Chapter III: Part 3

Now comes the really tragical part of this episode; our canoe was not twenty feet from where this perverse animal had entered the water, and we were on the little pond where our permanent camp stood. Still we felt encouraged, for, as Chabot said that night, "Hear him now, see him pretty soon." But not for many days.

One more sample to encourage would-be moose hunters, and then we will kill a moose just to show how easy it is. Two nights after the above adventure we changed our camp and the weather at the same time. It was clear now, but it grew very cold, and made night work in the canoe a horror.

It was my brother's turn to call, and I was just dropping off to sleep in my tent, within a few feet of the lake shore, when from the other side of the water, about a quarter of a mile distant, a bull moose called. On the cold, still air it rang out like a trumpet--a long call, very different from the call made by Indian hunters. Jocko, who was with me in camp, was frantic with excitement, especially as my brother, who must have heard it, did not answer. Again the call sounded. The bull must be on the shore. I thought he might swim over. Then came the answering call, close at hand, of a cow. Jocko laughed and whispered, "Chabot call him." Then there was silence for a few minutes, followed by a final bellow, evidently further off. The mock cow bawled and screamed and bleated frantically, but no sound came back. My brother and his man kept it up until late that night, and then came to the camp almost frozen. That incident ruined my faith in calling, for every condition of wind and weather was perfect, and Chabot's calling apparently most enticing.

After this and similar episodes, we left the Kwingwishe country, after hunting it carefully as far north as Sassanega Lake. We passed Sair's Lake and the Bois Franc, and finally reached the Little Beauchene. Near the last lake my brother killed a young bull moose, whose meat was the first fresh food, except partridge, we had had for over three weeks. It was delicious, and we felt the change of diet at once in increased strength and energy. For continuous use moose meat is much superior to other venison, as it is of a rich flavor which does not readily pall on the taste. The myth about moose muffle being such a hunters' delicacy has never allured me to actually eat it, but I suppose a starving man might, after consuming his boots, manage to swallow it.

There were many fresh signs in the neighborhood of the Little Beauchene Lake, but some lumbermen had arrived a few days before us and had scared the game away. This starting the quarry is the real difficulty in moose hunting; for, when once disturbed, the bull leaves with all his kith and kin, so the only chance in these regions is to find him immediately on arrival in a new district and before he comes across your tracks.

Still working slowly southward, we hunted more back ponds, until at last my turn came on the twenty-seventh hunting day. Let no man say that moose hunting is a picnic.

We had camped on a little strip of land, between a pond and a long narrow swamp, about 4 o'clock on a beautiful afternoon. Leaving my brother and Jocko to eat dinner in comfort, I started to the head of the swamp. The water was so low that we could barely force the light canoe through the lily-pads. Old moose signs were plenty. A family of moose had evidently been there all summer, but until we reached the upper end we saw no fresh tracks. The sluggish stream we were on drained a shallow lake, and, after a few hard plunges, our canoe floated clear of the mud into the silent waters of a circular pond. It was a basin about a half mile across, surrounded by low hardwood hills, and so shallow that a moose, I think, could have waded across the deepest part. The shores were marked up with some very large tracks, but fresh signs had long since ceased to excite in me anything more than a passing interest. We made the tour of the lake slowly and quietly. Nothing was in sight except four wood ducks. This was "last chance" pond, and if I got no moose here, we must return to Mattawa for another outfit, which I had about made up my mind to do. The night settled still and cold--oh, so cold!--and the stars came out with wonderful distinctness.

What was that?

Chabot had started up, listened, and a second later was driving the birch across the lake noiselessly. As we neared the shore, it was inky black--a mammoth would not have been visible ten yards away. Twigs breaking at long intervals told that something was on shore just in cover of the bushes. We waited some time and at last I whispered to Chabot, "Muckwa?" (bear).

"Not muckwa--cow," answered the guide.

As he spoke, the short call of a bull floated out on the cold air from the side of the pond that we had just left. I think Chabot was right about the cow being in the bushes, but he may have been mistaken--one's hearing becomes unnaturally sensitive after a few weeks' continuous straining to catch and distinguish the most distant sounds. But there was no mistake about that bull's call. He was well back from the shore on the hillside. The wind was wrong, and, although he grunted at intervals for an hour, he paid no attention to Chabot's most seductive pleadings. We imitated with paddles the splashings of a cow walking in the shallow water, but this and other devices had no effect. When at last even my Indian could no longer bear the bitter cold of the wind which had sprung up, we started for camp. Long past midnight we crawled into our blankets, and I dropped asleep cursing the day I had first gone after moose.

