go to make up the true wilderness 
hunter. With my wife, I had been 
camping on the upper waters of the 
Tabusintac River, and Fred and I, after 
“cruising” the country pretty thor- 
oughly for several days, found a place 
well back from the river where all the 
signs pointed to the presence of several 
bulls in the near neighborhood. Tracks 
were plenty in the soft mossy ground 
bordering a little stream, and on the 
higher land the young maples were 
freshly hooked, barked and broken, sure 
“moose works.” 
[? was pretty well on in the season 
for calling, but as the wind dropped 
to a perfect calm that evening we de- 
cided to have a try with the horn at 
daybreak. We left camp long before 
dawn next morning and had put a good 
four miles behind us when we reached 
our hunting ground. 
Selecting a little knoll where an old 
disused logging trail crossed some fair- 
ly open woods of beech, with here and 
there a stately old hemlock, we took 
a breather after our fast walk, and 
then Fred poured all the lovelorn 
yearnings of a cow moose out of his 
birchen horn. It seemed to echo off in 
a mournful plea that no chivalrous 
bull could have the heart to resist, then 
all was still. To those who’ve never 
lived, even for a time, in the northern 
wilderness, the autumn quiet, just at 
dusk or dawn, seems indescribable. The 
frosts have stilled all insect life, the 
pointed spires of spruce and fir stand 
silent sentinels, darkly — silhouetted 
against the morning sky and even a 
feathery leaf of scarlet maple or yel- 
low birch can be heard lightly drop- 
ping as it joins its dying fellows on 
the ground. The stillness of eternity 
is here. 
We waited several moments, then 
from off to the east of us a sound, first 
indistinctly heard, but, when repeated, 
clear enough, reached our ears. 
“Hear ’em?” whispered Fred, and I 
nodded assent. 
Soon the bull grunted again, several 
deep, short, hoarse barks. 
“Sound like an ole fella’,” said Fred, 
and again listening, I nodded. 
FTER about five minutes without a 
sound, we gave him another “toot” 
with the horn held close to the ground 
to muffle the sound. Right off, back 
came our old friend with some more of 
his rough grunts, but from the sound 
he evidently hadn’t changed his posi- 
tion since we first heard him. He 
seemed to be less than half a mile off, 
up a long swale where the hardwoods 
of a ridge bordered and mingled with 
some big cedars of the lower marshy 
ground. Some time elapsed, and when- 
ever we called he would promptly an- 
swer, but showed no sign of coming 
any nearer, and his last grunt sound- 
ing less distinct made us fear that he 
was moving off. 
“He’s got a cow with him, sure,” 
Connell said quietly, ‘fan’ she’s trying 
to pull him away. Come on, let’s try 
an’ go to him.” 
Stealthily as a couple of cats, we 
moved forward, our mocassins making 
no telltale sound as we stepped care- 
fully along, avoiding any dry leaves 
or the smallest twig that might snap. 
After about ten minutes of this, we 
gave another low call and again back 
came that answering grunt. Hardly 
daring to breathe, we worked ourselves 
on to some low balsams from where a 
little vista opened the view through the 
aisles of the forest. Again came that 
hoarse bark, and peering keenly in that 
direction we at the same moment 
caught sight of a big gray nose, two 
long pricked ears, and could just see 
one horn, the other, with the rest of 
his body, being hidden by some thick 
firs. He was about eighty yards off, 
looking right in our direction, but com- 
pletely hidden except as to his nose and 
forehead. Off beyond him in a some- 
what more open spot could be seen tlie 
dark outline of a cow. 
OT daring to move to either side to 
try for a better target, I held just 
an inch under his nose in the hope of 
breaking his neck. With the shot, he 
turned broadside and dashed across an 
old blow-down where I got a good brief 
view of him and let him have another 
before he disappeared. We hurdled or 
vaulted over brush and wind-falls for 
a hundred yards or so until, coming on 
to a game trail which turned off to the 
right, there about thirty feet from us 
stood, or rather towered the bull. Good 
Lord! what a whale! I’d never seen a 
bigger one. He was turned away from 
us and evidently badly hit; but as we 
came into view at such close range: he 
turned his head in our direction and 
started to turn around. As he did so 
I put him out of his troubles with an- 
other shot from the heavy rifle and he 
crashed over only a few feet from us. 
Though nothing unusual in the matter 
of antlers, he was the biggest moose 
I’d ever killed, and carefully measur- 
ing him, we found his height at the 
withers to be just 80% inches and 
girth 94 inches, and if gray hairs are 
a sign of age in moose, he must have 
been a very old one, as his nose was 
almost white, with many little oblong 
patches of snow-white hair on his 
muffle. Of course, this may have been 
merely a freak or possibly hair grown 
over some formerly diseased or poi- 
soned condition, but in either case he 
was undoubtedly a pretty old fellow. 
Some experienced moose hunters do 
much of their calling on still moonlight 
nights, but unless on the open border 
of some lake or similar spot the light 
is usually so poor as to increase very 
greatly the chance of merely wounding 
an animal and having it escape to die 
probably a miserable and lingering 
death; and in addition to this, the un- 
certain light renders it extremely diffi- 
cult to tell whether the bull at which 
one fires bears a head worth taking. 
HAT a bull will come more boldly to 
the call after nightfall is, I think, 
often the case, but except under excep- 
tional conditions and localities, the 
quiet hours just succeeding dawn are 
generally most productive of successful 
results. 
It should not be concluded that an 
approaching bull will always answer 
or otherwise make known his presence 
in the near neighborhood. Quite the 
contrary. I have already alluded to 
their extraordinary faculty for moving, 
through the thickest of bush with the 
utmost silence and nowhere is this of- 
tener displayed than when coming to a 
call. A very young bull or, at times, a 
shy old fellow will give no slightest 
sound of grunt or breaking brush; and 
perhaps having momentarily shifted 
our gaze from some likely point on edge 
of barren or shore or lake, on glancing 
again, there, without warning of his 
silent coming, will stand a bull, either 
with head down, listening, or up and 
with big ears cocked right in our direc- 
tion. 
From mid-October on is, in most lo- 
calities, the best time for still-hunting, 
as by then one can see much farther 
through the hardwoods than earlier, 
when one’s view is limited by the leafy 
foliage, and autumn rains or light snow 
have improved tracking and made 
travel in the bush less noisy than dur- 
ing the usually drier period of the early 
season. The moose also are found more 
at this time on the higher ridges where 
one’s view is less obstructed than 
among the thick low-lying forests of 
spruce and fir which they much fre- 
quent during the warmer months. In 
all still hunting of woodland game one’s 
success is largely governed by the 
weather, and we may spend many un- 
productive days in carefully hunting 
a dry and crackling country with 
ground too hard to hold any help- 
ful mark of hoof. But on days of 
high winds, when the natural noises 
of the forest will smother the sound of 
our approach, or during or just after 
rain or snow, when one can travel with 
the utmost quiet, and in addition can 
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