Moose Hunting in the Rain. 
One morning in September we walked the 
four miles from our main camp to the 
tent on Stuart Lake, N. B., where our guides 
had laid in a stock of canned goods and fixed 
things snug for us. The trail leads over fallen 
logs, around stumps and top of trees, up hill 
and down, through swamp and swale, follow¬ 
ing the never-ending line of “spots.” Under 
foot a carpet of moss, sometimes eight inches 
thick, drags at your feet and hides the rocks 
and pit-holes. You stumble and stagger along 
under your pack, and when you feel you have 
reached the very limit of your endurance, call 
out, “George, how far have we gone?” 
George has been expecting this question. He 
turns on you with his quiet manner and sym¬ 
pathetic smile and says, “We have been on the 
way,” looking at his watch, “thirty-eight 
minutes.” 
“Well, we must be about half way there, 
then,” you remark. 
"Oh, no, not as far as that. It takes three 
hours to make this carry.” 
Further along the trail I laid down my little 
pack and fitted my aching back over its curving 
side while I slowly straightened out the kinks. 
I felt that my back would break if I hurried 
the process. George stood stooping under his 
seventy-pound pack, smiling encouragement. 
“George,” I said, “you must be making game 
of me. It is at least ten miles back to camp. 
Now, honest, how much further have we to 
go ?” 
“Oh, only a little over two miles now.” 
I took up my pack, determined to walk 
steadily a little more than half an hour when, 
by all the laws of walking, I should have gone 
two miles. 
At the end of an hour I dropped my pack 
again. “George,” I said, “I doubt if I am good 
for a walk back to the States again this morn¬ 
ing. Why are we going back home, anyway?” 
George smiled and said: “Home is only 
three-quarters of a mile away now.” 
After another hour of walking and two more 
rests we saw a patch of white among the trees; 
at last the tent. Half a mile further on was a 
jewel of a lake. We were so impatient to see 
it that we had to go down before dinner. Our 
guides, George and Asa, have been to it four 
times before and tell of seeing never less than 
six moose on its borders, and once there were 
eight feeding on the lilypads. 
We felt that it would be an economy to go 
down and pick out our moose before dinner, 
as that would allow us to devote all our time 
to hunting bear and caribou. That morning we 
saw one beaver and a herd of at least six mil¬ 
lion moose tracks; nothing else. 
After dinner I was to go back along our trail 
of the morning a mile and a half to a small 
barren where George said my moose was stay¬ 
ing. K. was to take his stand at the lake. As 
we sat down to dinner it began raining and 
Asa told K. to “pick out one with waterproof 
hide, as they are slicker this kind of weather.” 
George and I had walked ten minutes along 
our back trail and my shoepacs had just begun 
to slop water over the tops, when there he stood. 
I had not been expecting to get excited for an 
hour and a half. He came so suddenly he gave 
me no show. Who could get excited if one 
minute you were making a little wager with 
yourself on the result of the race down your 
back between a drop of rain and a drop of 
perspiration, and the next second it was all 
over? George said I shot three times and three 
shells were missing from my rifle, but I could 
have sworn to no more than one. 
He lay on the ground dead. He lay so still 
that I could see he was dead. George said, 
“Keep watch; yoii can’t tell what he may do.” 
I said, “He hns done all he will do this trip.” 
“You wait a minute and keep your gun ready,” 
replied George. Then the bull started, not very 
steadily, but making fair progress and toward 
where we stood. “Great Scott!” I thought, 
“George has no gun.” I felt a great desire to 
give George my rifle and get out of sight. 
George said: “Hit him this time just back of 
his foreleg and get his heart.” I wanted moose, 
not hearts, but felt compelled to do as George 
had told me. In a few minutes we were sitting 
on him, figuring out how it happened, and what 
each had done and said. 
