200 Moose- Hunting in Canada. 



fectly clear, blue sky, with occasionally a little white cloud like a bit 

 of swan's-down floating across it, and felt, as I had often felt before, 

 that no luxury of civilization can at all compare with the comfort a 

 man can obtain in the wilderness. I lay smoking till I dropped off 

 to sleep, and slept soundly until the men, coming up from camp, 

 awoke me. 



Such is a pretty fair sample of a good day's sport. It was not a 

 very exciting day, and I have alluded to it chiefly because the inci- 

 dents are fresh in my mind. The great interest of moose-calling 

 comes in when a bull answers early in the evening, and will not 

 come up boldly, and you and the bull spend the whole night trying 

 to outwit each other. Sometimes, just when you think you have 

 succeeded in deceiving him, a little air of wind will spring up ; he 

 will get scent of you, and be off in a second. Sometimes a bull will 

 answer at intervals for several hours, will come up to the edge of the 

 open ground, and there stop and cease speaking. You wait, anx- 

 iously watching for him all night, and in the morning, when you 

 examine the ground, you find that something had scared him, and 

 that he had silently made off, so silently that his departure was unno- 

 ticed. It is marvelous how so great and heavy a creature can move 

 through the woods without making the smallest sound ; but he can 

 do so, and does, to the great confusion of the hunter. 



Sometimes another bull appears upon the scene, and a frightful 

 battle ensues ; or a cow will commence calling, and rob you of your 

 prey ; or you may get an answer or two in the evening, and then 

 hear nothing for several hours, and go to sleep and awake in the 

 morning to find that the bull had walked calmly up to within ten 

 yards of you. Very frequently you may leave camp on a perfectly 

 clear, fine afternoon, when suddenly a change will come on, and you 

 may have to pass a long, dreary night on some bare and naked spot 

 of ground, exposed to the pitiless pelting of the storm. One such 

 night I well remember, last fall. It rained and thundered and blew 

 the whole time, from about eight o'clock, until daylight at last gave 

 us a chance of dragging our chilled and benumbed bodies back to 

 camp. Fortunately such exposure, though unpleasant, never does any 

 one any harm in the wilderness. 



Occasionally, a moose will answer, but nothing will induce him to 

 come up, and in the morning, if there is a little wind, you can resort 