We were on that pond again before daylight. Not a sound to be heard, not a living thing to be seen, when the sun rose. We took our stand on a small point opposite the outlet and watched. I sat on a fallen tree motionless, hour after hour. Chabot dozed beside me. Those four ducks played and fed within thirty feet, and a muskrat worked at house-building a few yards away. The silence was intense. There was not a breath of wind. I knew my brother was doing the same thing on a neighboring pond, and I fell to thinking whether there was some special Nemesis about this hunt, or it was the fault of the guides. I glanced at the outlet in front of me, about a half mile distant.

There was a moose, stalking with the utmost deliberation along the edge of the woods and then into the shallow water.

Chabot was roused by a hasty shake, and a second later the canoe was flying across the lake. As we crossed, I inspected the moose closely. He was walking slowly, nibbling the long reed-like grass that stuck up from the water. His neck seemed very stiff, and he swung his legs from his hips and shoulders. The hump was extremely conspicuous, perhaps because his head was carried low to get at the grass. He was a young bull, nearly full grown, and with small antlers. He looked occasionally at the canoe, now fast nearing him; but we had the advantage of the wind, and the sun was going down behind us. It was just 5 o'clock. He walked, now out toward us, now back to shore, as though about to bolt for the bush, but working slowly toward the north, where we afterwards found a much-used runway, leading to the marsh my brother was watching, two miles away. I opened fire about fifty yards off, when the moose was standing in about a foot of water, looking suspiciously at us. The shot was too high, but struck him in the shoulder. He started in a lumbering gallop along the shore. I fired again. This turned him into the woods at an old lumber road. We heard the twigs snap sharply for a minute, and then a heavy crash and silence. I thought we had lost him, but Chabot declared that he was down. I sprang ashore the moment the canoe grounded, and dashed in on his trail, which was perfectly clear on the soft moss. Looking ahead through the open woods for the animal, which I thought had turned, I almost fell over his prostrate body.

His head rested against a small windfall, which he had tried to clear--an effort which appeared to have cost him his life. Moss hung from some small spruce trees close by, which had been kicked up in the death struggle. The shoulder shot had been the fatal one, but he had been hard hit in the side too.

He was not full grown, and measured only 5 feet 6-1/2 inches in height, and 8 feet 3-1/4 inches in length, from the nose to root of tail. His girth at the shoulder was 5 feet 11-1/4 inches. His nose showed none of the Jewish characteristics which taxidermists are fond of giving their mounted moose heads. The forehead and shoulders were brownish instead of black, like the rest of the body. The hindlegs were wholly white, as were the forelegs below the knee. I am inclined to think he was a ranger moose, but could not tell with certainty, as his horns were too undeveloped. The velvet was still hanging in places, but very dry. This was unusual, as it was the 10th of October.

Ordering Chabot to dress the moose, I went back to the canoe, having decided to watch until dark, although there seemed no possibility of seeing another moose after the firing. My lazy guide, instead of obeying my order, merely cut the skin, with the result that all the meat spoiled--probably just what he wanted, fearing he would have to portage it out of the bush. We returned to our point and dozed again. At a quarter of 7 it was getting dark fast, and in the north a black, ugly-looking cloud was gathering. We might as well go back to camp if it was going to blow and rain, so I told Chabot to shove off and to give one last toot of his horn, just for luck.

The air was still as death with the dread of the impending storm. Chabot took up the coiled birch, and the echoes rang out with a short grunting call, which so much resembles a man chopping wood. Before they died away, there came from behind us, just to our right, the unmistakable answering grunt of a bull moose. He was probably on his way to the lake, and our call merely hastened him and brought him out into the open before it was too dark to shoot. He was very near and came steadily forward, stopping now and then to listen. We could hear him plainly as his horns broke the twigs at every step--once or twice he lashed the bushes with them. He repeated his grunts, ungh! ungh! every few steps. He was so evidently reckless that, to take no chance, I allowed Chabot to answer only once--with the short call. I say short call, in distinction to the long modulated call which is used to good purpose in Maine and New Brunswick, but which I have never known to succeed in this part of Canada. The moose paused for a moment in the alders that formed a close thicket at the water's edge, and I feared he had seen or scented us; then suddenly and noiselessly he stepped out from a cove a short hundred yards away. He had taken less than ten minutes from the first call to his appearance.

