
we hqard Conover’s voice saying: “There’s a 
bunch away up to the north.” 
This cheerful information aroused us and we 
waited for a few moments expectantly, but not 
hearing anything further from Conover, we con¬ 
cluded that the birds had gone somewhere else 
and resigned ourselves to another wait. Sud¬ 
denly we were startled into activity by hearing 
Conover cry: “Now! Try ’em!” 
Startled at this unexpected summons to action, 
we sat up with our guns in our hands and saw 
right in front of us twelve huge geese setting 
their wings not ten feet above the water and 
less than twenty yards away. Five of them were 
bunched together in the center and I left this 
piece of pie for father, contenting myself with 
a double on the left with my first barrel and a 
single with the other. As my birds fell I noticed 
that nothing had happened in the center and I 
glanced at father to find him industriously striv¬ 
ing to pull his gun off with both hammers down. 
He explained that he had not cocked his gun 
because he thought Conover would give us warn¬ 
ing of the approach of any birds, and he would 
then have plenty of time to do it, but when he 
heard the abrupt call to action he was too sur¬ 
prised to do it. 
I have been claiming ever since that father 
owes me those five geese, but whenever I get in¬ 
sistent about it he says it was Conover’s fault 
and I ought to apply to him, and when I speak 
to Conover about it he tells me it was father’s 
fault. All I know is that there are five geese 
due me which I have not received up to this day. 
I will never forget my sensations when I sat 
up in that hole, half covered with grass and 
drift, and saw those birds almost on top of me, 
seemingly as big as the proverbial barn door. 
For the first time in my life I felt that I had 
gotten the best of the geese. 
Edwin Main Post. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
