November, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
639 
beneath the tent and blankets. Some forty 
yards separated us, and just above the bull 
on the top of a low bank stood Madame 
Moose, not in the least nervous. Slowly, 
very slowly and cautiously I swung the 
canoe around, and backed toward the big 
fellow. Oh! but he was angry. His pon¬ 
derous weight had forced his legs far into 
the mud, and as he turned to go one could 
see the evident effort it required to drag 
each long shank out of the mire. The 
cow drew back a few feet, but could yet 
be made out standing in the deep shadow 
of fi pine thicket. All this time the bull 
never let up in his grunting, nor did he 
seem in the least afraid, but then the wind 
carried my scent away and not toward him. 
Now mind, all this happened between 
three and four o’clock on a particularly 
bright afternoon. In regions where moose 
are much hunted you rarely indeed see a 
bull in the afternoon. Cows and calves 
by the dozen present themselves, but the 
wary old fellows with the big heads keep 
closely to the shelter of the forest until 
long after dark, so that you must go to 
new regions such as the ones I go to if 
ou would see his majesty by daylight. 
Y EARS ago down in old New Bruns¬ 
wick a bull moose came almost up to 
our fire near the barrens of McKeel 
Brook, but then in those days New Bruns¬ 
wick had not been discovered by the rich 
’Melican man. I had all the center of the 
province almost to myself for more than 
one year, and I suppose there are men who 
would give a million or so for such a privi¬ 
lege today. But it is only fair to add that 
by all accounts moose and caribou are far 
more numerous than they were then, for 
the terrible out-of-season slaughter by the 
lumbermen and Indians has been stopped. 
Yet the kind of hunting we had then was 
better than the kind of hunting they have 
today. To blazes with your spring beds, 
and closed camps—give me the bare boughs, 
the lean-to, and the boiled tea out of a tin 
dipper (mind you, I don’t say a wee drop 
o’ Scotch is not occasionally commend¬ 
able). Here in the west we can find prac¬ 
tically the same conditions in 1918 that ex¬ 
isted in New Brunswick in the late eight¬ 
ies; yes, and an almost unlimited choice 
of territory. And yet—and yet—is it quite 
as jolly? 
Returning to the subject of moose, and 
in further proof of the terrible difficulty 
in hunting them, let me relate something 
that occurred six years ago. On this oc¬ 
casion I was prospecting on the borders of 
what is now the richly promising Rice 
Lake gold field. We had camped by the 
borders of the Winnipegow River, which 
flows into Lake Winnipeg about one hun¬ 
dred miles north of the capital. This is a 
fairly good moose ground, or rather was 
one, for the miners and the dynamite have 
driven most of the forest creatures to more 
remote regions. The time was once again 
the latter days of September. 
On this occasion there were three in the 
party, a French half-breed, a Sauteau In¬ 
dian, and myself. This Indian, by the way, 
was the very best moose hunter I have 
run across in my wanderings, and these 
have carried me from Nova Scotia to the 
(continued on page 678) 
OZARK NIGHT HUNTIN’ REMINISCENCES 
I HEARD JOSH WHISTLE, AND THEN FOLLOWED PLONK, PLONK, PLONK, THE TREAD OF A 
DEER IN TRANQUIL WATER, WITH A SLIGHT CRISPING OF THE GRAVEL ACCOMPANYING IT 
((I'LL tell yu’ns, Mister Johnnie,” ob- 
£ served Josh, eyeing me in the manner 
of an infallible connoisseur, to see if I 
was in an amiable mood. “I kin putt yu’ns 
whar yu’ns kin kill the bigges’ deer in the 
county, if yu’ns will only len’ me—” 
“How much, Josh?” I could anticipate 
the closing of his sentence.” 
“Wal, I ’lowed ’bout two bits,” drawled 
the wiry little Ozarker. Josh stroked his 
thin, unkempt beard meditatively, while he 
proceeded to tempt me with his customary 
unctuous persistence. He told me of the 
deer I could expect up the river. For he 
squatted in the dusty road and proceeded 
with a stick to illustrate in the dust an 
animal bearing horns of the most gigantic 
proportions. According to his artistic 
amplifications nothing during the antede- 
luvian period had any odds on the Ozark- 
;r’s in immensity. And the marvellous 
hing about it was, not a smile lurked on 
lis face as in all seriousness he deftly 
oncluded the final strokes and stepped 
lack to view his triumph. 
