! March 30, 1907.! 
le, the combined odor of men and dogs. With 
' « more noise than the passing of a cloud sha- 
■w over the snow, the big moose rose and ex¬ 
uded his muzzle in the direction the scent 
me from. Had the snow been soft he would 
ve moved at once, but he feared the noise 
tde by the breaking crust. 
The scent grew stronger and stronger, then 
ie of the huge ears moved forward. There 
is noise as well as scent. An instant more and 
dog gave tongue. It was too much for 
Orignal; he gave one frantic bound, and 
tched the trail he had broken out over night, 
b and down, in and out, through the paths he 
d trodden in the yard the big moose doubled 
d twisted. The noise grew louder, and to 
2 scent of men and dogs, “men noises” were 
ded. Then, with a tremendous spring he left 
2 beaten trail and headed for the barrens. 
iere he knew the snow was not as deep as it 
s in the green woods. In places the barrens 
re bare, and in other places there was abund- 
ce of small spruce and fir bushes. Wherever 
;se grew it was easy for the moose to travel 
t difficult for the dogs. While his immense 
ength enabled the moose to travel through 
ee feet of snow with comparative ease, the 
1st cut his legs and hampered him at every 
p. Among the bushes there was little or no 
1st. Furthermore, the tops of those which 
ejected above the snow hid him from any 
:-my that might be lurking on the barrens. A 
!lament’s pause at the edge of the sheltering 
ods; an investigation of the track he had to 
•ss—an investigation in which eyes, ears and 
jlse did their part, and L’Orignal broke from 
: rer and made for the bare barrens. Once be- 
e, many, many years ago, he had been 
ogged” out of this swamp, crossed the bar- 
is—they were not barrens then—and turned 
: bay in Little Frog Lake. 
[Tittle Frog Lake is a mere puddle, some two 
es in extent. Jt is full of springs which 
e through the white granite sand and render 
ezing up an impossibility. Of the four dogs 
| ich followed him into the water on that oc- 
; ion, only one went home. The remaining 
ee were foolish enough to swim out and at- 
k a moose at bay on a rock. This battle took 
fee in March, and L’Orignal was minus his 
■j 'ns at the time, but he knew how to use 
i forefeet. L’Orignal gained a start of two 
three hundred yards, while the dogs were 
1 P'ng in the bushes, a rifle cracked, and a 
; 'rt of snow flew up a hundred feet on one 
| - of him; another report and a second bul- 
whizzed over his head. The marksmen were 
j den behind some low bushes, and he could 
see them. The moose turned into a little 
ine and was lost to view. The Woodworths 
j limed that their shots had gone home and 
ted across the barrens as soon as they had 
' )aded. L’Orignal floundered through the 
w for a couple of hundred yards. The 
ces of the dogs grew louder; they were at 
j ’edge of the swamp. Then, through the 
1 >ty air rose another voice, as different to the 
1 dug of the curs as a cathedral organ is to 
: ill-tuned piano. Harper Woodworth had 
; ped Rollo, and the bull-mastiff had taken 
the chase. 
I en years ago when dogging was compara- 
■ ly common, and Rollo was a young dog, he 
I famed for his voice. The curs heard it; 
1 r barking ceased for a moment, then the 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
whole pack streamed across the barrens and 
took up the chase. Harper caught sight of the 
fugitive as he emerged from the ravine, dropped 
on one knee, and fired. His sights were set at 
four hundred, and in his excitement he forgot 
to allow for the change in distance, the bullet 
falling short. His father took aim, but he 
lowered his rifle without firing. “No use to 
waste shells on him at long range. Those 
collies will set him up in twenty minutes, and 
old Rollo will do the rest. Save your wind and 
ammunition, go slow, and cut all the corners you 
can.” 
Louis Thibideau emerged from the woods, 
traveling at a slow trot, his rifle slung over his 
back a cork in the muzzle to keep the snow out. 
Bill Woodworth was past the sixty-year limit. 
In his younger days he could have traveled on 
snowshoes for a week with any Indian. Old 
age had told on him to a certain extent and he. 
had to exercise some discretion in the matter 
of physical exertion. Harper had done very 
little traveling on snowshoes. The last five 
years of his life had been spent ’tending bar, in 
Boston. He was more or less “soft,” and walk¬ 
ing on snowshoes at the rate of three miles an 
hour was all he was capable of. “No need for 
us to run. Let dem dogs do de running. Soon 
dey run him into some beeg drift, an - ole Rollo 
ketch up wit’ him; den he be our moose for 
sure. Lord, what a voice dat ole dog got; you 
hear him two, t’ree mile.” So spoke the 
halfbreed as he joined his friends. The chase 
progressed, the moose in front, the collies grad¬ 
ually gaining on him, Rollo some three hundred 
yards behind the collies; and the hunters far 
behind; cutting every possible corner. 
