6 5 6 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 25, 1908. 
Still-Hunting for Bruin. 
One night at our camp a heavy snowfall had 
come and covered the ground with a coat of 
white that changed the trail of old paths made 
by the woods dwellers, forcing them to watch 
their shadows and forget the soft leaf carpet 
with its blended colors that had been so faith¬ 
ful in aiding them to throw the enemy off his 
course. 
What is meant by a still-hunt is to first hunt 
the woods for a trail, observe the hoof prints 
closely, study out their significance, feel the 
punctures with a light touch of the forefinger; 
by this you can generally judge the time that 
has elapsed since the traveler passed that way. 
As soon as you have satisfied yourself of its 
reliability as worth the while to expend the 
energy of your sportsmanship, you immediately 
pull yourself together to work out the thread 
that will bring you in contact with the rough 
road seeker; provided, however, you are, skilled 
in his moves and know his cunning tricks. You 
must watch his trail closely. His business is to 
fool you many times on the trail. If you decide 
to run him down he will chaperone you through 
all the flowery beds of ease, formed by the old 
dead treetops. He will lead you through some 
of his beautiful hedges of thickly woven spruces, 
hemlocks and other trees intertwining and reach¬ 
ing over and under for room to spread their 
branches. You will probably be obliged to get 
on your knees and crawl through this cat’s 
cradle to keep in close touch with your leader. 
Perhaps in the next place beyond you will have 
to fight your way through blackberry bushes. 
You may increase your speed by placing your 
rifle crosswise in front of you, bending them 
forward while you pass on, straining your eyes 
to see your object. 
All this I had learned trailing bruin. I had 
been hoping to get a chance to follow him and 
learn his way of keeping at a safe distance 
from the rifle. 
A few days’ hunt in the woods for deer, and 
we were convinced that bear were numerous. 
Having crossed their paths often during the day 
we felt pretty sure that some fine sport was 
waiting for us. The snow was the right depth 
to travel easy in, rather soft, and showed the 
imprint of every creature’s foot so plainly that 
the little flesh wrinkles could be easily de¬ 
tected. 
More snow seemed to be in the white puffs 
floating over our heads and we expected some 
kind of a storm ere the day had passed away. 
Our plans were for an all day’s trip, rain or 
shine, so long as the snow served our purpose 
in guiding us to the den in the ragged edges on 
the rocky sides of the barren cliffs in the North 
Branch Valley. 
Dad had called me early, saying it had ceased 
snowing, and to hustle around and we would 
be on our way, explaining that by starting on 
the trail in the early hours of the morning we 
would give bruin the chase of his life. This 
appealed to me. I could imagine myself steal¬ 
ing up on a bear. Dad had the lunches all ready, 
and we slammed the camp door and plodded 
on. 
Dad is a very heavy man, so he insisted on 
going ahead to set the pace. This I agreed to 
so that he might have his time and not get 
tuckered too soon on the trail. His steps were 
short, compelling me to take an unnatural gait 
in following him. We generally walked a short 
distance, then stopped to listen; perhaps to 
snow tumbling from the branches, the sharp 
shrill of a limb rubbing on another, a squirrel 
running up the rough side of a hemlock or a 
piece of birch bark partly torn around a tree 
flapping in the wind. These sounds are all very 
familiar to the dwellers of woodland. Even 
the little mouse that runs from stump to stump 
pays no attention to them and waddles around 
in search of food. 
The snow told all the secrets of those that 
visited in the wood habitation, and as we wended 
our way up the North Branch we saw many 
signs of morning travel. The mink, fisher and 
marten had been making calls—likely drinking 
at the brook. About a mile above camp we 
came to an old corduroy bridge across the stream, 
and there we found the trail. By closely ex¬ 
amining the impression made in the snow we 
cSme to the conclusion that the bear had been 
gone ten or fifteen minutes. He had gone 
directly up the side of Eagle Cliffs toward North 
Twin Mountain, the worst route in the country. 
From the size of the footprint we judged his 
weight to be about four hundred; at least Dad 
said so, “and he is a big one and we must have 
his pelt before we sleep to-night,” he added. 
As we were ascending the hill I could see 
how the bear had slipped. He seemed to be 
agile as a squirrel. I could not step in the same 
places he did without going clear up to my arm- 
pits in old treetops and underbrush. I have 
heard people say that a bear is a very clumsy 
animal, but I know it is not so. 
