I spent several days hunting with him in November, 1885, and the intervening nights--or a large portion of each--in talking with him. I learned in that short time to esteem and value him as one of the best guides and hunters I ever knew, and one of the truest friends I have. Although he has been hunting so many years and has always been a close observer of the habits of game; although thoroughly posted on woodcraft in all its details, he is not egotistical as are so many old woodsmen. He never intrudes his opinions on any subject unless asked for them; never dictates what anyone under his guidance shall do. He modestly suggests, and if you do not agree with him, defers cheerfully to your judgment.
He is intelligent, well-informed generally, full of interesting reminiscences of his life in the wilderness, and relates many thrilling episodes in his experience in hunting deer, bear, wolves, etc. He told me that once, when hunting on the Menominee river, he saw a doe lying down, and raised his rifle to shoot her. But before firing he noticed that she had seen him and was struggling to get up. As she did not succeed in this, he concluded that she must have been wounded, and started toward her. She kept struggling, but was unable to rise, and on going to her he found that she had lain down near a large hemlock root, that had curved out of the ground, forming an arch or loop three or four inches high. One of her hind legs had slipped under this root to the knee, and when she had attempted to get up she had probably been thrown violently on her side, dislocating the hip joint and thus rendering it utterly impossible for her to draw the imprisoned leg from under the root. He said the poor creature had apparently been in this pitiable plight several days; that she was starved and emaciated almost to a shadow, and had tramped and pawed a hole in the earth more than a foot deep, over the entire space reached by her fore feet. Had she not been discovered, the poor creature must soon have died from starvation. As it was, she was so weak that when he released her leg from this strange trap she was unable to stand, and he reluctantly killed her, as the speediest, most humane, and, in fact, the only means of ending her misery.