788 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 19, 1906. 


as the sun rose, I heard an awful racket where 
I’d set the last snare, there was a moose in it, 
and ten minutes after he sprung it. He tore 
the pole down, and came on to the barren, drag- 
ging it after him. He was caught by the fore- 
leg well up toward the shoulder. He smelt me, 
turned for the woods, and fetched up solid in 
the windfalls not a musket shot from where I 
lay. How that poor creature struggled. I 
thought he would break the rope and get clear, 
but the rope and pole held. I listened to him 
for some time, then my thirst came back again, 
and I felt hungry as well. I knew that if I ate 
the smoked herring, I should be crazy with 
thirst in less than an hour, and the biscuits were 
just about as bad. 
“All that day I lay there, burning up with 
thirst, and starving. The moose lay quiet for 
a while, then he’d struggle and thrash round, 
trying to break his rope. I could see him wal- 
lowing in the bushes when he was on his feet 
trying to break the rope. When he lay down, 
the dead stuff and young growth hid him from 
sight. 
“It was bitter cold that night; all I had to 
cover me was the sheet of bark I had stripped 
off the tree, and some moss and stuff I gathered 
off the ground, and laid round me to break the 
wind. It turned warmer toward morning, how- 
ever, and soon after the sun rose it commenced 
to snow and sleet. How I thanked God for 
that snow. Between what lodged on my clothes 
and what I scraped up, I managed to get enough 
to quench my thirst, and I ate of my biscuits 
and about half the smoked fish. While I was 
doing this, two or three meat hawks—the birds 
you call whiskey johns, came round me, and be- 
gan to beg for scraps. Then an idea struck me, 
and I cut a young birch sprout and made it 
into a bow. I cut some poplar shoots, and made 
them into arrows. It took me some time to 
drag myself over to the spot where the birch 
and poplar grew at, I was weak, and still longer 
to crawl back to my log, and make the bow and 
arrows. I threw a tiny scrap of fish about six 
feet from me, and waited. I shot two meat 
hawks in five minutes, then I lit a little fire 
with some scraps of birch bark, and bits of 
wood, and the three moose-snares I had with 
me, and I roasted both the birds. I only ate 
one of them, for I didn’t know how long it 
would be before I had a chance to get more, 
and there isn’t much meat on them—they’re all 
feathers. ! 
“J wasn’t afraid of dying from thirst after 
this, for enough rain and sleet had fallen to 
fill the crevices between the rocks with water, 
and I could reach down to it with my handker- 
chief tied on a stick. Now and again, I would 
look at the moose. When he first saw me he 
was nearly crazy with terror, then he quieted 
down. I imagined he was getting weak, like 
myself. ' Every now and then he’d struggle and 
moan, and along toward evening he commenced 
to browse the little bushes as far as he could 
reach them. 
“When the morning came I could feel that I 
was much weaker. I ate the second meat hawk 
and the second biscuit. No more meat hawks 
came round me that day, but I shot a striped 
squirrel. He was only three yards from me, 
but it was all I could do to reach him. The 
moose had browsed everything clear down to 
the ground, and I could see his horns when he 
lay down, and the moving of his ears every now 
and then. Toward sundown a flock of crows 
was passing .overhead; one of them eyed the 
moose, or me, or both of us; he gave a squawk, 
and in less than a minute the whole flock was 
circling over us, out of gunshot. Then they 
dropped into some dead rampikes, and com- 
menced to talk to one another. Just as the sun 
was setting, they flew away, and all that night 
I figured out what the end was going to be. 
“I had some kind of a sleep that night, but it 
was so full of horrid dreams that it did me no 
good. I was too weak to raise my head in the 
morning, but I could see the crows come back 
again, soon after daylight. There were twice 
as many of them as there had been the night 
before, and they were not nearly so timid. 
Finally one of them lit on the ground quite 
close to me. I tried to send the arrow at him, 
but I was too weak to pull the bow. He just 
fluttered off a yard or two when I moved. I 
couldn’t hear nor see anything of the moose, 
and I concluded that he had died in the night. 
“T had never been much of a praying man; 
in fact, I hardly knew how to pray in those days, 
but if ever a living man prayed, I did so that 
day. 
“When the night came on, the crows roosted 
near me, in a little clump of firs which had 
escaped the fire. I could hear them cawing and 
squabbling with one another after they went to 
roost. 
“T think I must have been off my head that 
night, for it was broad daylight when I re- 
member anything more, and the crows were all 
round me on the ground. Some of them were 
not the length of my arm away. I tried to raise 
my arms, but I was too weak, and I tried to 
shout, but my voice had left me. I had read 
somewhere that they always went for a dead 
man’s eyes before they ate any other part of 
him, and I had just enough strength to cover 
my face with my arms. 
“T remember nothing more until I woke up in 
my own camp over on Beaver River dead- 
water. Archibald, the game warden, was there 
with me, and another strange man. I was all 
tied in bandages, and I was so weak I couldn’t 
move my hands. My throat was dry, and all I 
could do was to whisper, ‘Water—water.’ The 
stranger jumped up said to Archibald, ‘The 
fellow’s come to, and there’s a living chance 
for him yet.’ He gave me water in a spoon, 
not one-tenth of what I could have taken, and 
then he gave me some other stuff, which sent 
me to sleep again. I kind of remember their 
feeding me on broth, and stuff like that for 
some time, and when I came to my senses, I 
felt stronger. 
