268 With Rod and Gun in New England 



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base. He has turned around and is making back through the alders, 

 grunting as he goes. This is a peculiar circumstance. Why should he 

 perform his amorous solo if he has decided to leave us ? The truth 

 soon dawns upon us. He is going around the pond, keeping in the shadows 

 all the while, and coming down the other side. We must shift our position 

 to the other side of the pond, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moose 

 as he slowly advances through the forest gloom. We cross the foot of the 

 deadwater on a dilapidated corduroy bridge and conceal ourselves behind 

 a low fringe of bushes. If he comes down the southern shore as far as he 

 did before he must cross a narrow opening in the fringe of alders. He 

 pushes boldly to the opening, hesitates, gives an anxious grunt, and then 

 his dark body is thrown for an instant in bold relief against the starlit sky. 

 Two heavy army rifles awake the woodland echoes for miles and miles 

 around, there is a crash in the thicket, the sound of a falling mass, crush- 

 ing down the brakes, and then our pent-up emotions give vent to a war- 

 whoop that would do credit to the wildest Comanche of the plains. He is 

 down and he is ours ! 



Still-hunting a moose on the snow is a very uncertain operation. 

 Sometimes it is an affair of a moment as you catch sight of the quarry and 

 drop him in his tracks, and then again, it may mean the hardest kind of a 

 chase for several days with cold and sleepless camping on the trail by 

 night; for the moose when once started from his " yard " is most persist- 

 ent and determined in his flight. Through bog and drift and jungle he 

 will pursue his tireless way with a swinging trot that soon leaves his pur- 

 suer many miles behind. But human endurance is superior to that of any 

 of the wild creatures of the forest, and the moose is handicapped by one 

 great disadvantage. He cannot eat while he knows or fears that he is 

 being pursued. By the third or fourth day he will become exhausted and 

 savagely stands at bay. Woe to the hunter then, unless his nerve is steady 

 and his eye is true, for death lurks behind the vengeful fury of those 

 lance-like hoofs. 



It was with an Indian guide that I had my first and only experience 

 at hunting moose upon the snow. It was on a hardwood ridge near Rocky 

 brook. He was an old bull and yarding alone in sullen majesty. The 

 Indian led the way rapidly, not following the tracks closely, but traveling 

 in long curves to leeward of the trail and cautiously returning from time to 

 time to inspect it. Soon he ran into a perfect maze of tracks that would 

 have utterly defied an amateur's power of analysis, but with a glance at the 

 browsings here and there, John pressed forward with the utmost confidence. 



" You see that moose stop here and feed good wile. See-no-wan 

 (maple), um-qua-day-a-wah (whitewood). Sartin he 's mighty big moose — 

 not fur off. Bambye git very close, then you shoot him mighty quick." 



