394 
FOREST AND STREAM 
SEPTEMBER, 1917 
SKINNING THE CAT AND OTHER SKIN GAMES 
NEWTON NEWKIRK RELATES HIS EXPERIENCES WITH AN 
AMATEUR TAXIDERMIST IN THE HEART OF THE TALL TIMBERS 
BY NEWTON NEWKIRK 
N EXT time anybody hornswoggles me 
into going on a gunning goose-chase 
away back into the “tall and uncut” 
in company with a guy who has got a tax¬ 
idermy bug on stuffing and upholstering 
animiles, they’ll haft to rise up real early 
in the morning, that’s all! 
How did I know that Ed Wilkins was an 
The road from Moose Horn Junction to 
Tim’s Camp was 12 miles long and full 
of bumps 
acute sufferer from the skinning and stuff¬ 
ing germ until it was too late for me to 
help myself? I’d known Ed for years, but 
I never dreamed he had ambitions to shine 
as a taxidermist—never until he hauled a 
big box-chest out of the express car when 
our train hesitated at Moose Horn Junc¬ 
tion long enough for us to get off with our 
duffle. 
As the train coughed its way onward 
into the wilderness Ed sat down on the 
chest and loaded his old stubby briar. Tim 
Henderson, our guide, had not arrived in 
the buckboard. 
Whatcha got in the chest, buried treas¬ 
ure?” says I, sort of inquisitive like. “I’ll 
jest show you, Newt,” says Ed as he got 
up and whipped a bunch of keys out of his 
pocket. Unlocking the lid he threw it 
back and there was displayed to my view 
a conglomeration of things such as I had 
never seen before: there was enough twine 
in various sizes to stretch from Bangor to 
the Texas Border, there was rock-salt and 
fine salt in bags, there was excelsior and 
wire and pliers and scissors and knives 
and hooks and eyes and gouges and chisels 
and nails and tacks and cans and bottles 
with cheerful pictures of skulls and cross- 
bones on ’em labeled “POISON !” 
“Well, whaddye think of that,” says Ed, 
with a wave of his hand toward the chest 
and his eyes shining with pride. 
“I think I don’t know,” says I, “half as 
much as I did before you opened the box. 
Judging from the contents of this chest I 
dunno whether you’re a carpenter, a sur¬ 
geon or a Durglar! Wot is the answer 
anyhow, Ed?” 
I, says Ed, hitting himself a wallop on 
the chest, “am a taxidermist. Do you know 
anything about taxidermy, Newt?” “Well,” 
says I, “nothin’ to brag about—all I know 
is that taxidermy consists of removing from 
Copyrighted by the author and all book rights 
reserved. 
an animal or a bird its internal economy 
and stuffing it with hay, straw or any other 
junk which happens to be lying around 
handy. That’s taxidermy as I understand 
it.” 
“Huh,” sneers Ed with a sneer, “you 
don’t understand it. Taxidermy is the won¬ 
derful art of preserving the skin of a bird 
or quadruped in such a manner that, al¬ 
though it is dead, it will yet have a life¬ 
like appearance.” 
Just then Tim, the guide, drove up in 
the buckboard and Ed’s discussion of the 
marvelous art of taxidermy was “continued 
in our next.” 
After enthusiastic greetings (because Ed 
and I hadn’t seen Tim in two years) we 
got our stuff aboard, climbed in ourselves 
and started bumping and swaying over a 
rocky road, 12 miles long and crooked, to 
one of Tim’s hunting cabins back in the 
big woods. It was an up-and-down ride! 
After I’d worn some paint off the buck- 
board seat and developed a few calluses on 
myself, I got out and walked in prefer¬ 
ence. Ed followed suit and I guess we 
hoofed it most of the way in. 
It was about 2 P. M., when we arrived 
at the camp. • I was hungrier’n a goat on 
a tin-can diet and Ed said he could stew 
When I heard that stick crack I nearly 
busted an eardrum lissenin’, but never 
saw a thing 
his own hat and eat it with great relish. 
The first thing Tim did after he hitched 
the horses was to get busy with the cook 
stove in the cabin while Ed and I rustled 
our impedimenta into the camp. By the 
time we’d just about finished this Tim hol¬ 
lered “Eats!” Ed and I were luggin’ in 
his old taxidermy chest when we heard that 
word. We dropped it like a hot-poker and 
streaked it for the flap-jacks, bacon and 
beans. We both tried to go through the 
cabin door at once and stuck fast! With 
a few plain-spoken words we finally got 
untangled and inside. Funny how a gen¬ 
tleman who is starved will forget his man¬ 
ners. 
After a full and satisfactory meal Tim 
jumped into the buck-board and started 
for his home on the Little Upquisit River, 
14 miles away, which he hoped to reach 
before dark. There he would leave the 
team and final instructions with his wife 
and boy. The next morning he would hike 
back to us to act as our guide and cook 
for two weeks. 
After Tim’s departure I got busy with 
the dishes while Ed started unpacking. The 
first thing he did was to assemble his rifle 
and drop a little “ile” in her “jints.” Then 
he slipped a few cartridges into his pocket 
and says to me with a sheepish grin, “Newt, 
I’m gonna take a little stroll down to the 
Black Cedar Slough and try this gun on a 
target to see if the sights is plumb.” “Yeh,” 
says I, “you know durn well them sights 
is plumb enuff—and, b’leeve me, if you 
shoot at a target it’ll have four legs and 
hair on!” Ed snuk away grinnin’ to him¬ 
self. He knew I was wise to the fact that 
he was crazy-wild to get on the trail and 
sight a deer or something bigger. 
“Well, I puttered around until I had the 
dishes laundered, then I did some unpack¬ 
ing myself and got into my free and easy 
hunting togs. After that I put my old 
sure-death 35-Lizy Jane together and saun¬ 
tered softly along on the trail Ed had taken. 
About a quarter mile from the cabin I 
emerged upon an old clearing where the 
crumbled remains of a lumber camp had 
once stood and I sat down on a log to 
watch and wait—it,looked like the time and 
the place and the deer to me and if I could 
beat Ed to a piece of tender camp meat, 
that would be one for the weak side. 
My watch said 4 130 P. M., and this spells 
approaching “dusk” in New Brunswick’s 
middle-October. There was a chill in the 
air and I snuggled a little deeper into my 
mackinaw, then waited for a majestic buck 
to come poking out into the clearing. As 
I sat there I heard a faint honking over¬ 
head and there far up against the fading 
blue was a meagre flock of geese, which 
had probably been delayed in transmission, 
winging their swift way toward the South¬ 
land. 
Suddenly a stick cracked back in the brush 
from the edge of the clearing opposite!— 
then came a few minutes of silence! Pres¬ 
ently a leaf rustled a little to the left of 
where the stick had cracked! That was all 
the evidence I wanted to convince me that 
a deer was working stealthily and on the 
“safety first” principle out into the clear¬ 
ing—and I slowly brought the muzzle 
around toward the “evidence!” 
Then, suddenly, down in the Cedar 
There was a big bull down, out and dead 
with Ed crowing over him like a rooster 
