Part of his criticism I positively 
know to be a bit out of focus. I do 
not know much about a domestic cow, 
but I do know that a cow moose bites. 
I have had one bite at me _ several 
times, and saw one bite at a bull moose. 
Charlie Cremin will tell you of an in- 
cident when he and Mr. Talcott were 
playing with a cow moose in the lake 
in front of their cabin. Charlie gave 
the mating call. Out came a bull from 
the edge of the woods, and quietly came 
to the cow in the water, thinking, I pre- 
sume that she had called. She evidently 
did not sense him till he was right be- 
hind her. Then she whirled, put back 
her ears, and made as vicious a bite at 
him as ever I saw anything make. Now 
if she had no teeth in the front jaw, 
the old bull certainly believed she had, 
for he dug out quickly. 
Also, as you know, moose browse on 
twigs. In fact, I fancy that is their 
main food at times. They reach up for 
twigs, and down for lily roots. How in 
the world could a moose bite twigs and 
dig up lily roots with only his back 
teeth? 
Also, the man admits teeth in the 
lower jaw of a moose at the front. 
Now, did you ever hear of any animal 
having teeth in one jaw and no teeth 
in the other to meet them? LEither he 
must have a horny or bony surface to 
meet them, which must be as formid- 
able as teeth, or he could not use them, 
a man with teeth only in the one jaw 
cannot bite, for he has only gums to 
clash with the bony teeth, and that 
would mean wounding of the empty 
gum. 
Now I will state some facts that I 
will absolutely stand for and prove in 
spite of this critic or anybody else: 
This bull did raise and lower his 
mane. 
This bull’s eyes did shine red. 
This moose did show teeth, and a 
moose’s teeth can and do bite, tear and 
crush. 
The cow I rode before did bite at 
me not once but several times. 
So much for the actual, unexagger- 
ated facts. 
Now whether a moose’s teeth can 
rightly be termed fangs, is a matter 
of literary taste. Whether they are 
terrifying, of course, depends on the 
person who faces them. They are not 
terrifying to me—though excited, per- 
haps, I did not feel so. 
But on the point of comparing rid- 
ing a wild cow moose or a bull moose 
with riding a domestic cow, he may be 
right. I leave that for the readers to 
judge. But this I know. Charlie Crem- 
in, as brave and experienced a woods- 
man as lives, considered it foolish and 
needlessly risky to ride even a cow 
moose. 
Harry Allen, whom you know as one 
of the best Canadian guides; Floyd 
Palmer, Wallace Bridges and McGibb- 
ney are Canadian guides and rangers, 
none of whom could be considered timid 
or womanish. Douglass Haines of the 
C. P. R. could not be called timid either. 
Yet when they had this first bull cor- 
nered, he drove them clear off the lake, 
even the cow fighting with him till they 
turned canoe and ran, glad to escape. 
The second bull they tried they cor- 
nered, and he faced them just as I 
told you in the story. Every one of 
these able men did back out and went 
away without riding the bull because he 
seemed so formidable. And in each 
case there was big expense of the ex- 
pedition and the humiliation of failure 
to get the picture, which might have 
stiffened them to take a chance, one 
would think, and certainly these men 
would not have backed out if things 
had been as easy as riding a tame, 
barnyard cow. 
As to my ride, again I stated the 
facts. Tame as a barnyard cow or 
not, he went up like a torpedo when I 
first forked him, and plunged headlong 
for the scow with the camera men in 
it, Frank Alexander to wit, Floyd Pal- 
mer, and McGibbney—all of them not 
timid at any rate, and they did not get 
the first riding on the picture, just be- 
cause of that plunge which looked very 
like a desperate charge and which left 
me in the mud up to the chin and right 
at the moose’s hind legs. It was the 
second ride you see in the movie we 
took. — 
I’m not playing heroics. It was just 
_a sort of stunt for fun and interest. 
I have written for FOREST AND 
STREAM for twenty-five years, and been 
an associate editor for five or six. It 
is my pride to write accurately and I 
do that. 
I was not in any position carefully to 
examine the bull’s upper jaw or mea- 
sure the size of his teeth with any de- 
gree of accuracy. I also consider it 
quite ethical and within the rights of 
an author writing a story and not a 
scientific treatise, to use words that are 
imaginative, and vivid, provided, they 
do not really falsify. 
I simply say again, moose, both cows 
and bulls, fight with three weapons, 
bulls with teeth and antlers and feet; 
cows with teeth, head and feet. There 
certainly are teeth in the front of a 
moose’s jaw as even this critic admits. 
Those teeth are certainly yellow. And 
I do not see that it makes a whole lot 
of difference whether they are in the 
upper or lower jaw, they certainly do 
crush, or, he couldn’t bite off a lily pad 
or a twig—equally they tear, or he 
couldn’t use them, your teeth and mine 
even, tear; and they certainly bite, or 
he couldn’t feed. 
So, while I am duly thankful for Mr. 
Petry’s challenge—since it will eventu- 
ate in giving me more accurate in- 
formation, I feel that the story as it 
stands in your magazine will stand any 
test which should sincerely be asked of 
a story in contrast with a cold, scien- 
tific article. 
Dr. THOMAS TRAVIS, 
Montclair, N. J. 

Johnny Bear 
An Adventure With a Bear Cub 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
E had paddled in some forty miles 
from the forest ranger’s cabin and 
found ourselves, after a rather tough 
two mile portage, on the banks of one 
of the border lakes in Minnesota’s Su- 
perior National Forest. We had come 
for a bit of middle May fishing for 
that highly prized fresh water fish, the 
lake trout. Several parties had been in 
ahead of us, and that they had had 
some luck was apparent by the fish 
heads and “spare parts” which lay on 
the lake shore a few yards from camp. 
Mother black bear got wind of this 
waiting feast and brought her little 
boy along to visit. As we were down 
wind she came up within twenty yards 
of camp without noticing us. It was 
not until we stood out in the clearing 
and waved our arms that she looked 
up and turned to gallop into the brush. 
Little boy, however, scooted up a handy 
dead pine stub. It is no stretch of 
truth when I say he ran up that tree. 
The mother stopped not far away in 
161 
