MOOSE HUNTING AND CALLING. 169 



As we drove we heard to use Mr. Kipling's words 

 " the monstrous female voices " of the fog-sirens piercing 

 the light mists which overspread the river. It is, by the 

 way, a curious fact that the noise of a siren, heard at a dis- 

 tance, resembles in some degree the call of the cow moose. 

 All round the Canadian coast this fact has been noticed, and 

 moose generally young and unsophisticated beasts have 

 been, and continually are, killed upon the open seashore 

 flats, whither they have been lured by the song of their 

 strange charmer. In a word, the fog-horns have brought 

 many a welcome joint of moose meat to vary the dietary 

 at the salmon canneries. 



Our objective was a log hut on the margin of Depot Lake. 

 All along the earlier part of the road we met with French- 

 Canadian settlers, almost every one of whom carried a single- 

 barrelled shot-gun on the chance of seeing a covey of ruffed 

 or Canada grouse, which at this season of the year are often 

 found on the edges of the trail and forest paths. At the 

 last house we happened to fall in with the warden of the 

 district, Eleazar Hinds, and I arranged that he should 

 accompany us, as he was familiar with the woods in which 

 I proposed to hunt. 



About an hour before sundown we arrived at a point 

 beyond which the buck-board could not go, so shouldering 

 our packs we began our four-mile tramp to the hut. Ex- 

 cepting where the trail was flooded by the workings of 

 beavers, the walking was easy, and we had gone nearly half 

 way when Ed found the track of a cow moose that had 

 crossed only a short time before. Soon after dark we reached 

 the hut on Dep6t Lake, a spot which has since been made 

 the headquarters of a shooting and fishing club. The hut 

 proved most comfortable, being fitted with rough bedsteads, 

 good stoves, and a small library of books, altogether a far 

 more luxurious hunting camp than any to which I was 



accustomed. 



6a 



