B04 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 25, 1897. 
ing crash in tlie distance — very much in the distance. Then 
silence ; nothing hut silence. For two hours more "We and 
Chabot whooped and bawled and coaxed and wailed through 
the horn, and heard a variety of remarkable echoes. But no 
moose. Then we went home. 
The nest day We took up I he track again. Through 
swamp holes, blow-downs, bogs and meadows, it led us a 
merry dance. Thus "We acquired the "windfall walk," as 
.Jones called it — a knee-and-hock action fit to put a blue-rib- 
bon hackney to shame, Chabot said we had walked eleven 
miles; We guessed 1,100, there being a difference of opinion 
upon the subject. Also, at eventide, We split the solitudes 
with the boorning notes of the birch-bark horn, No moose 
again. Only tracks, millions of tracks. 
The third day. with Pierce and .lean Dominick, we por- 
taged into Line Lake, where Ivory shot a tremendous bull 
three years ago. The sun shone upon us, the black flies 
were at it again, and Pierce smoked like a furnace. At the 
head of the pond we got ashore, fiddled about in the bush, 
discovered new ponds, and at 3 o'clock came back to the 
Qanoe. On the way up Pierce pointed out where he had 
called in a moose tw D years before, and had shot it in the 
leg. He never saw ' the moose again, but he wasn't 
astonished. 
"Just my luck," said he. "What's yours? Try the horn 
once." 
It was already beginning to grow dusk, and at the same 
time bitter cold. Suppressing a chill, We tilted up the horn 
and let her toot. 
Crash! spang! One on the edge of the mountain, the other 
within the swamp. 
"Look out!" said Jean Dominick, "coming now." 
For an hour we waited, while those two moose pottered 
about in the bush. We never saw hide or hair of them, and 
after freezing till we threatened to capsize the canoe with 
our shivers, we gave it up in disgust. 
"Must been cow," said Jean Dominick; "maybe too 
him muckwa — that Injun for bear." 
So passed the third day, and likewise the fourth. But the 
fifth — much different. At 10 A, M. We picked up the track 
of the big moose on the round mountain, and hung to it with 
grim determination. It led us through a country worse than 
a hypocrite's hereafter, and toward nightfall bent toward the 
pond. Hour after hour We expected to come up with the 
hvute, but he was always just a little ahead. Once We 
heard the brush crack in his passage, and We kept on with 
redoubled speed. Once Chabot thought he saw him, and 
pointed a finger through an opening in a maple ridge. 
There were his tracks, with the water seeping into the 
marks; there was the moss still crushed imder his tread; 
there was a broken twig, the fracture still moist. But no 
moose. He was always just ahead. 
At dusk we gave it up, and with flagging footsteps 
slouched down toward the canoe. 
"By gar!" exclaimed Chabot, "that moose walk hard. 
Most dead now— walk so far." 
Still We knew he had not scented, us, and was some- 
where near by. 
"You take 'em horn now," said Chabot; "maybe you call 
'im out. " 
ChabPt thrust the canoe away from the beach, and when 
it had come to a rest We took the horn. The day was 
waning fast, and the mouth of the Thoroughfare lay dark 
and gloomy on our right. Noiselessly Chabot turned the 
canoe about until it faced the opening of the stream, and the 
wailing bellow of the horn uprose in the evening quiet. 
Crash! bang! crash — crash — crack— crash! 
Hardly 500yds. away the hull had heard the first soft call, 
and was coming quick. 
"Get gun! gun! Quick!" hissed Chabot. 
Leaning to the paddle, he sent the canoe surging down 
toward the lane amid the tree-tops that showed where the 
Thoroughfare lay. The last twilight had gone out like a 
candle in a cyclone, and the feeble .ight of the growing 
moon was all that held. Crash! bang! crash! came the big 
bull. Once he snorted — unh! unh! unh! Straight for the 
Thoroughfare he galloped, and then in he went — splash! 
splash! splosh! like cattle in a mill-pond. 
We could see the white water fall away before him as le 
lunged over the muddy bottom, but against the dark back- 
ground he did not show. Once We raised the gun to shoot 
at the splash of foara, but in that light We could not even 
see where to hold. 
"Wait! wait!" hissed Chabot, "get 'im on bog." 
