Henry Braithwaite’s Tales of the Forest 
The Veteran Woodsman Recounts Some Further 
clear out an old trail. 
They came upon a 
place where a bear had 
just killed a moose. Every- 
thing around was so torn 
up and showed such signs 
of a hard fight that they 
decided it was no place 
for them and left. Going 
there a week later, I found 
the bear still feeding on 
the moose. I set a‘trap 
for him but it was getting 
late in the season and I 
had probably scared him 
away, for I failed to get 
him. 
I remember one time I 
caught a bear with four 
cubs. I knew she had cubs 
although I couldn’t see 
them when I took her out 
of the trap. I commenced 
skinning her and had got 
about half through when I happened to 
look behind me and saw four cubs fif- 
‘teen or twenty yards away, with their 
paws on a log looking over at me. I 
knew they would stay around and eat 
the mother, and as there was no water 
within half a mile and knowing they 
couldn’t live without it, I went to an 
old camp and got a pail and an old 
pan and carried them full of water and 
left them beside the mother. I reset 
the trap and fixed it in such a way that 
it would spring so hard there was, no 
danger of the cubs being caught. Five 
days later I returned and found they 
had drunk all the water and had com- 
menced feeding on the mother bear. 
As that was my last trip, I sprung the 
trap and carried more water. No 
doubt the cubs all lived; if they didn’t, 
it wasn’t my fault. 
| ONCE sent two men to 
Another time while cruising for lum- 
ber, I was crossing a piece of burnt 
woods. It was nearly lunch time and 
seeing a little alder swale to one side, 
I decided to boil my kettle. Laying 
down my bundle, I got out my kettle 
and cup and started for the swale to 
get some water. I forced my way 
through the alders for twenty or thirty 
feet to where I could hear water run- 
ning. 
a” the bank of the brook I came upon 
a bear and two cubs. They must 
have been asleep, for they all sprang up 
at the sound of my coming. The old 
Adventures With Bruin 
| My | {YEE 
25 A 
‘4 
YT 
44, 
ty GAY 

bear jumped across the brook and the 
cubs rushed through the alders in the 
opposite direction. I could see the old 
bear running up through the burnt 
woods for nearly a quarter of a mile. 
I would probably have run too if I had 
been given a fair start. I got my water 
and went back to the open ground and 
got my lunch; I don’t think I have ever 
seen those bears since. 
NE day in May, when the snow was 
about half gone, my snowshoes 
gave out and I was unable to reach 
camp that night. Making a fire in the 
lee of some large pine logs, I untied the 
bundle of bear and beaver skins I had 
been carrying on my back and spread 
them out. Then I turned in for the 
night. 
Next morning when I awoke, I 
started to a nearby brook to get some 
water to boil my kettle. I was sur- 
prised to find a beaten road made by 
bears. Upon investigating, I found 
that three bears, which I supposed was 
an old bear and two cubs, had made a 
circle round me in the night, coming up 
behind the log and looking over to see 
where I was. I knew by the road they 
had beaten down that they must have 
travelled round many times. It was a 
moonlight night and if they had only 
awakened me I might have added quite 
a toll to my bundle of fur. 
A good many years ago, a party 
lumbering along one of our railroads 
aah had a camp about a mile 
from the tracks. The 
trains used to put off their 
provisions occasionally on 
the side of the track, and 
gave them notice when do- 
ing so by whistling. The 
boss, a young man at that 
time and very smart and 
able, came up one evening 
from camp and found they 
had left a quarter of beef. 
He shouldered it and 
started for the camp. 
E hadn’t gone far 
when he heard some- 
thing behind him. Look- 
ing around, he saw a large 
bear trying to smell the 
meat. He was about half 
a mile from camp and it 
was all down hill; so he 
started on the run expect- 
ing every minute to get 
into trouble. On reaching the camp, he 
threw the meat against the door burst- 
ing it open, and fell in on top of it. The 
crew could scarcely believe his story, 
but upon lighting a lantern and going 
out, they found bear tracks to within 
a few feet of the door. The boss said 
he made up his mind the bear might as 
well get him as the meat, for they were 
about out of meat. He is now a Mem- 
ber of Parliament and I don’t think 
he would do much running from a bear 
unless he was on the wrong side of 
politics. 
I started from Fredericton one time 
to look over sorhe lumber land and 
store houses. At the first store house 
I came to I expected to find a man 
watching, but he had gone to the upper 
store house fourteen miles away. I 
found a bear trying to break into my 
store house. There were several bar- 
rels of dried apples stored in one cor- 
ner and he was digging under the 
house trying to get at them, and I was 
afraid he would do it if I didn’t kill 
him or drive him away. 
HERE was a lumber camp within 
a hundred yards of the store house 
and I decided to watch there that night. 
The weather was warm, the night very 
dark and the sand flies so numerous 
that I had to go in the camp and light 
the lamps. That was the only way I 
could get rid of them as they will make 
(Continued on page 119) 
