A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

CHAPTER XXXVI

UNCLE BILLY MURCH'S HAIR-RAISER

At about this time Tom and I were up at the Murches' one evening to see Willis, and persuaded old Uncle Billy, Willis' grandfather, to tell us his panther story again. That panther story was a veritable hair-raiser; and we were never tired of hearing the old man tell it. Owing to our severe climate panthers were never very numerous in northern New England—not nearly so numerous as panther stories, in which the "panther" is usually a Canadian lynx. Even at present we occasionally hear of a catamount or an "Indian devil"; but perhaps the last real panther was trapped and shot in the town of Wardsboro, Vermont, in 1875. There can be no doubt whatever that it was a genuine panther, for its skin and bones, handsomely mounted, as taxidermists say, can be seen at any time in the Museum of Natural History in Boston. It is a fine specimen of the New England variety of the Felis concolor and would no doubt have proved an ugly customer to meet on a dark night.

No doubt there were panthers larger than that one. According to Uncle Billy the Wardsboro panther was a mere kitten to the one that he once encountered when he was a boy of fourteen. Our old Squire, who then was fifteen years old, was with him and shared the experience. But try as we would, we never could induce him to tell the story. "You get Uncle Billy Murch to tell you about that," he would say and laugh. "That's Uncle Billy's story; he tells it a little better every time, and he has got that catamount so large now that I am beginning to think that it must have been a survival of the cave tiger." Yet when pinned down to it the old Squire admitted that he was with Grandsir Billy on that night and that they did have an alarming experience with an animal that beyond doubt was a large and hungry panther.

I must have heard the story ten or twelve times in all, and I recollect many of Grandsir Billy's words and expressions. But the old man's vocabulary was "picturesque"; when he was describing exciting events he was apt to drift into language that was more forceful than choice. It will be best therefore to give this account substantially as years later—long after Grandsir Billy had passed away—the old Squire told it one afternoon when he and I were driving home together from a field day of the grange.

It seems that back in the days when the county was first settled the pioneers found the ponds and streams in peaceful possession of an ancient trapper whom they called Daddy Goss. Trapping was his business; he did nothing else. Every fall and winter while he was tending his trap lines he used to stay for a week or a month at a time at the settlers' houses. Frequently the wife of a settler at whose house he was staying would have to take drastic measures to get rid of him; no gentler measures than taking his chair and his plate away from the table or putting his bundle of things out on the doorstep would move him. "As slow to take the hint as old Daddy Goss," came to be a local proverb.

One December while he was staying at the Murch farm he fell sick with a heavy cold, and while he lay in bed he fretted constantly about his traps. At last he offered Billy Murch, who was then fourteen years old, half of all the animals that might be in them if he would go out and fetch them home. The line of traps, he said, began at a large pine-tree near the head of Stoss Pond and thence extended round about through the then unbroken forest for a distance of perhaps fifteen miles to a birch-bark camp on Lurvey's Stream that the old trapper had built to shelter himself from storms two years before.

Billy wanted to go but his mother would not consent to his going alone. So he talked the matter over with the old Squire, who was a year older than Billy, and offered him half the profits if he would accompany him; and the result was that the two boys took the old man's flintlock gun and set off at daylight the following morning. They were not to stop to skin any animals that they found in the traps, but were to make bunches of them and carry them home on their backs. The old trapper would not trust them either to skin the catch or to reset the traps. Since there were only two or three inches of snow on the ground, they did not have to use snowshoes and hoped therefore that they should return by evening. They found the first trap on Stoss Pond and from there followed the line without much difficulty, for Daddy Goss had made a trail by spotting trees with his hatchet. Moreover, the marten traps were "boxed" into spruce-trees at a height of two or three feet from the ground and could easily be seen.

There is an old saying among trappers that nothing catches game like a neglected trap; and that time at least the adage was correct. The boys found a marten in the second trap and found others at frequent intervals. What was remarkable, they found three minks, two ermines and a fisher in traps on high, hilly forest land. I think the old Squire once said that they took nineteen martens from the traps, of which there were one hundred and two.

The boys soon found themselves loaded down with fur. Since they were to have half of what they brought home, they did not like to leave anything. So with an ever increasing burden on their backs they toiled on from trap to trap. Before night each was carrying at least forty and perhaps fifty pounds. They had brought thongs for tying the animals together. Billy carried his bunch slung over the stock of the gun, which he carried over his shoulder. His comrade carried his on a short pole. A good many of the martens were still alive in the traps and had to be knocked on the head; the blood from them dripped from the packs on the snow behind.