312 FOUR-FOOTED AMEIilCANS 



up, and calkerlatin' to git jest so many Deer and a Moose 

 or two in jest so many days. Notliin' would do but 

 some one must guide them to the Deer, and guide the 

 Deer to 'em, and introduce 'em with a gun and fire and 

 tricks, — the quicker all the better for those ' sports.' 



" I do hear this guidin' is a perfession now up that 

 way. But land alive. Doc ! what would the fellers 

 West call that kind o' guidin' ? — the ones we knew 

 that lived at Red Ranch. When we and they went 

 huntin' we all pitched in and tramped and starved 

 alike." And Nez looked into the fire as if he saw 

 something miles away. 



" But your first big ^loose, — tell us how you caught 

 him," reminded Nat. 



" Yes, I'm workin' raound to him. It was that fust 

 season that I was lumberin' in the Saskatchewan coun- 

 try, and we'd been workin' hard gittin' logs ready to 

 haul when snow come, and as it come about we had an 

 off spell fer a week, waitin' fer orders. A light snow- 

 fall come 'long the last of September, and old Dom'nick 

 Pardeau and me allowed to git a ]\Ioose, for we were 

 'bout tired o' beans and bacon in camp, and most of 

 the outfit was too fresh with guns to do better than 

 scare game away. So we allowed to go on a reg'lar 

 Injun still hunt, trackin' and watcliin' signs, wliicli 

 wasn't hard then, on account of the snow that took 

 the footprints. If you Avant huntin' that only an Injun 

 can do right, try to follow ^loose signs in plain ground 

 with jest moss and leaves to show the longish prints. 

 Of course we had to hunt this way in day time and try 

 to trail the Moose to his bed, for they feed and rove 

 niglat times, and hide away to sleep somewhere soon 



