THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS 123 



scent feels. He may win his prize with the ease of put 

 ting out his hand and taking it sighting his rifle and 

 touching the trigger. Or, by the blunder of a hair s 

 breadth, he may daily track twenty weary miles for a 

 week and come back empty at his cartridge-belt, empty 

 below his cartridge-belt, empty of hand, and full, full 

 of rage at himself, though his words curse the moose. 

 He may win his prize in one of two ways : ( 1 ) by run 

 ning the game to earth from sheer exhaustion; (2) or 

 by a still hunt. 



The straightaway hunt is more dangerous to the 

 man than the moose. Even a fat spinster can outdis 

 tance a man with no snow-shoes. And if his persever 

 ance lasts longer than her strength for though a moose 

 swings out in a long-stepping, swift trot, it is easily 

 tired the exhausted moose is a moose at bay; and a 

 moose at bay rears on her hind legs and does defter 

 things with the flattening blow of her fore feet than 

 an exhausted man can do with a gun. The blow of a 

 cleft hoof means something sharply split, wherever that 

 spreading hoof lands. And if the something wriggles 

 on the snow in death-throes, the moose pounds upon 

 it with all four feet till the thing is still. Then she 

 goes on her way with eyes ablaze and every shaggy hair 

 bristling. 



The contest was even and the moose won. 



Apart from the hazard, there is a barbarism about 

 this straightaway chase, which repels the trapper. It 

 usually succeeds by bogging the moose in crusted snow, 

 or a waterhole and then, Indian fashion, a slaughter; 

 and no trapper kills for the sake of killing, for the 

 simple practical reason that his own life depends on 

 the preservation of game. 



