144 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



The expression was new to me then, so I asked 

 for an explanation. 



"You see that wounded leg with a bad swelling?" 

 said the woodsman. "And you see there's no 

 swelling where the other bullets hit? It takes 

 hours for a wound to swell like that, and it won't 

 swell after he's dead, that's sure. But the sport 

 says they suddenly came on the moose and finished 

 him in short order. If that's so, somebody else 

 had given him that bullet in the leg the day before.'* 



"But what is the Dawkins trick?" I asked. 



"Oh, that's what they call it around here when a 

 man cripples a moose so he can't travel, and then 

 for a good price guarantees that a sportsman will 

 get a moose or no pay. Of course you can't fool 

 an experienced man in that way, but one who's 

 never killed a moose may fall for it. When the 

 bargain's made it's easy to take the sport back to 

 where the cripple is waiting to be finished. And 

 nine times out of ten the sport is kidded into think- 

 ing that he fired every shot which ever touched 

 the moose. The Dawkins boys were great at that 

 game." 



The writer in Field and Stream tells of his guide 

 "guaranteeing to bring me within easy shooting 

 distance within eight days, or no pay." Perhaps 

 he was a victim of the Dawkins trick, after all. 