We skinned him in the rain. The garby birds 
found us at work, and came by the dozens to 
help. Along about night we staggered into 
camp. I had a piece of very red meat in one 
hand and a rifle in the other. A very red knife 
hung at my belt, and a reeking odor of grease 
and gore hung about my clothing. George 
looked like a moose ghost, for a bloody moose 
skin with head and wide spreading antlers, was 
drawn over his head and shoulders. 
Inside, down at my heart, was a big lump 
of satisfaction. In my brain was a little speck 
of shame. The speck of shame would say: “It 
was not a fair show.” The big lump would 
say: “I walked 968 miles and am entitled to 
it.” The little speck would say: “He was 
handsomer alive than dead.” Then the big 
lump would roar: “What have I been carry¬ 
ing the whole Mississippi watershed on my pack 
all day for, I should like to know?” 
K. came in at dusk. He had not found a 
waterproof bull, nor any at all, for that mat¬ 
ter, nor even seen one, but there were many 
fresh tracks, and it was interesting to watch 
the beaver at work while waiting. 
A moose steak may be the most delicious and 
tender meat you have ever eaten, or it may be 
the toughest. Mine was the latter. That night, 
after the fire was lighted in the tent stove, we 
told the story over and over again while chew¬ 
ing our first moose meat and shedding wet 
clothes. We would talk and chew awhile; then, 
when the stove got too hot, shed some clothes, 
then chew a while longer and shed more clothes 
until finally from sheer modesty I am obliged 
to say nothing more about it. 
A tent stove filled with green birch vood can 
get pretty hot when it gets really going. Usually 
it takes its time about it and its time is usually 
about midnight, when you would give all the 
moose and bear in the woods to be allowed to 
rest undisturbed. When its mind is really made 
up, you turn out of your sleeping bag, much 
as a grub crawls out of a log which is on fire 
at the other end. You look over at the guides, 
asleep on the bare ground in their wet clothes, 
with no bedding except a thin army blanket 
drawn carelessly about them. You have not the 
heart to open the tent flap and let the icy out¬ 
side air in, so you stretch out on top of your 
bag and peel down until again you must not 
speak of it. In this condition you fall asleep 
and soon the fire goes out and the cold air 
comes in and you dream of home. 
C. H. Stuart. 
El Centro, Cal., Nov. 10.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Someone has been stringing friend 
Hedderly, I fear, and it seems to be up to Im¬ 
perial Valley to put him straight about ducks, 
game laws and barley fields in this reclaimed 
desert. The farmers have not been shooting all 
summer for the reason that there is not much 
to shoot at in the summer. Very few ducks 
stay here after March and those few stick to 
the lagoons. They do not bother the barley 
fields at that season because there are no barley 
fields to bother. Mr. Hedderly’s description of 
the shiftless way of planting that he says pre¬ 
vails here is interesting, but it would be worse 
than shiftless if it were followed by a farmer. 
He says the fields are flooded to a depth of two 
feet. That is too absurd to treat seriously. An 
aggregate of two feet of water during the 
whole growing season is more than enough for 
a barley crop. 
The fact is that ducks do destroy barley crops 
by digging up the seed and puddling the fields, 
and they are doing that now, for this is the 
planting season. When a farmer is hazing the 
ducks out of his barley he pays no attention to 
bag limits. In all other respects the game laws 
are observed as strictly here as elsewhere. 
Mr. Hedderly also has reversed the migration 
of ducks, I think. Instead of going from the 
valley to the coast in the fall they come into the 
valley from the coast when the storms begin. 
We are waiting now for a coast storm to send 
us some ducks. There has been no shooting 
yet on the grounds of the gun club on the Alamo, 
but the Los Angeles men have been having good 
sport from the first of the season. The wild¬ 
ness of the birds, which Mr. Hedderly attributes 
to the lawlessness of our farmers, must be ac¬ 
counted for otherwise. Perhaps they have 
learned that it is fatal to get within a hundred 
yards of Mr. Hedderly’s famous twenty-bore. 
Allen Kelly. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
Ducks in the Imperial Valley. 