There was reason m this. On the bog the moose would 
stand out against the sky, and give some sort of a shot, 
But the bull ordered differently. Changing his ccurse as he 
reached the edge of the bank, he turned westward and away 
from us. Then We heard him crash ashore, and once a 
black shadow flitted from bush to bush. That was all. 
"Eee-yunh! eee-yunh! ee-eeeyunh!" 
It was Chabot calling. Plaintively, seductively, he wrung 
notes from the impassive birch-bark that were fit to rend the 
human heart. For a moment the bull paused, and we 
thought he had turned. Once he stamped and then plowed 
his horns through the bushes. In answer Chabot imitated 
a cow walking in the pond— splashed the water to and fro — 
and then as a last resort dribbled it from the end of the 
horn. 
But the moose went on, unmindful of the wailing horn. 
Half an hour later he came back toward us, splashed into 
the Thoroughfare half a mi'e west, and then We heard him 
no more. In disgust, not to say despair, We retired to 
camp. 
Pierce and Jones in the meanwhile had gone fishing, Jones 
with his derrick and Pierce with an 8cz, split bamboo. 
They had fished for half an hour in a pond fifteen miles 
away and then had given up in disgust. Jones had twenty 
trout, Pierce twenty- six, 
"You don't call this fishing, do you?" said Jones. ' This, 
in my mind, is a slaughter of the innocents." 
One of the trout weighed 5i-lbs., the smallest IJ. We, 
•however, had only a disgust and a sore throat, and said so. 
"Yes," murmured Pierce, "there's a fortune in a machine 
that will make a moose-call." 
"Pish, tush!" said Jones, " there's a bigger fortune in a 
machine that'll make a moose come." 
Jones always was a wag. He threw Pierce overboard 
once and then blamed it on Us. That was his idea of a 
joke. 
And so it went. Day after day and disappointment. 
"See um that moose to-day," said Chabot one morning. 
But as Chabot had made this remark a dozen times before, 
We smiled and said nothing. But just as a fling at fortune 
We stowed a camera into the canoe and pushed off. Then 
from pond to pond we went, and at 3 P. M. came back to 
pliiae ijake and the scene of Pierce's former exploit. 
Chabot [callefl, 'and in answer came a crash in the bush. 
Whipping the canoe around, he sent it springing toward a 
wooded point 100yds, away. With gun cocked and at 
shoulder We waited. Around the point sped the canoe, and 
there stood a moose. Sadly We lowered the gun. 
"Shoot ! shoot !" said Chabot. 
"Cow, Chabot," said We in a far-away, conversational 
tone. 
"Dam!" said Chabot. That was all, but ah! what a 
depth of feeling he put in that single word. To be sure, a 
cow moose is legitimate prey in Quebec, but who would 
shoot a cow? I blush to say two New Yorkers on Caugh- 
wana Lake did it though, and then came over to our canoes 
to blow about it. Jones asked them mildly whether they 
had been in need of milk. But they didn't see the point. 
But there stood the cow eyeing us mildly, and a moment 
later in came a calf. 
"Kadok! kadok!" Chabot suddenly whispered, and then 
We remembered the camera. Lifting it to the edge of the 
canoe, We let her snap. The moose stopped feeding on the 
lily pads and waved her left ear. Once again the camera 
.snapped. 
"Hole on," whispered Chabot, "get nearer, maybe." 
The next instant the canoe was lying alongside a log, the 
other side of which was shared by the cow and the calf. 
She had lost her mildness now, and the hair on her hump 
had stiffened up. She did not look too tame, and as the 
ca^oe edged toward her We had visions of journalistic head- 
lines, such as: "Mangled b}^ a Moose," and "Grored by the 
Game," and the like. But when we were 6ft. away the cow 
lunged suddenly at her calf, butted it on the southwest ex- 
posure and drove it bef 01 e her into the woods. But before 
she was gone We got four more snap shots and a tender 
a lieu. 
How We ever managed to get within 6ft. of that cow only 
she can tell. If We ever meet her over the teacups We'll 
ask, bur all that can be suggested now is that the wind was 
THERE STOOD THE COW EYEIKG IIS MILDLT. 
Photo by Maximilian Foster. 
in our favor and the sun in her eyes. Still she should have 
had more discretion ; it ruined faith in a few thousand hunt- 
ing stories We have read. 
"What I tell you?" said Chabot. "Say see um that moose 
o-day." 
"Well, it was worth seeing, Chabot. Worth the price of 
admission, in fact." 
