PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN OWLS 169 



moose which we had already eaten ? The death of this lady was 

 entirely due to my hunter. I should have let her go, hut the 

 fatal word "meat" was whispered into my ear at the critical 

 moment, and the thought of all the salt fat pork we had lately 

 eaten, and visions of all we were likely to eat in the future unless 

 something was killed, rose up before me, and that cow died. 

 Then we had nothing hut moose at every meal ; we ate one 

 quarter of the cow, equivalent to two hoots of the owl, and gave 

 the remainder to some lumberers working near. However, we 

 settled among ourselves that the owl had referred to the size of 

 the future bull, and, with this happy solution of the problem, 

 turned into our blankets. The last thing I remember that night 

 was the ringing laugh of the loon (great northern diver), so 

 natural and so mocking as almost to shake my belief in our 

 friend the owl. 



This was the only cow moose fired at, to the disgust of my 

 guide, who had an eye to skins and the number of moccasins to 

 be made out of them ; but this regard for the sex cost me a bull 

 the bull meant by the ten hoots of the owl. Mistaking him 

 for a cow as he stood more than half hidden in thick birch and 

 balsam scrub, I refused to fire until the momentary appearance 

 of one horn had decided the sex ; it was then too late, he had 

 seen or winded us and was off, the bullet striking the twigs 

 which formed a screen. It was a terrible disappointment to 

 me after three weeks' hard work in the bush, especially as my 

 time was up, thus losing the only bull we had seen, or rather only 

 partly seen. My hunter also felt it grievously ; he got violently 

 ill in consequence, his stomach sharply resenting the loss of 

 moose meat. I commenced the cure with chlorodyne; he 

 finished it successfully with a large Spanish onion fried in 

 pork fat ! He was, and is still, I hope, a very fine specimen 

 of the genus man, powerfully built, hard working, willing, and 

 a first-class tracker. In winter he hunts fur; in summer, I fear, 

 he poaches; and in the autumn becomes a guide to moose 

 hunters. It was not advisable to interfere with his wishes in 

 the kitchen ; he was an autocrat there. Salt fat pork and salt 

 pork fat were his gods, and present in some shape three times 

 a day. Nothing would persuade him that tea might be drinkable 

 without boiling at least an hour. No, " people in Canada like 

 their tea strong " ; and strong we got it. A request for a stew 



