Nov. 12, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
769 
injured, but I understand that he now has the 
full use of both again. The cause of his gun’s 
snapping was his neglect to reload after firing 
the shots that had wounded the bear. 
T. had rather a narrow escape himself on an¬ 
other occasion, being knocked down by a charg¬ 
ing bear which went right on over him and left 
scars of its claws on his chest that he still 
carries. He does not think that these wounds 
were intentional, however. 
No one seems to know whether the bears in 
these eastern swamps hibernate or not. Some 
of the old hunters think that they do; others, 
not. Most of them agree, though, that they are 
harder to find and that less fresh sign is seen 
in January and February than at other times. 
My own opinion was that they did hibernate. 
Now, I do not know, though I am inclined to¬ 
ward the other opinion. 
“Setting” for deer is often practiced from this 
low, and it was only a few minutes before an¬ 
other deer appeared. The second one acted in 
rather an uncanny manner, and the hunter was 
perplexed. At last it walked up to the tree in 
which the man was sitting, stood erect on its 
hind legs and calmly butted the tree. This 
action proved too much for the sportsman’s 
nerves and he killed the deer as it started away. 
There were the two slain deer in evidence, and 
the camp turned out on hearing the news and 
brought them in. The actions of the second 
animal were certainly most extraordinary, but I 
do not think he was trying to climb the tree 
after the hunter, as the tale usually told in camp 
has it. 
N. was on a set after bear one afternoon. The 
crashing of the bushes told of the game’s ap¬ 
proach, so he looked to his gun and prepared 
for the worst—or best. He was using an auto¬ 
matic rifle, with six shots in readiness, and felt 
N. remarked that he fe’.t mighty glad that he 
was in a tree during that bear’s straight rush 
toward him. 
One evening this same E. killed two deer and 
shot at a bear, all within an hour and a half. 
Somewhere, sometime I feel that my bear awaits 
me. To parody: 
“Somewhere he waits, hairy and strong, my fame in his 
firm black paws; 
Somewhere the Gods have a bear for me; I know it—oh 
well, ‘because.’ ” 
But I have not found him yet. 
To return to our plans for the next day. We 
had to be back to camp by eleven to meet my 
friend K., so that curtailed several trips that 
would have been possible otherwise. I finally 
decided bn an early trip across the nearest lake 
and a still-hunt- for deer and bear in the big 
original woods and swamps that lay between it 
and the larger lake beyond. “We must leave 
A Cypress Bee Tree Whose Bark Had Been Torn off by Bears. The ’Gator, His Home, and the Man. 
SCENES ROUND ABOUT CAMP COMFORT. 
camp and the same methods as those just de¬ 
scribed are used. The hunter takes his stand, 
or “set,” any time after mid-afternoon, and 
watches and waits. It is almost useless to at¬ 
tempt actual still-hunting in these woods, by rea¬ 
son of the thickets and the underbrush through 
which the deer seem mostly to roam. A com¬ 
paratively open place is selected, and then the 
lonely watch. At times some rather interesting 
experiences are recorded by the still-hunters, but 
it must be explained that in many places it is 
necessary to climb some small branching tree to 
give one a better view over the undergrowth- 
sprinkled ground. Sometimes the hunter takes 
a dozen large nails with him, and with his hunt¬ 
ing hatchet cuts and then nails a few strips 
across two closely growing, saplings, the lower 
ones for steps, the uppermost one for a seat. 
One of the boys was seated in the forks of 
a small tree when the following incident hap¬ 
pened: Night was drawing in, and under the 
dark canopy of the evergreen bays and hollies, 
it was more than dusk. Almost noiselessly a 
deer stepped out into the little glade. The hun¬ 
ter fired and the deer fell dead in its tracks. 
He waited a while for any event that might fol- 
equal to any task that might be set. At last the 
bear's head appeared through an opening in the 
bushes, but its body remained invisible. Fear¬ 
ful that the bear would catch his scent or see 
him, he took a quick sight at the rounded black 
head and pressed the trigger. Over went the 
bear, but recovered in a moment and came crash¬ 
ing through the bushes like a runaway ox direct¬ 
ly at the tree in which the hunter sat all the 
while pumping lead like a spraying outfit. In 
a moment the gun was empty—and the bear was 
gone. E. was on another stand not far away 
and he hurried up to offer assistance, if needed. 
“I want you to kick me good and hard,” said N. 
“What’s the matter? What was it?” asked E. 
“Why, I’ve just missed the biggest bear there 
is in these woods with six shots,” replied N., 
“and I feel that the kicking would do me a lot 
of good just now.” 
“Let’s postpone that part of it until we have 
looked over the ground a little,” answered E. 
Together they walked over to where the bear 
had disappeared. Blood was found on the leaves, 
and fifty yards further along was the bear, dead 
as the proverbial door nail. So no kicking was 
administered that time. In telling me of this. 
here, early,” said I, “to get over there by the 
crack of day.” “That means getting up about 
three,” replied D., and he set the alarm clock 
accordingly. It also meant early to bed, so to 
bed we went. 
My, but that alarm rang soon! It seemed that 
I had only just caught my first nap when the 
ting-a-ling sounded. We had breakfast by 3 :30 
and left camp a little after four. There was 
half a moon, which was very helpful. The lake, 
shallow at all times was abnormally low, and we 
experienced great difficulty in getting our boat 
through the ditch and into the lake, grounding 
every few yards. We passed the hole where 
the big ’gator *had wrecked the canoe a few 
months before and breathed more freely when 
it was behind us. But here our real troubles 
began. At no time after leaving the ditch were 
we really afloat, but all the time dragging over 
the mud. The further we got, the worse the 
condition of affairs, until we finally grounded 
hard and fast, with both of us about half played 
out. “It’s a wade now, all right,” said I, and 
D. acquiesced, so we left the boat, tying her to 
one of the poles stuck in the mud and faced the 
mile and a half wade ahead. D. had his gun. 