“Now, Uncle Johnnie, if yu’ns ’ll only 
sn’ me four—” 
“Whoa now, Josh! Wait a minute!” I 
nterposed. An outsider might deem such 
n interruption as unpardonable. That 
lould, however, be solely due to their un- 
amiliarity with Josh. But Josh was really 
angerous, if allowed too much leeway in 
le borrowing line. And I knew the signs 
1 advance. When he addressed me as 
Mister Johnnie” it signified a quarter 
Uncle Johnnie” from fifty cents to a dol- 
tr; and “Granpa” always antedated a re- 
uest for the loan of two dollars. As 
luch as I cared to be taken in to Josh’s 
imily, even though only verbally, I had 
ready discovered that the closer the re- 
By JAY RIPLEY 
lationship that he established, the greater 
was the drain on my meager funds. 
“Now let’s get down to the real facts 
about the deer,” I said, for it was only 
late summer. “Have you lately seen signs?” 
“Has I seen enny signs lately? Why 
Grandpa!—” 
“Not too fast, Josh,” I again interrupt¬ 
ed, “I am wanting to go deer hunting 
very short of loanable money.” 
Josh’s face grew longer, but being na¬ 
turally of an effervescent nature, and 
thinking, perhaps, that my mere mention 
of the word loan could be construed into 
tentative submission to a pretty stiff re¬ 
quest, he asked: “What kin’ is that, paper 
or silver? They’ll tage hit at the commis¬ 
sary, I recken.” 
That settled it for all with him. At the 
saw mill commissary they accepted any¬ 
thing in trade from the smallest hide to 
wild honey, and this new kind of medium 
of exchange, loanable money, could no 
doubt likewise be traded for store goods. 
I had gone so far there was nothing else 
to do but to submit gracefully. “Now, 
Josh,” I announced, “the two dollars is 
yours, if you will take me up to that deer 
grounds. Rather early now, ain’t it?” 
“Early nothin’!” retorted the ferret-eyed 
woodsman, bringing his narrow face into 
the semblance of a smile. “Up in Hargis 
Bay they’s hundreds of sighns. A’ter the 
big rise, hit’s the only place where there’s 
much moss left. The big timber at the 
haid held the current back, and hit didn’t 
wash out. The deers feeds in there by the 
dozens—but that’s at night. Where’ll they 
bes in the day? We hain’t wantin’ to see 
them in the day,” he sneered at my lack 
of outdoor wisdom. “We’ll shine ’em at 
night.” 
“Shine them? Shine them?” 
“Hunt them with a pine light when 
they’s a feedin’. Where yu’ns lived all 
your life?” 
“Oh yes, Josh ! I don’t—” 
"Don’ git riled, now,” interjected the 
Ozarker in a more subdued tone. It was 
permissible at times for him to lose his 
temper, but the act on my part might re¬ 
sult in the refusal of the loan, or as it 
might be more accurately designated, gift. 
“You see hit’s this-a-way, we’ll git the 
pine light, drap down into the bay, ’nd 
push up hit with no noise, ’nd as soon as 
we gits up hit, we shines the light on the 
feedin’ deers. They hain’t skeered of a 
light on a dark night. Yu’ns’ll see where 
they iz by their eyes, and kin do the shoot- 
in’.” 
That summer I had heard a great deal in 
the mountains about night hunting deer. 
It was practiced considerably by the moun¬ 
taineers. Very few of them hunted in any 
other manner. It was only the lure of two 
dollars a day for driving with dogs that 
acquainted them with that kind of ques¬ 
tionable sport. 
“Oh! I know what you mean,” I ob¬ 
served, placated, “and I’ll be glad to go; 
and, perhaps, if we kill that big buck I 
will get that loanable money for you.” 
Immediately Josh’s spirits rose. He 
danced a few steps, croaked a note or two, 
flung his hat high in the air, and turned 
a series of ungraceful handsprings. 
“I was up yander three days ago huntin’ 
Prince,” he chuckled. Prince was a big 
gaunt white horse that was never known 
to move faster than a walk. He lived out 
on the range. Josh had more love for 
this equine marvel and his squirrel dog 
Carlo than anything, except exaggeration 
