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'' FOREST AND STREAM 
When the Moose Hunter Gets Down to Business. 
very start. Thus the Dominion Atlantic Line 
takes you through the incomparable Annapolis 
Valley and the storied haunts of the Evangeline 
Arcadians, while the Inter-colonial shows you the 
lands of the hardy Scottish settlers, mostly Ro¬ 
man Catholic, and lands you anywhere on the 
northern strait that borders romantic Cape Bre¬ 
ton. And what sporting territory is on all sides! 
Lawlor’s looked very good to me, the comfort¬ 
able cabin facing a scene of beauty and sporting 
promise, a far stretch of blue water studded 
with shaggy islands and shut in by hills on every 
side. We arrived before the moose season 
opened, and intended to spend the few days be¬ 
fore hunting in exploring and fishing. I spoke 
of fishing off your veranda. At Lawlor’s Lake 
it is done. I had not come for fishing, and ex¬ 
pected nothing, but Dave took me on a cruise 
round the lake in one of the heavy boats gen¬ 
erally used in that district, and I found that my 
experience as a trout expert, though wide, did 
not tell me all there was to know about the 
habits of the fontinalis; for here the fish appar¬ 
ently swarmed all over the lake, the secret being 
a series of shoals that had to be known. They 
were there by the score, and good sized ones, too, 
and gamy. It was easy to take home a fine lot, 
even without taking a female, my plan being al¬ 
ways to press the fish a little in the autumn, when 
the spawn is easily pressed out; that is, if there 
appeared a doubt about the sex of the fish. 
Next day an expedition was undertaken to 
Rocky Lake, a matter of a couple of hours’ 
tramp, as the lake belongs to another branch of 
the Guysboro system. Here no boat or canoe 
was available, but we launched a bulky raft and 
cruised the water to the end. The literal fact 
about Rocky is, that it must teem with trout of 
a large size; I mean from one to two pounds, 
and some much bigger. Though the wind that 
day was north we got what we wanted, and but 
one thought possessed me: Oh! for a canoe in 
these waters! Unlike western Nova Scotia, the 
canoe is not appreciated in the east. 
If anybody is looking for trout fishing in com¬ 
paratively primitive waters, let him take a canoe 
with him and go out from the town of Guys¬ 
boro in one of many directions, and he will get 
his fill in the spring, or any old time for the 
matter of that. I found that Lawlor’s and 
Rocky were not considered the best at all. 
There is one big lake near by, on which the for¬ 
mer lieutenant-governor had a fishing camp, 
where two-pounders and over are common. It 
is often very rough, so that boats are commonly 
used, but an expedition across country with a 
light canoe, the carries not being too long, would 
take the fishermen to lakes and streams fished 
hardly at all and yet filled with good ones. I 
am going there in spring, sometime. 
But after all this is not a tale of fishing, but 
of hunting. Our appetite has been whetted in 
Guysboro by the sight of a wonderful head that 
Dave had called the season before for Dr. Jost, 
with very massive antlers, and Dave, though he 
wanted to guide us to what he considered better 
territory, consented to show us the ground 
where this monster had been lured to his death. 
Hence Lawlor’s, this country being situated be¬ 
yond the far end of the lake, along the upper 
reaches of the Isaac’s Harbor River, which flows 
through typically rough territory. 
The river, the valley of which is separated 
from Lawlor’s by a reach of high barrens, flows 
ff'om Costley’s Lake down through a series of 
ridges and black spruce swamps to the forks of 
both branches, the whole country being very hard 
going. We were early, as aforesaid, and the in¬ 
evitable question might as well be disposed of 
right here: “Were we right to shoot in the mat¬ 
ing season?” 
No and yes; yes and no! As a rule no beast 
or bird should be disturbed in the mating sea¬ 
son. With moose there is however one factor 
in the problem that may or may not influence 
the individual sportsman. The majority of bulls, 
particularly the big fellows, mate before the six¬ 
teenth of September, and the next spring’s crop 
of calves has been looked out for before that 
time. As for the sportsmanship of “calling” in 
general, I have already wasted a good deal of 
ink discussing its ethics, the result being that 
calling is just as fair as still-hunting and a trifle 
more so. 
To prate of really sportsmanlike hunting (I am 
speaking American now) is sheer cant. Until 
we teach the beasts how to hunt us with repeat¬ 
ing rifles there can be no such thing. All we 
may claim is, that certain circumstances com¬ 
pensate for the unfairness of our methods and 
for the killing, which latter may be eliminated 
with ease by leaving the rifle in camp and bring¬ 
ing a camera. Did it ever occur to you that 
many a man who sees nothing unfair in letting 
a dog put up every bird he shoots, will exclaim 
against the unfairness of calling moose, forget¬ 
ting that the skill of the guide and his “han¬ 
dling” of the bull when once started are as in¬ 
teresting, and often more so, as the working of 
a bird dog? Of course it may be considered 
more sportsmanlike, as it certainly is more fun, 
to call your own bull, but, in general, the bull 
stands far more chance for his life in calling 
time than when a good hunter gets after him 
later on, when he is more off his guard, espe¬ 
cially when there is snow. Do not argue with 
me on this subject unless you have called moose 
more than I have. 
But a truce to preaching! Let us go down 
river with Dave and watch him solve a difficult 
proposition. When the season finally opened the 
party separated. The chief and his nephew, 
Fred Knight, taking Injun Frank part way down 
the trail, while Dave and I started for the forks 
of the Isaac’s Harbor. This was generous of 
the chief, for Dave alone knew the country. 
Just a moment to describe Dave’s lean-to tent, 
which was composed of two long triangles of 
cloth, one end of the tent (the rear) reaching 
out along the ground in a long point, while the 
front end towered far out ahead, so that it was 
about over the camp-fire, though high enough 
to escape being burnt. It looked pretty good to 
me, though on the whole I prefer some other va¬ 
riety, say the Baker tent, which is my favorite 
on all occasions except in winter. How anyone 
can use any tent but the lean-to for fall shoot¬ 
ing is beyond me. 
God made the Isaac’s Harbor River a thing 
of beauty. Man has turned it into a ditch 
flanked with from one hundred to two hundred 
yards of dead trees and stumps and windfalls on 
both sides. It was the electric light men, they 
told me. A curse upon them—may God wither 
’em! May they join their worthy fellows, the 
lumbermen, in some torrid region expressly re¬ 
served for the la bas. 
On the east side of the river rises a huge 
bluff, or series of bluffs, the descent to the water 
being almost sheer. The view would have been 
glorious had the human vandals not have vis¬ 
ited the place. 
When we reached the shore we found it so 
