220 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



wary animal, but if he docs not know their habits, he will, in 

 the majority of cases, or at least in a large percentage of them, 

 get only his pains for his labour, unless he has unusual good 

 luck, or is favoured by accident. 



Running- them down is practised only in winter, when the 

 snow is deep on the ground, and this requires endurance and 

 perseverance on the part of the hunter rather than skill. It 

 is resorted to principally by Indians, who want meat, or by 

 white men who want the skin, and as they can travel on snow- 

 shoes at a rapid pace, while the poor moose are constantly 

 sinking 1 into the drifts, if the crust is not strong enough to 

 support them, the latter are of course soon exhausted, and 

 bleeding from wounds in the legs. To kill them in this way 

 is only butchery, as they can neither resist nor escape. Hunting 

 the animal with hounds in winter is a more spirited sport, but 

 in this case also it is brought to bay through exhaustion, and is 

 slaughtered as easily as a cow, for while its attention is engaged 

 with the dogs, all the hunter has to do is to knock it on the 

 head with an axe, or blow its brains out with a rifle or revolver. 

 The Indians, and some white men, frequently follow it for two or 

 three days at a time on snow-shoes, and finally run it down, as the 

 deep snow through which it must flounder fatigues it readily, and 

 each day's chase only renders it more easy of capture the next. 



During one of my days of idleness I accompanied a snow- 

 shoe party who were going out on a moose-hunt. We had 

 several dogs of all breeds, from terriers to fox-hounds, with us, 

 and one mongrel that was a combination of bull-dog and grey- 

 hound. This individual would not only run down but boldly 

 attack a moose, hence his fame was great, and many were the 

 laudations he received. Our route led through a heavy forest, 

 where the ground was deeply covered with snow having a hard 

 but rather light crust. "\Vhen we reached a favourable situation 

 we scattered out and commenced searching for " signs/' and 

 quartered in every direction to the windward. After beating 

 a tract of four or five square miles, we struck a large yard 

 that was surrounded by a wall of snow three or four feet 

 deep, and was traversed in every direction by well-beaten 

 paths. This must have had an area of two or three square 