“ “How long have I been lying here?’ was the 
first question I asked. 
k paepeteen days, isn’t it, Doctor? said Archi- 
ald. . 
“*Yes, and how many days had you been ly- 
ing on the barrens before we found you?’ said | 
the Doctor. 
““T don’t rightly know,’ I replied, ‘but this 
I do know, I broke my leg the day the moon 
was full.’ 
“*That means you were five days before we 
found you. You must have a constitution like a 
bear then. I believe that all the crows in the 
county had planned to come to your funeral. 
They must be keen on human flesh in this part 
of the world. Now lie still, and don’t ask any 
more questions.’ 
“For three more days I lay there, then they 
put me on a stretcher, and carried me down to 
the dead-water, and laid me on a raft. They 
towed the raft behind the canoe to the portage 
road from the dead-water to Long Lake. Then 
they carried me over the portage, made another 
raft, and took me up the lake and home. I 
never struck a blow that winter, and when I got 
out again my right leg was shorter than the 
left one. 
“The doctor was an American, who had gone 
in with Archibald on a still-hunt. They hap- 
pened on my hedge, and followed it up, cutting 
down the snares as they came along. Presently 
they saw the crows gathered near me, and they 
concluded that there was a dead moose there. 
They found me almost dead beside the birch 
log; carried me down to my camp, and did all 
they could for me. 
“As soon as I was well enough to attend 
court, Archibald took out papers and had me 
arrested. It cost me over a hundred dollars, but 
I paid without letting the case come to trial. 
“IT wrote to the doctor to find out what his 
bill was, and he charged me nothing; but when 
he came down next year, he hunted with me, 
and got two good heads. I had him with me 
for several years after that, and his hunting cost 
him nothing for grub or guide. 
“T’ve never set a trap for a wild animal since 
then, except deadfalls for bears, and snares for 
wildcats and foxes, they make quick work of 
anything which gets into them, and don’t leave 
them to suffer in torture.” 
“I suppose the moose died in the snare, or 
else Archibald shot it to end its misery,” I re- 
marked. 
“The rope chafed through against a granite 
rock, and the moose broke away when Archi- 
bald came up to me,” the old gentleman replied. 
“He was so weak he couldn’t run, but he got 
off all the same.” 
I suppose fur has got to be caught; but if 
every one who sets snares or traps could spend 
a few hours in one, he would be far less likely - 
to leave his game to die of starvation and thirst. 
Epmunp F, L. JENNER. 
Nova ScorTia. 
Curious Associations. 
WE see in Forest AND STREAM a picture of the 
cat and coyote and dog and cats going through 
their maternal functions, but the strangest case 
I have heard of and seen is a goose and a land 
tortoise. 
The goose is of the Toulouse kind and about 
five years old. It is a great pet of the children 
where it is owned. It follows them all around, 
likes to have its head stroked, and seems to take 
great delight in being at all times with the chil- 
dren. 
The other day the little boy of the group found 
a tortoise, what we commonly call box turtle, and 
brought it around and let the goose see it. The 
old goose eyed the turtle very closely for a short 
time, then uttered some guttural sounds and 
seemed to act as if the newcomer was all right. 
Now the goose walks about with the turtle and 
will pull a little grass and talk to it, just as if 
she had a young gosling to take care of. If the 
turtle gets to wandering too far from the chil- 
dren, mother goose promptly takes her bill and 
heads him gently in any direction she wants him 
to go. I hope that eventually the turtle will make 
its escape, but it’s a very queer case to watch. 
A picture of the children, goose and turtle to- 
gether, with the facts, would be most interesting, 
but I am not in the picture business, dia 
Mitchell Sabattis. 
New York, May 14.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I the Forest AND STREAM of May 12 
I find your editorial comment on the life of Sa- 
battis, who has just passed over to the majority, 
and I am pleased to note your just appreciation 
of his character as a man and as a guide. Dur- 
ing the last nieteen years of his life I knew him 
well. While he had strength to do so, he fre- 
quently visited our camp in Long Lake. For 
many seasons his eldest son was my personal 
guide. Two other sons have been in my employ 
from time to time. A son-in-law is in charge of 
my interests on Long Lake at the present time. 
It may be admitted, therefore, that I know the 
Sabattis family well. 
Through all these years I have never heard any 
one speak of Sabattis as other than Mitchell Sa- 
battis; and unless he and his family and his 
neighbors have been misinformed, Mitchell Sa- 
battis was his correct name. 
Dr. J. H. Woopwarp. 
Origin of the Dog. 
THE ancestry of the dog is a topic which has 
been much discussed of late at the French Aca- 
demy in Paris. M. Boule maintains that as far - 
back as the pliocene period of geology the canine 
family showed much the same divisions as it 
exhibits to-day. There were the wolf, the fox, 
and the jackal tribes and types, and a fossil jaw 
taken from pliocene rocks near Puy shows cer- 
tain characteristics which are seen in our own 
domesticated dogs of to-day. 
Are we to assume, then, that the dogs of our 
period represent a much more ancient and ori- 
ginal type of animals than science would have 
us hitherto believe? If fossil evidences are trust- 
worthy, the dogs of remote antiquity, so far from 
having originated from the wolf stock, may be 
regarded as having possessed a distinct person- 
ality of their own. We may probably have to go 
back into the tertiary to find the primordial stock 
from which the wolf, fox, jackal and dog may 
together have sprung. CHARLES HALLOCK. 
