Beautiful Joe, Marshall Saunders [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

and places

where they'd been nipping off the ends of branches and twigs, and follow

them up. They easily take the scent of men, and we'd have to keep well

to the leeward. Sometimes we'd come upon them lying down, but, if in

walking along, we'd broken a twig, or made the slightest noise, they'd

think it was one of their mortal enemies, a bear--creeping on them, and

they'd be up and away. Their sense of hearing is very keen, but they're

not so quick to see. A fox is like that, too. His eyes aren't equal to

his nose.

 

"Stalking is the most merciful way to kill a moose. Then they haven't

the fright and suffering of the chase."

 

"I don't see why they need to be killed at all," said Mrs. Wood. "If I

knew that forest back of the mountains was full of wild creatures, I

think I'd be glad of it, and not want to hunt them, that is, if they

were harmless and beautiful creatures like the deer."

 

"You're a woman," said Mr. Wood, "and women are more merciful than men.

Men want to kill and slay. They're like the Englishman, who said: 'What

a fine day it is; let's go out and kill something.'"

 

"Please tell us some more about the dogs that helped you catch the

moose, uncle," said Miss Laura, I was sitting up very straight beside

her, listening to every word Mr. Wood said, and she was fondling my

head.

 

"Well, Laura, when we camped out on the snow and slept on spruce boughs

while we were after the moose, the dogs used to be a great comfort to

They slept at our feet and kept us warm. Poor brutes, they mostly

had a rough time of it. They enjoyed the running and chasing as much as

we did, but when it came to broken ribs and sore heads, it was another

matter, Then the porcupines bothered them. Our dogs would never learn to

let them alone. If they were going through the woods where there were no

signs of moose and found a porcupine, they'd kill it. The quills would

get in their mouths and necks and chests, and we'd have to gag them and

take bullet molds or nippers, or whatever we had, sometimes our

jack-knives, and pull out the nasty things. If we got hold of the dogs

at once, we could pull out the quills with our fingers. Sometimes the

quills had worked in, and the dogs would go home and lie by the fire

with running sores till they worked out. I've seen quills work right

through dogs. Go in on one side and come out on the other."

 

"Poor brutes," said Mrs. Wood. "I wonder you took them."

 

"We once lost a valuable hound while moose hunting," said Mr. Wood. "The

moose struck him with his hoof and the dog was terribly injured, and lay

in the woods for days, till a neighbor of ours, who was looking for

timber, found him and brought him home on his shoulders. Wasn't there

rejoicing among us boys to see old Lion coming back, We took care of him

and he got well again.

 

"It was good sport to see the dogs when we were hunting a bear with

them. Bears are good runners, and when dogs get after them, there is

great skirmishing. They nip the bear behind, and when they turn, the

dogs run like mad, for a hug from a bear means sure death to a dog. If

they got a slap from his paws, over they'd go. Dogs new to the business

were often killed by the bears."

 

"Were there many bears near your home, Mr. Wood?" asked Mr. Maxwell.

 

"Lots of them. More than we wanted. They used to bother us fearfully

about our sheep and cattle. I've often had to get up in the night, and

run out to the cattle. The bears would come out of the woods, and jump

on to the young heifers and cows, and strike them and beat them down and

the cattle would roar as if the evil one had them. If the cattle were

too far away from the house for us to hear them, the bears would worry

them till they were dead.

 

"As for the sheep, they never made any resistance. They'd meekly run in

a corner when they saw a bear coming, and huddle together, and he'd

strike at them, and scratch them with his claws, and perhaps wound a

dozen before he got one firmly. Then he'd seize it in his paws, and walk

off on his hind legs over fences and anything else that came in his way,

till he came to a nice, retired spot, and there he' d sit down and skin

that sheep just like a butcher. He'd gorge himself with the meat, and in

the morning we'd find the other sheep that he'd torn, and we'd vow

vengeance against that bear. He'd be almost sure to come back for more,

so for a while after that we always put the sheep in the barn at nights

and set a trap by the remains of the one he had eaten.

 

"Everybody hated bears, and hadn't much pity for them; still they were

only getting their meat as other wild animals do, and we'd no right to

set such cruel traps for them as the steel ones. They had a clog

attached to them, and had long, sharp teeth. We put them on the ground

and strewed leaves over them, and hung up some of the carcass left by

the bear near by. When he attempted to get this meat, he would tread on

the trap, and the teeth would spring together, and catch him by the leg.

They always fought to get free. I once saw a bear that had been making a

desperate effort to get away. His leg was broken, the skin and flesh

were all torn away, and he was held by the tendons. It was a foreleg

that was caught, and he would put his hind feet against the jaws of the

trap, and then draw by pressing with his feet, till he would stretch

those tendons to their utmost extent.

