Nov. 20, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
809 
spent most of the night licking his sore feet 
and the next clay he was left in camp to re¬ 
cuperate. 
We started out together for Mitchell’s Ridge, 
several miles northwest of camp. I had my re¬ 
flecting camera and Jimmie carried my rifle. 
Some distance from the ridge fresh deer tracks 
crossed our trail and I followed them. I car¬ 
ried the camera in a case on my back and re¬ 
lieved Jimmie of the gun and cartridge belt. 
It was suggested that I shoot first and photo¬ 
graph them later, as we needed meat more than 
pictures. There were several deer in that 
bunch. The snow was crusty and it was hard 
to walk quietly. One makes less noise than 
three, however, and I preferred to hunt alone, 
but after following those deer through swamps 
and thickets for three hours with a ten-pound 
camera on my back and a seven-pound rifle in 
my hands, I needed a rest. While holding down 
a log I decided that thereafter I would hunt 
lynx. Ben had offered a dollar for a fresh 
lynx track, and for a time we were hopeful of 
landing the money, but this track was soon lost 
on bare ground. Apparently the lynx dislikes 
wetting his feet, for this one dodged the snow 
where he could. After a long tramp we circled 
back by Big Hole Brook Lake. There we heard 
geese honking, and creeping up to the lake, saw 
about thirty of them on the ice some three hun¬ 
dred yards from shore. A strip of open water lay 
between us and there was no way of getting 
one if I shot it. Standing there in a bunch 
with their necks stretched up, all looking to¬ 
ward me, they made a picture to remember. 
For a minute or more they kept up a constant 
gabbling, then the leader gave the signal and 
the flock got up with loud honking and flap¬ 
ping of wings, headed southeast and were soon 
out of sight. 
We reached camp before dark more or less 
wet. A thaw had set in and a storm was com- 
into the old lumber road I was following. The 
track was a big one, evidently a bull. Judging 
from the snow in the track it must have been 
a couple of hours old, but I determined to fol¬ 
low it. For a distance the trail led up the old 
road and I figured the bull had a big head and 
pieferred easy traveling. When the track left 
the road the places through which that caribou 
went caused me to alter my opinion about the 
size of his horns; I even doubted if he had any 
horns. Through swamps and thickets, over 
mud holes and blowndown trees I followed the 
trail without a stop. At last the tracks grew 
fresher, there was less snow in them; then I 
slowed down and kept a good watch ahead. At 
the edge of a swamp a thick growth of small 
fir trees separated it from a dry barren. I 
started to crawl through this tangle when a 
slight noise and a low cry made me stop. I 
waited and listened; all was quiet. From my 
position nothing could be seen. Slowly I moved 
A Small Beaver House. 
with either a gun or a camera, but I would not 
try to do both at once. About noon I jumped 
the deer out of a thicket at the side of a river 
and they crossed on the ice. I could hear them 
crash through the thin ice at the river’s edge. 
After a good sprint I saw the last one enter 
the woods on the further side. The river proved 
to be the North Branch of the Bartholomew. 
Some distance up I crossed at some rapids, 
came back, picked up the deer tracks and con¬ 
tinued the chase, but I saw no more deer that 
day, although I followed the tracks across to 
the South Branch of the Bartholomew before 
giving up and returning to camp. That night 
Ben and Jimmie reported starting two moose, 
a bull and a cow.. They followed for some time 
down through a swamp, but could not get near 
them again. Jimmie caught a black cat or fisher 
in one of his traps and after supper made an 
elaborate stretcher for the skin. The fisher 
measured three feet including the tail, which 
was about fifteen inches long. Ben and Jimmie 
were arguing on the relative merits of two and 
hree-piece stretchers when I went to sleep with 
he great question undecided. 
Another day of crusty snow. Ben decided to 
tay in camp and rest with Rex. Jimmie and I 
ruised southwest to Big Hole Brook and found 
aribou tracks, but no fresh ones. In a swamp 
ve found an old track which Jimmie said was 
NEW BRUNSWICK SCENES. 
A Bear’s Den. 
mg. Len had been improving his time by cook¬ 
ing. His buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, 
apple sauce sweetened with maple sugar and 
boiled rice were speedily disposed of. The meat 
question was getting serious. We disliked to 
become vegetarians in a big-game country, and 
a diet of pork and beans was getting mononton- 
ous. Ben was not optimistic over the outlook; 
he even offered to wager we would get no big 
game that week. I thought we would, to the 
extent of a quarter, and doubled the stakes when 
Ben generously offered to extend the time to 
cover the entire trip. 
Jimmie turned out at 4 a. m. to build up the 
fire and finish drying his clothes. He reported 
about two inches of fresh “packie” snow and 
still coming. Packie means wet snow to a 
woodsman. I was interested at once and soon 
had breakfast under way. Ben grumbled about 
getting up at 5 o’clock to eat in the dark, but 
he did it, then sat around the stove waiting for 
enough daylight to see to start. We planned 
that I should hunt in the Big Hole Brook coun¬ 
try and Ben and Jimmie try Mitchell’s Ridge 
again. Everything was white that morning; the 
trees were loaded with snow and all old trails 
covered. It was surprising how few tracks 
were to be found; no game seemed to have 
been stirring in the night. About three miles 
fiom camp a caribou had come out of a swamp 
A Beaver Dam. 
to one side until I could look through a small 
hole between the branches. Something yellow 
moved across the hole, then slowly back again. 
I watched that yellow speck until my eyes grew 
dim and my bones ached. Several times I was 
tempted to take a shot, but wisely refrained. 
Suddenly the yellow spot vanished, a blurred 
mass of brown and gray showed through the 
trees and a caribou seemed to rise out of the 
earth not thirty yards away. At that moment 
he seemed as large as a moose. I saw his 
splendid antlers, then covered his fore shoulder 
and fired. At the shot he wheeled around, I 
fired again and he was down. 
Pushing my way out on to the barren I looked 
down on my first caribou, 'the head was al¬ 
most perfect, eighteen points with fine brow 
antlers. The expanding bullets in my .303 rifle 
had done their work well. The bull had been 
lying down and the tip of one horn was the 
yellow spot seen through the trees. I com¬ 
menced dressing that caribou with little enthu¬ 
siasm, but it had to be done, and in a couple of 
hours I was ready to start for camp with the 
head and scalp. The body, raised up from the 
ground on poles, was left for another day. I 
spotted a line out through the swamp to a lum¬ 
ber road, followed it and other old roads north 
to the river and then down to the camp, find¬ 
ing Ben and Jimmie ahead of me with a fine 
