A HUNT IN THE LAURENTIDES 



a magnificent sight against a background of alders and the white 

 trunks of birches. When the canoe was about one hundred 

 and fifty yards distant the sun was momentarily obscured by 

 a passing cloud, and the moose, for the first time distinctly 

 seeing the approaching canoe, immediately whirled and splashed 

 through the shallow water in the direction of the shore. Owing 

 to the violent motions of the tossing canoe, which the Indian 

 was now trying to hold broadside to wind and wave, the moose 

 continued toward safety in spite of the first four shots I sent 

 after it. As this bull was about to disappear forever in the 

 wall of alders my fifth shot severed its spine above the shoulders, 

 and caused it to rear up on its hind legs and then topple over 

 among the bushes with a crash. We paddled to the shore, and 

 on landing I finished the struggling moose after several shots 

 at close range. We discovered that two of my first shots had 

 struck the animal, but too far back to stop it immediately. 

 This was about a five-year-old bull, with a head carrying fourteen 

 points and a spread of forty inches. It had been accompanied 

 by a cow, which we had not noticed, but whose tracks we after- 

 ward found in the mud. We cleaned the carcase, cut down 

 some small tamaracks to cover it, and reached camp about 

 three o'clock in the afternoon. The next day we returned 

 in both canoes for the head and meat, but found the latter 

 unfit for use, and were obliged to return to our former diet of 

 muskrat. 



Tw^o days later we loaded the canoes and started for a large 

 lake miles distant, and known as Lac Caousagouta. About 

 noon, while paddling along a narrow lake enclosed by high, 

 wooded hills, we discovered a bull caribou walking along the 

 shore several hundred yards ahead. The first canoe stole up 

 as close as possible to the suspicious animal, and when it be- 

 came thoroughly alarmed and started to run, Howe fired several 

 shots and brought it down at the edge of the woods. We built 

 a fire on a grassy point near the scene of the killing and 



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