So far L'Orignal had experienced fairly easy 
going. The greater part of the snow had blown 
off the barrens into the gullies and little swamps. 
Then came the first check. What appeared to 
be a level plain of snow was in reality a shallow 
watercourse and a narrow valley, filled level 
full of snow and the snow heavily crusted. The 
moose floundered and wallowed through the 
drift. When he reached comparatively bare 
ground, the leading collie was not twenty feet 
from him. A mad rush of a quarter of a mile, 
and another deep drift. Just as he cleared it, 
L’Orignal felt a dog’s teeth fasten on one of 
his hind legs, another one was snapping at his 
muzzle, the other three were gaining on him at 
every step, and only a hundred and fifty yards 
behind him now Rollo’s thundering bass chanted 
his requiem. The snow which filled the gully 
had been blown off the barrens, leaving them 
almost bare. L’Orignal reached the bare 
ground, disposed of one of his antagonists for 
the time being with a vicious kick which sent 
the cur howling into the bushes, gashed the 
side of the dog which had attempted to head 
him off, with his antlers; and sped on for 
Little Frog Lake and what he hoped would be 
safety. 
Suddenly the knowledge of a new and horrible 
danger dawned on him. There was man-scent 
in the air. He was traveling against the wind, 
and every yard he ran, the more pronounced 
became the odor. With death in the front, 
destruction in the rear, only one thing re¬ 
mained—to face his foes, and sell his life as 
dearly as he could. A hundred yards ahead of 
him rose a huge pile of boulders. Some freak 
of nature had piled them one on top of the 
other to a height of thirty or forty fen t. On 
489 
one side the wind had swept every vestige of 
snow away. For twenty feet the ground was 
absolutely bare. L’Orignal headed for this bare 
spot, wheeled round, with his back to the 
granite wall, and awaited the onset of the dogs. 
His fighting ground was well chosen. Approach 
from the rear was impossible. There was no 
snow to impede the use of his feet, nor was 
there any coign of vantage from which the pack 
could launch themselves at his muzzle. For per¬ 
haps ten seconds he waited the attack. His 
mane bristled up, his little eyes glowing like 
carbuncles, and his antlers lowered to striking 
distance. Then the leading dog ran in, evaded 
the lightning-like stroke of the fore foot, 
stumbled, and before he could recover, the brow 
antler, eighteen inches long, and sharp as a 
bayonet, was through his lungs. A howl, a 
toss of the antlered head and the mongrel lay 
gasping his life out on the snow thirty feet away. 
Another dog ran in, evaded the antlers, and 
seized him by the muzzle. Being a collie, and 
more accustomed to snapping at the heels of 
horses and cattle, than holding on to moose, he 
broke his hold, and as he did so, L’Orignal 
brought both feet down on him. In this case 
there was not even a howl—the end was too 
sudden. 
The three remaining dogs held aloof. Two 
of them had been injured already, the third one 
was only a year old, and had no ambition to 
tackle the strange monster which had dealt so 
roughly with her comrades. Old, almost tooth¬ 
less, out of training through excessive feeding, 
and unlimited petting, Rollo struggled through 
the snow to the scene of conflict. His ponder¬ 
ous weight—over one hundred pounds against 
the collie’s fifty—had been a sore disadvantage 
to him in the chase. The crust had cut his 
pads and the snow was red with blood-stains 
behind him. During the last half-mile of the 
chase he had run mute, realizing that he would 
require all his strength and breath later on. 
He arrived on the scene in time to'see the sec¬ 
ond mongrel pounded to pulp under L’Orignal’s 
fore feet. One dog sat licking his wounds and 
the remaining dog and the little bitch were 
circling just out of the moose’s reach. 
Many a dog would have rushed in at once. 
Rollo halted twenty feet from his antagonist. 
For nearly a minute mastiff and moose faced 
one another. The hair along the dog’s spine 
bristled like the moose’s mane, the blunt yellow 
teeth showing beneath the snarling, back-curled 
lips. A feint at the flank, a lashing forward 
kick from one of the hind legs, which missed 
the dog by a fraction of an inch, and the real 
fight commenced. Twice the fore foot and 
brow antler missed the dog in some inexplicable 
way. Twice the dog’s jaws snapped like a wolf- 
trap, but failed to grasp the soft muzzle. Then 
the dog attempted a ruse which he remembered 
from his early experiences. He turned tail and 
ran some thirty yards over the snow. Had 
L’Orignal followed him his fate would have 
been sealed. Once off the bare ground and in 
the deep snow the mastiff would have had no 
difficulty in turning on him and taking hold. 
The ruse was not a success. L’Orignal remained 
with his back to the rock, watching the other 
dogs out of the corner of his eyes. Tjie little 
bitch seemed to realize what was wanted. She 
drew back a few yards, and as Rollo left the 
snowbank and returned to the attack, she dashed 
forward and nipped the moose on the hind leg. 
n 