As we worked along the trail I noticed that 
the bear always walked on a log clear to the 
tip end. He would choose this path whenever 
a log happened to be in the way. He would 
jump five or six feet to get on an old dead tim¬ 
ber rather than to choose a good ground path. 
Perhaps he did this to avoid making any noise. 
On he led us and the tracks seemed to look as 
if we were not far apart. We had gained the 
top of the mountain, expecting he had gone to 
his den in some rocky ledge, but he kept on. 
We could see into the valley and up the side 
of another mountain whose slopes were more 
rough and precipitous than those we had left. 
He was going in that direction and had left a 
path which resembled the track of a toboggan 
all the way down the side of the mountain. 
Dad and I finally landed at the bottom. If 
we could have had the same speed in other 
places as we had coming down that steep slope 
I would have been wearing the bear’s pelt on 
my back ere noon. 
“Did you say this was a still-hunt?” I asked. 
“Yes,” he replied; “we are still hunting.” 
We had followed the bear about four miles. 
He had gone directly up the other side. The 
further up the mountainside we went the deeper 
the snow. I noticed a clump of balsams ahead 
of us at the side of the rocky ridge. Here I 
thought perhaps he would show more signs of 
his presence, but he had only lain down to rest 
and get a fresh start. I-Ie was probably lying 
there watching us as we came down the other 
side, which I learned was their custom to make 
their way up on a high elevation and watch very 
closely back over the trail and learn the move¬ 
ments of the foe. The spot where he had lain 
doTm had not yet grown cold. The heat of his 
body had melted the snow away so that the 
leaves were bare. 
Up and up that old bear led us. He picked 
out a path that would phase a hedgehog. At 
the top we came out at the edge of a spruce 
timber lot. Then it was better sailing, and both 
of us began to make up for lost time. The bear 
had changed his course and was going around 
the mountain, but he was circling and led us 
around in a thicket four times in a space of one 
hundred yards, then made straight for the top 
again. “The stone ledges,” Dad said, “is where 
he has gone.” A light wind now and then car¬ 
ried the news to bruin, telling him of our pres¬ 
ence. In many places we could see where he 
had stood erect to receive the air messages, 
wafted to him by the wood’s wireless telegraphy. 
My knees began to have that shaky feeling. 
Dad was tiptoeing along, peeping ahead for a 
shot, when all of a sudden he stubbed his toe 
and went down. 
We went through old dead brush and in its 
midst were spruce scrub four feet high covered 
with snow. Dad could just wallow through, and 
just when we got out of this there was an open¬ 
ing for some distance with flat ledges of rock 
and old windfalls. I saw Dad peeping care¬ 
fully as he entered the opening. He took aim 
and the report of his rifle broke the stillness. 
“I guess T hit him,” he said. When he reached ! 
the spot he cried, “Come here!” 
The snow was crimson. He was hit hard, but 
was still able to lead us on at a rapid pace. The 
shadows of a dark night were fast closing in 
upon 11s, but the top of the mountain was not 
far off. 
“He has gone for those ledges on the other 
side,” Dad said. “A bad place, but it will not 
do to leave the trail now. We will go as long 
as we can see the prints in the snow; then we 
will sleep on the trail.” 
This was the chance of my life. At last my 
wish had been fulfilled—that of sleeping by an 
open fire in the woods, and on a fresh trail. . 
We uncased our hatchets. Dad had selected 
a spot beside a huge boulder with a flat face 
and started the fire close up to the rock. I cut 
the material for the frame, and while he was 
doing the fitting I was trimming balsams for a 
roof and blankets for a floor and bed. I stripped 
some long sheets of bark from the birch which 
was not far distant to help cover the roof and 
put on the bottom of our camp. When we had 
finished we sat down inside. We had plenty of 
lunch, the fire had warmed up the boughs, and 
we were as comfortable as a chipmunk in his 
burrow. We saved just enough lunch to stay 
our stomachs for a finish with bruin in the 
morning. Fortunately we had found plenty of 
good dry wood and kept the flames shooting 
in the air. The idea of such a hot fire was to 
heat the rock as hot as possible, so as to have 
a permanent heat all night, so we piled on the 
wood. 
Next morning when we awoke the rock was 
still holding its heat and the boughs were still 
warm. We ate breakfast with our backs against 
the warm freestone. Snow clouds were hang¬ 
ing all around. Bruin had lain down again and 
rested in a pool of blood. The flakes were fall¬ 
ing thick and covering up the tracks. His trail 
was easy to observe in the thicket, but in the 
open the wind was filling up the footprints. Our 
trace of him was the little crimson snowballs 
