A Death in the North Woods of Maine

The instruction sheet they send you in the mail says to bring an alarm clock, but you don't really need one. By 3 o'clock in the morning the frosty air is filled with the barking, yipping and hollering of the hounds as the guides move among them, getting ready for the business to come. There are nearly 30 dogs in camp, including trainees and retirees, and they all try and outdo each other in the sheer volume of their ferocity, piercing and dissonant like some macabre chorus. They train and wait most of their lives for these short weeks of autumn, and a good bear hound can be worth as much as $5,000 to the men who know how to use them. Redbones or Blue Ticks mostly, or mixtures thereof, with each dog valued less for its pedigree than for its nose and heart and stamina. None of them wants to be left behind.