"Chess," murmured Chabot, that being his way of saying 
"yes." 
The next night We had another adventure. So did Pierce. 
So did Jones. Pierce fired at a moose in the dark, missed it, 
and was filline' the woods with lead when he discovered it to 
be a cow. Jones fired at a moose, scratched it, and the 
moose got away. Jones swore it was a bull, but Pierce said 
more Mkely it was a nightmare or lunacy. 
"Must kill moose to-night," said Chabot, as we reached 
the carry on Line Lake. "Stay all night, kill moose." 
So Chabot paddled up to a rocky island at the head of the 
pond pulled the canoe ashore, and the two of us took turns 
at calling. After drawing blank for an hour, Chabot gave 
one particularly artistic howl on the horn and then held up 
a flnger. 
"Coming!" he whispered. 
From a far distant swamp aro'e a curious sound. 
"Chip— chip chop-chip-chop," just like a man chopping 
wood. 
For half an hour the moose came toward us, chip-chopping 
every other minute. When he got nearer he began to say 
"Duck duck-duck!" and then "Unh! unh! unh!" 
It was very interesting. It was also very cold. We 
shivered. So did Ctabot At the height of it We heard 
from the other end of the pond another moose coming — 
"duck-duck duck." He was just getting into the "unh! 
unh! unh!" stage when a third moose lifted up its voice in 
the night, 
"T'ree, by gar!" exclaimed Chabot, "hear um fight soon 
now!" 
Of these three the first moose was the mo^t earnest He 
must have been three miles away when we heard him first. 
The air at the time was dead — not a breath stirred the trees 
upon the shore. Presently the first moose fell over a tree 
and made noise. The two others at this withdrew, and the 
premier bull came on. Still grunting, he came up to within 
200yds. of the shore, and then began circling around the 
bay. 
He was very cautious. Now and then a twig snapped, 
and this was all that marked his progress. At intervals We 
and Chabot chirped a subdued note or two on the horn — 
"Eee-yunh I eee-yunh!" Also, Chabot beat a bush with the 
horn, and the bull beat other bushes in reply. 
"Come out on bog dere," said Chabot, "best get in canoe." 
We pushed off, and the bull came on. He was heading 
straight for us, and five minutes would bring him out. And 
then— ah! more bitter than hard-boiled tea — the wind arose. 
Chabot felt it and prayed. It didn't sound like white man's 
draying, to be sure, but was more like^ what the_tpale-fac^ 
says when he hits his thumb with a tack-hammer, or when 
his mother-in-law comes for a long visit. At any rate, 
Ohabot's appeal to his Manitou didn't work. With one 
vengeful blast the wind whisked our scent across the bog; 
there was a crash in the bush, and the next minute we heard 
the bull go banging away into the distance, his horns clat- 
tering hke a lath upon a picket fence. 
So, sore depressed, We waited an hour and called again. 
Along toward midnight We got another answer, tolled in a 
fourth bull, and a whisk of wind sent him away on business. 
Still another hour later a fifth bull lent ear to our music; 
the wind did it over, and Chabot's language became satisfac- 
tory, but impolite. 
Then home across the carry We went, through a night 
blacker than pitch and across country that tried men's souls 
in the daytime. An hour before dawn We struck camp. 
And so it went on. But for what reason, can any tell? 
Chabot thought it was because there were so many cows in 
the country. Every one saw cows. Everywhere We went 
were cows. We even caught them in the pond. Jones 
stopped talking about tracks, and told about cows. 
"Gosh!" said he, "you ought to have seen the cow I ' 
It was too much. We got up, and left him alone in his 
shame. Then he tried to tell us about a big bull track he 
had seen. We shunned him, 
"How do you know it was a bull?" snorted .Pierce at 
length. 
"By the smell, of course," said Jones. 
"How?" 
"By the smell. You take two tracks — bull and a cow's — 
smell 'em; and if it does it isn't, and if doesn't it is." 
" How simple," murmured Pierce; "just the way jou tell 
the difference between a skunk and an onion " 
The luck was against us. We saw fresh signs everywhere, 
called in moose after moose, and could not get a shot. 
Sometimes they would just hop into the pond and out again, 
and while we waited for a better shot in the dark, were 
gone, and forever. 
We shot just one moose — a bull. But when the time 
comes to tell about it words fail us. It was sadder than 
golf. Some othtr time — but not now. Adion 
Maximilian Fostee. 
