314 WINTER. 



picking up hats, coats, and other impediments which we 

 dropped in the ardour of the chase. At night we rested 

 for a few hours under a tree, and resumed the chase at 

 daylight next morning. The moose, a young bull, had 

 lain down and rested not more than a quarter of a mile 

 ahead of his pursuers, but gave us another hard day's run, 

 and we shot him at four o'clock in the evening. Hard 

 snow-shoeing of this sort is very trying on the knees, 

 ankles, and feet, and requires a good deal of practice to 

 enable one to stand it. 



An old Micmac Indian spun me a quaint yarn about the 

 moose, which I will relate, not making myself responsible 

 for its veracity. " Some sixty years ago," he says, " the 

 Milicetes made a raid upon the moose, as the white men 

 have done lately. The Micmacs sent an ambassador to 

 expostulate, and request them to 'kill 'em more easy.' 

 The only reply the Milicetes made to this polite request 

 was to seize the ambassador and roast him. When the 

 news reached the Micmacs, their sage prophesied that the 

 moose would altogether leave a country where such bad 

 people live. Accordingly, in the following year the moose 

 did leave New Brunswick. Many were tracked to the sea- 

 side, and their tracks lost in the ocean. The medicine man 

 further prophesied that no man then living should ever see 

 a moose again, but that the succeeding generation would 

 be more fortunate. Accordingly, about twenty-five years 

 ago, two moose were perceived one fine morning swimming 

 towards the shores of New Brunswick. One of them was 

 killed, and on being opened no browse or land vegetable 

 was found in his belly, which was chuck-full of seaweed. 



