234 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
in a fold, while the cows are browsing the young fir-tips, 
or lying here and there chewing the cud lazily, secure of human 
intrusion, human cruelty. 
Meantime, the posts are taken silently, each hunter chooses 
his own victim, and at a preconcerted signal, the rifles flash and 
crack, and all is tumult and confusion in the late tranquil yard. 
Some of the forest cattle are prostrate in their gore, shot merci¬ 
fully dead outright, or, as the Western hunters term it, in their 
quaint prairie parlance, “ thrown in their tracksothers, 
severely wounded, are floundering to and fro in the snow-drifts, 
bellowing savagely, and showing desperate fight, if antlered 
males;—trumpeting piteously, and seeming to implore pity with 
their great soft brown eyes, if females ; while those more fortu¬ 
nate, which have escaped the deliberate volley, are out of sight 
already, perhaps, ere this, half a mile distant, in the boundless 
forest. 
The keen knife bleeds the slain,—the tomahawk, or the re¬ 
served rifle shot, finishes the wounded; and remember this, 
gentle hunter, never go up to your wounded Moose, or Cariboo, 
or even Deer, until your rifle is reloaded; for sometimes a 
slight hurt will stun the quarry for a moment, and the sight of 
his foe, close at hand, will give him power for a furious charge, 
or for rapid flight, ere hatchet or knife can reach him; and if 
they could, neither to bring down a charging bull Moose, nor 
to arrest a bounding Deer, will they avail the sportsman much. 
But now, when the yard is broken, or before this, if the Moose 
have discovered the approach of their enemy betimes, and, as 
often happens, betaken themselves to flight, the tug of war com¬ 
mences. The snow-shoes are again buckled on, the rifles re¬ 
loaded ; and,—while the camp followers tarry in the rear, to 
butcher the game, and hang it from the trees, beyond the reach 
of the prowling Wolf, and then to bring forward the provisions,— 
away dash the hunters, with trailed arms, upon the track of the 
heavy Moose, deeply imprinted in the treacherous snow; for the 
crust which supports the light weight of the runners, mounted 
upon their broad-surfaced snow-shoes, breaks at every floun- 
