590 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1917 
Taking a greenhorn into the woods entails 
such a lot of tiresome explaining. 
Judging from his picture “Black Jack” 
would take no prizes at a beauty show. 
sat in plain sight of the little doe as 
she browsed past me unsuspecting. 
A FUGITIVE—BUT NOT FROM JUSTICE 
NEWTON NEWKIRK GETS INTO DIFFICULTIES THROUGH HIS UNFORTUNATE RESEMBLANCE TO 
"BLACK PETE” FOR WHOM—DEAD OR ALIVE—FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD WAS OFFERED 
I F you had pressed your nose against the 
pane and peered thru the window of a 
log hunting camp which nestles in Lost 
River Valley say about 7 P. M. on a certain 
November evening three years ago, you 
would have lamped three men sitting before 
a blazing log fire, each man pulling on an 
asthmatic pipe and each at peace with all 
the world. Let me introduce you to them: 
That guy in the easiest chair to be found 
in camp who sits in the center absorbing the 
most heat is my friend Larry Hastings 
whom I brought along on his first moose 
hunting expedition into this territory. Leave 
it to Larry to always grab off the big¬ 
gest apple on the tree, the huskiest wedge 
of pie on the platter, or the softest seat in 
the bungalow. The ole tough, lanky, 
leather-faced geezer scrooched up on a 
soap-box in the chimney corner, with his 
chin reposin’ on his knees—that’s Rube 
Westover, able-bodied guide, expert flap- 
jack flipper, head-cook and bottle-washer, 
scout, woodsman, trapper, trailer. I should 
say offhand that Rube stands about 76 
inches in his socks—and when he stretches 
his neck to rubber after game he’s taller’n 
that. There isn’t an ounce of superfluous 
flesh on ’im—in fact there isn’t much flesh 
of any kind. Rube is so thin he’d have to 
stand a long time in bright sunlight to cast 
a decent shadow—you can see his back from 
the front, if you stare hard enough and 
I reckon an expectorater who would put a 
little velocity into his work could spit a 
hole thru Rube three times out of five. But 
anybody who picks up Rube Westover for 
a weak-kneed thing on a long hike makes a 
mistake—on the trail he’s tougher’n tripe. 
That other gentleman on t’other side of 
the fire—that distinguished, dignified look¬ 
ing person with the patrician nose and the 
classical cast of countenance, that party is— 
well, I’m too modest to say who it is. All 
I will say that there were three of us in the 
party—I have already described two, so you 
can draw your own conclusions as to the 
identity of the third. 
It was our first evening in camp. Rube 
had met Larry and me at the end of the 
rails that afternoon and steered us back to 
his camp on the hoof. I might have done 
the steering myself, because I hunted in 
there once before, but my recollection of 
the trail was a little misty, so Rube came 
out for us for safety’s sake. 
By NEWTON NEWKIRK 
After carefully canvassing the prospects 
of getting game Rube gazed into the fire 
a spell then drawed to nobody in particular, 
“There’s a durn sight bigger game’n moose, 
bear ner deer runnin’ round loose some¬ 
where in these parts.” 
“Fer instance?” says Larry. 
Yeh,” says I, “go ahead and blue-print 
it, Rube—d’ye mean to say they’ve inter- 
dooced elephants into Lost River Valley?” 
4 4 A BOUT twenty miles nor’west of 
here,” Rube goes on, “there’s a 
lumber camp takin’ out stuff on a 
tract which drops down to’rds the Little 
Nipsic River. I understand there’s about 
fifty men in that camp. Well, ’bout two 
weeks ago two of ’em called ‘Black Jack’ 
and ‘Red’ Hennessy got into a scrap. It 
seems that ‘Red’ licked the packin’ out of 
‘Black Jack,’ but as things turned out it 
didn’t do ‘Red’ much good.” 
“Whaddye mean not much good?” says I. 
“Well," says Rube, “next day they found 
‘Red’ deader’n a mackerel about a mile from 
the camp where he’d been workin’. There 
was a 30-30 bullet-hole clean thru ’im. 
‘Black Jack’ never showed up after that— 
nor his 30-30 Winchester neither!” 
“Then ‘Black Jack’ murdered him,” says 
Larry with almost human intelligence. 
“Perzackly,” says Rube refilling his pipe. 
“I don’t see,” says I, “what all this has 
to do with there being bigger game than 
bull moose, deer or bear hereabouts?” 
“You will,” draws Rube, “after I git thru 
—pervidin’ you’ve got as much brains as 
Providence commonly gives a goose. It 
was two days afore this murder leak’d out. 
Them lumber jacks didn’t bother nothin’ 
about it and was willin’ to let bygones be 
bygones, I reckon, ruther’n stir up the 
otherities, but the high sheriff heer’d about 
it and investigated. Then the county offer’d 
$500 spot cash for ‘Black Jack’ dead or 
alive. Now, whenever any of them lumber 
fellers can git a day off they go gunnin’ 
after ‘Black Jack’—two of ’em stopped here 
night afore last. They wuz dead shots.” 
“But,” says I, “they must be a lot of 
chumps to think that ‘Black Jack’ is fool 
enough to be still hangin’ ’round these 
parts.” 
“They know he’s still ’round here—one of 
the fellers from the lumber camp seen him 
onct and another one shot at him and 
missed and ‘Black Jack’ shot back and bored 
a hole thru t’other feller’s hat. Yesterday 
afternoon I heer’d three shots away up to 
the head of Lost River and I calkilate it 
was ‘Black Jack’ gittin’ game. If there’d 
only come a good trackin’ snow and they 
struck his trail they’d git him.” 
Rube dug up a circular he happened to 
have which contained the offer of the re¬ 
ward, also a description of the murderer 
and a crude picture of him. If he was as 
evil as his portrait looked he was capable 
of the crime charged against him. 
“Why don’t you go after him, Rube?” 
says I; “if you stood side-on to’rds him he 
couldn’t hit you if he’d shoot all day bit 
more’n he could the edge of a knife-blade.” 
“I don’t want nobody’s blood on my 
hands,” says honest ole Rube. 
“Me neither,” chirps up Larry! “Newt, 
here’s a chance for you to make a roll of 
easy money—why don’t you hunt ‘Black 
Jack’ instead of a bull moose?” 
“No, thank you very kindly,” says I; 
“what Rube says fits me—-I need the dough, 
but I’ll be jigger’d if I’d kill a man for a 
measly 500 bones. I never killed a man yet 
that I didn’t feel sorry for it afterward. 
No-sir-ee-bob—-if I happen to meet Mister 
‘Black Jack’ in the woods him and me 
ain’t gonna have no fight, but b’lieve me, 
I’m gonna have a footrace!—and after I 
stop and get my second wind I’m gonna 
have another one of the same!” 
The talk drifted back to bucks and bulls 
and after we’d smoked until we could 
hardly see each other thru the fog we 
turned into our bunks for the night. 
N EXT morning the sun dawned on as 
beautiful a November day as ever the 
Doctor ordered. It was sort of a 
hazy, lazy Injun Summer day good to be 
out ip whether you bring home the bacon 
or not. Of course snow would have made 
it better for hunting, but snow or no snow, 
I was anxious to shoulder my ole trusty 
’Lizabeth Jane and get out into the silent 
aisles of the wood. After as good a break¬ 
fast as a man ever put under his belt we 
planned our hunting campaign for the day. 
I suggested that since this was Larry’s first 
trip Rube take him to the most likely place 
for a moose while I would poke around 
alone in another direction. Having hunted 
here once before I had a good idea of the 
