Put together one flamboyant and ambitious political figure, a seaplane, a bunch of moose hunters, a disgraced former head of the Maine Warden Service and a whole lot of hearsay and anonymous finger-pointing -- and what do you get?

The federal investigation of Conservation Commissioner Pat McGowan.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating whether McGowan violated the law by helping moose hunters on the ground last fall by scouting from his airplane, a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

McGowan was piloting his personal seaplane into remote Caucomgomoc Lake last September, and a local game warden became suspicious after the plane landed at the lake, where a group of moose hunters was staying in a cabin. After asking some questions, the game warden told the Bangor Daily News that he was satisfied that no violation of any law occurred that day.

McGowan, for his part, denies the allegation.

Perhaps because the incident concerned a state commissioner, it was nonetheless communicated to Col. Tom Santaguida, the chief game warden for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Santaguida was obliged to resign his post shortly thereafter when Marine Patrol officers caught him with nine short lobsters, in violation of the law. After his resignation, Santaguida sent an e-mail to top Inland Fisheries and Wildlife officials alleging that McGowan had broken the law up at Caucomgomoc.

Even worse, wrote Santaguida, McGowan's good friend, Deputy Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Paul Jacques, had told him, Santaguida, that he, Jacques, had been told that the incident had happened but that no one should say a word about it.

Confused yet?

Well, the story doesn't get much clearer after that. Someone, as yet unidentified but described by the Bangor Daily News as "a second individual with previous ties to DIF&W" then told the story to the feds -- and to the newspaper.

That, in turn, sparked the investigation that officials at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will confirm only is ongoing.

McGowan has a long past in Maine politics, as a lawmaker and administrator in the highly charged arena of hunting, fishing and natural-resource management. He'd like to be governor.

He's known among his many friends, colleagues and acquaintances as a man of almost centrifugal force, who spins off good ideas and bad with astonishing speed and who has left an impressive list of disgruntled people in his wake. That there's a federal investigation of his actions replete with whispered and anonymous accusations and hearsay and fueled perhaps by private grudges is not surprising.

McGowan is innocent until proven otherwise -- yet the very public nature of the allegations against him are a distraction and create a situation that will make it hard for him to do his work effectively.

Those at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency who are investigating him need to proceed quickly and either clear him or charge him.