[The two pictures on page .o03 and one on page 506 are 
from photographs by Mr. W. L. Pierce.] 
A CHRISTMAS TURKEY SHOOT. 
SouTHWESTEBN Arkansas was a delightful place to linger 
in in the late December days, and there was good shooting, 
while for character studies it was an ideal place. Between 
the Badeau and the Eed River there was some good quail 
and squirrel shooting. 1 had temporary quarters with a 
farmer near Lewisville and had spent several days shooting 
quail. One day I wandered into the timber and brought out 
a lot of squirrels. My host looked at them, and fine large 
fox-squirrels they were, with something akin to contempt 
and asked: "Do you kill squirrels with a scatter gun up 
Nawth?" 
"Yes, sir, as a rule, although a few affect the rifle. I have 
only this light shotgun, and in fact I never used a rifle on 
squirrels." As this was early in the 70s, my gun was a 
12 gauge muzzle loader, and he had seen me do fair work 
with it on quail. 
"Take my little rifle in the mawnin' if you want to shoot 
squirrels, for they ain't a ten-year-old boy 'bout yeah that, 
would use a scatter gun awn a squirrel. No, sir, they'd pick 
'em in the head ev'ry time, ef they didn't bark 'em. But in 
Arkansaw we are brought up with a rifle, an' we never 
thought that a Yankee could shoot one until Berdan's men 
picked off our gunners very neat at Fredericksburg. 1 t'ot 
it in my hand when I stuck it above the works to load. Bee 
here." And he showed me his right hand where a bullet 
had gone through. 
"You got your discharge on that, 1 suppose; it must 
have taken out some small bones and made a bad wound at 
the time." 
"Thirty days' leave ^^as all I got then, but I got it in the 
shoulder and in the leg at Cold Harbor next year, and that 
knocked me out." 
"Many a good man on both aides got knocked out there, 
but I didn't." 
•'Was ye with Berdan?" 
"No, I was not a sharpshooter. " 
"I'm glad to know it; I hate them fellows, for they'd 
watch and pick off a man when they was no flghtin* goia' 
on an' when he didn't expect it." 
"That's so, Mr. Johnson; but you said something that I 
didn't quite get the meaning of. You said that the boys al- 
ways hit a squirrel in the head if they didn't bark 'em. 
When a boy barks 'em how does he do it?" 
"Why, he just puts his bullet in the bark under the squir- 
rel's belly and lifts him into the air dead, 'thout a mark on 
him. That's fine shootin', fer the bullet must hit jess the 
thickness of the bark under the squirrel, an' not go into the 
wood. My brother Sile is coming over to a shootin' match 
to-morrow, an' he's a good one with a rifle. You ought to 
go over to the shootin' match an' see some fun. I'll let ye 
have a boss an' we'll ride over, an' ye can enter in any of the 
matches if ye choose; we always have a turkey shoot on 
Christmas." 
"I'll go, but I'm not a rifleman, and prefer to look on. I 
met your brother Sile, with a lot of the boys from Prescott, 
Bourland's store and Falcon, at a gander pull last October, 
when I was there,* and I'll be glad to meet him again. At 
first he wanted to know if I was the man who shot him in 
the 'laig* in the Wilderness. He said that some one shot 
him, but who it was, and what they shot him for, he never 
knew. He has hard feelings toward the man who shot him 
in the 'laig,' but he realizes that it might be some other man, 
and we are friends. What's the shooting match to-morrow 
for?" 
"It'll be for turkeys in the mawnin' an' for a bull in the 
evenin', an' they'll be lots o' fun. I'll see that a boss is op 
hand in the mawnin', an' we'll go." 
The darky boy, Sim, was holding my horse at the ga/r 
when the sun was just looking over the hill to seehowtt*; 
world looked on Christmas morning. The fog hung ovei 
the rivers and marked then- courses for miles, and as I came 
out of the gate and said "mawnin' " to Sim, a high-hole flew 
across the road, just timing its undulating flight so that it 
cleared each fence, dropping almost into the road, and after 
seeming to alight on the other side gracefully sailed up and 
alighted on the bark of a stub, and began searching for a 
breakfast of insects, worms or the different sorts of larva; or 
cocoons which hide in such places in order to afford the 
* See Forest mid Stbeam of June 20, 189S, 