 

"I have known them to work away till they really pulled these tendons

out of the foot, and got off. It was a great event in our neighborhood

when a bear was caught. Whoever caught him blew a horn, and the men and

boys came trooping together to see the sight. I've known them to blow

that horn on a Sunday morning, and I've seen the men turn their backs on

the meeting house to go and see the bear."

 

"Was there no more merciful way of catching them than by this trap?"

asked Miss Laura.

 

"Oh, yes, by the deadfall--that is by driving heavy sticks into the

ground, and making a box-like place, open on one side, where two logs

were so arranged with other heavy logs upon them, that when the bear

seized the bait, the upper log fell down and crushed him to death.

Another way was to fix a bait in a certain place, with cords tied to it,

which cords were fastened to triggers of guns placed at a little

distance. When the bear took the bait, the guns went off, and he shot

himself.

 

"Sometimes it took a good many bullets to kill them. I remember one old

fellow that we put eleven into, before he keeled over. It was one fall,

over on Pike's Hill. The snow had come earlier than usual, and this old

bear hadn't got into his den for his winter's sleep. A lot of us started

out after him. The hill was covered with beech trees, and he'd been

living all the fall on the nuts, till he'd got as fat as butter. We took

dogs and worried him, and ran him from one place to another, and shot at

him, till at last he dropped. We took his meat home, and had his skin

tanned for a sleigh robe.

 

"One day I was in the woods, and looking through the trees espied a

bear. He was standing up on his hind legs, snuffing in every direction,

and just about the time I espied him, he espied me. I had no dog and no

gun, so I thought I had better be getting home to my dinner. I was a

small boy then, and the bear, probably thinking I'd be a mouthful for

him anyway, began to come after me in a leisurely way. I can see myself

now going through those woods--hat gone, jacket flying, arms out, eyes

rolling over my shoulder every little while to see if the bear was

gaining on me. He was a benevolent-looking old fellow, and his face

seemed to say, 'Don't hurry, little boy.' He wasn't doing his prettiest,

and I soon got away from him, but I made up my mind then, that it was

more fun to be the chaser than the chased.

 

"Another time I was out in our cornfield, and hearing a rustling, looked

through the stalks, and saw a brown bear with two cubs. She was slashing

down the corn with her paws to get at the ears. She smelled me, and

getting frightened began to run. I had a dog with me this time, and

shouted and rapped on the fence, and set him on her. He jumped up and

snapped at her flanks, and every few instants she'd turn and give him a

cuff, that would send him yards away. I followed her up, and just back

of the farm she and her cubs took into a tree. I sent my dog home, and

my father and some of the neighbors came. It had gotten dark by this

time, so we built a fire under the tree, and watched all night, and told

stories to keep each other awake. Toward morning we got sleepy, and the

fire burnt low, and didn't that old bear and one cub drop right down

among us and start off to the woods. That waked us up. We built up the

fire and kept watch, so that the one cub, still in the tree, couldn't

get away. Until daylight the mother bear hung around, calling to the cub

to come down."

 

"Did you let it go, uncle?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"No, my dear, we shot it."

 

"How cruel!" cried Mrs. Wood.

 

"Yes, weren't we brutes?" said her husband; "but there was some excuse

for us, Hattie. The bears ruined our farms. This kind of hunting that

hunts and kills for the mere sake of slaughter is very different from

that. I'll tell you what I've no patience with, and that's with these

English folks that dress themselves up, and take fine horses and packs

of dogs, and tear over the country after one little fox or rabbit. Bah,

it's contemptible. Now if they were hunting cruel, man-eating tigers, or

animals that destroy property, it would be a different thing."

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER XXIV (THE RABBIT AND THE HEN)

 

"You had foxes up in Maine, I suppose, Mr. Wood, hadn't you?" asked Mr.

Maxwell.

 

"Heaps of them. I always want to laugh when I think of our foxes, for

they were so cute. Never a fox did I catch in a trap, though I'd set

many a one. I'd take the carcass of some creature that had died, a

sheep, for instance, and put it in a field near the woods, and the foxes

would come and eat it. After they got accustomed to come and eat and no

harm befell them, they would be unsuspecting. So just before a

snowstorm, I'd take a trap and put it in this spot. I'd handle it with

gloves, and I'd smoke it, and rub fir boughs on it to take away the

human smell, and then the snow would come and cover it up, and yet those

foxes would know it was a trap and walk all around it. It's a wonderful

thing, that sense of