MOOSE-CALLING IN NEW BRUNSWICK 



quarters of an hour later found the three of us over the tops of 

 our larrigans in muddy water, balancing ourselves on a collec- 

 tion of felled trees lashed together with willows, and poling cau- 

 tiously across the treacherous sheet of water. On landing we 

 discovered that, concealed by the alders, the moose had got on 

 its feet and staggered into the forest, leaving a blood-stained 

 trail. We followed this cautiously for nearly two hours, and 

 abandoned it only when the wound, which evidently was in the 

 neck, had ceased bleeding and the moose seemed to be gaining 

 at every stride. 



En route to the shores of the pond we discovered the antlers 

 and skeleton of a bull moose, which had evidently been mortally 

 wounded at the edge of the water the previous year and had 

 travelled about five hundred yards to die in a thick clump of 

 spruces. The antlers being scarcely bleached by time, and 

 possessing broad blades with twenty-five points and a spread 

 of fifty-four inches, we carried these with us and ferried them 

 across the pond. By eleven o'clock we were on the blood- 

 stained trail of the moose wounded the night before; we stuck 

 to this until approaching darkness and a drizzling rain caused 

 us to turn campward. The animal, which had been struck too 

 far back, seemed to be steadily gaining strength. After stum- 

 bling through the darkness for several hours, I reached camp 

 very much disgusted at having uselessly wounded two of these 

 magnificent beasts without securing them. However, I do not 

 think either was so hard hit that it would not recover; but I 

 resolved that my next shot at a moose would be within reason- 

 able distance and in daylight. 



The next morning the rain had ceased, but the atmosphere 

 remained humid and the clouds black and threatening. The 

 continuous rain of the night having washed the scent out of our 

 tracks, we started out without breakfast for our usual watching- 

 place. When within the thick spruces, twenty yards from the 

 shores of the pond, we stopped to listen, and could hear several 



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