In cold weather in those forests the bears and wolves are exceedingly audacious. The latter have a curious habit of accompanying the teams on their journeys between the forest and the river to which they drag the logs. This has only occurred of late years, and the manner in which they thus volunteer their services as assistant drivers is exceedingly curious.
"Three teams," says Springer, "in the winter of 1844, all in the same neighbourhood, were beset with these ravenous animals. They were of unusually large size, manifesting a most singular boldness, and even familiarity, without the usual appearance of ferocity so characteristic of the animal. Sometimes one, and in another instance three, in a most unwelcome manner, volunteered their attendance, accompanying the teamster a long distance on his way. They would even jump on the log and ride, and approach very near the oxen. One of them actually jumped upon the sled, and down between the bars, while the sled was in motion. Some of the teamsters were much alarmed, keeping close to the oxen, and driving on as fast as possible. Others, more courageous, would run forward and strike at them with their goad-sticks; but the wolves sprang out of the way in an instant. But, although they seemed to act without a motive, there was something so cool and impudent in their conduct that it was trying to the nerves--even more so than an active encounter. For some time after this, firearms were a constant part of the teamster's equipage."
The distant howling and screaming of the wolves, compared by an old Yankee hunter to the screeching of forty pair of old cart-wheels, is particularly ominous and disagreeable. Springer has collected a number of curious anecdotes concerning them. One night a pack of the prowling marauders were seen trailing down Mattawamkeag River on the ice. The dwellers in a log-house hard by soaked some meat in poison and threw it out. Next morning the meat was gone, and six wolves lay dead, all within sight of each other. "Every one of them had dug a hole down through the snow into the frozen earth, in which they had thrust their noses, either for water to quench the burning thirst produced by the poison, or to snuff some antidote to the fatal drug. A bounty was obtained on each of ten dollars, besides their hides, making a fair job of it, as well as ridding the neighbourhood of an annoying enemy." Several of Mr Springer's logging and lumbering friends have contributed to his book the results of their experience, and narratives of their adventures, some of which he gives in their own words. Amongst these is an ill-written, but yet a very exciting, account of a wolf-chase, or we should perhaps rather say a man-chase, the wolves in this instance being the pursuers, and Springer's neighbour the pursued. The person in question was passionately fond of skating, and one night he left a friend's house to skate a short distance up the frozen Kennebeck, which flowed before the door. It was a bright still evening; the new moon silvered the frosty pines. After gliding a couple of miles up the river, the skater turned off into a little tributary stream, over which fir and hemlock twined their evergreen branches. The archway beneath was dark, but he fearlessly entered it, unsuspicious of peril, with a joyous laugh and hurra--an involuntary expression of exhilaration, elicited by the bracing crispness of the atmosphere, and glow of pleasant exercise. What followed is worth extracting.