At the first alarm we had pushed off and were floating quietly just by the shore. The water was so shallow that the birch made, to my ears at least, a frightful scraping as it pushed over the dead sticks that lay in the water, and the wind was unfavorable. I never shall forget the appearance that bull made as he stepped fiercely and proudly out, with his head up, swinging a splendid set of antlers as lightly as straws. He did not see us, but strode about ten yards into the shallow lake, where the water scarcely covered his hoofs, and, first glancing away for a second, turned like a flash and faced us full, looking down on us in surprised disgust. He was greatly excited and the mane on his hump was erect, increasing his natural height, and there was nothing timid or deer-like in his appearance. I have seen in the arena a bull step out from the darkened stall into the glare of sunlight, and gaze for a moment at the picadors with a sort of indignant surprise; so this great bull moose looked.

We gazed motionless at each other, I knowing that it was one of the grandest and rarest sights on the American continent, and he thinking, no doubt, what a disgraceful imitation of a cow the motionless canoe made. Chabot's breath was coming hard behind me, and I felt the birch bark quiver.

As I raised my rifle, I realized that it had suddenly grown very dark under this western bank, and the bull precisely resembled in color the background, and, large as he was, made a very poor mark. The tall grass, which I had looked over in watching him, now sticking up in front of the sights, bothered me. I fired at the root of his neck, and the rifle gave a suppressed roar in the heavy air and the smoke hung like a pall. The bull ran straight forward, hesitated as though about to charge, then turned and made wonderful speed along the lake shore. The moment I could see him I fired again. In the dim twilight he was almost out of sight. When the smoke cleared he was gone.

Neither of us moved. It was too frightful to miss such an immense creature at that range. We heard him crash up the hillside and then stop a short distance back in the wood. Then I knew he either was down or had turned, unless he had found an open lumber road, where his horns would make no sound; for a moose can go in the most mysterious manner when he chooses to be quiet--but there was nothing quiet about this bull.

Chabot declared that he had heard him cough, but I did not believe it. I pointed to the spot where he had entered the bush, and a moment later the canoe grated on the beach. There were the huge tracks with the hoofs wide spread, and the trail entering an old lumber road.

All this took less time to happen than to read, and yet it was now dark, so quickly had night fallen. By straining my eyes I saw it was 7 o'clock--just two hours after the first bull was killed. Chabot wanted to go back to camp, which was the proper thing to do, especially as I had now just one cartridge left. I had only taken a handful with me that morning.

We entered the forest foot by foot, Chabot following the trail where I could scarcely see to step. A few yards in and the track turned from the old road into the thick bush, and we knew the moose was near. A little further, and we scarcely moved--stepping like cats from tree to tree, expecting every second to hear an angry grunt and have the bull emerge from the impenetrable veil of night that hung around us.

At last we came to a windfall, and we were for some time at a loss to find whether he had gone across or around it. In lighting a match with extreme caution, the light fell on a tall moose wood stem about as large as one's finger. Four feet from the ground it was dripping with bright red blood. The coughing Chabot had heard was now, we thought, explained, and the game hard hit. We decided to go back to camp; for, as my guide put it very clearly, the wounded bull would either fight or run. I wasn't anxious for the first alternative in the dark and tangled wood, with one cartridge; and the second meant a long chase on the morrow. If we left him until the morning, he would be either dead or too stiff from his wound to go far.

So back we went to camp, amply repaid by the events of two hours for weeks of hardship and exposure. Just at daylight the next morning, as we were leaving camp, prepared to take and keep the trail of that bull if it led to Hudson Bay, my brother appeared with Jocko. He had had no breakfast, and had come a long distance through a frightful bush in order to be in at the death, as he had heard the firing, and shrewdly suspected that in the dusk a wounded moose was the result.

"From the tracks at my lake," said he, as he strode up to the fire, "there are two bull moose around here--a large and a small one; which did you get?"

"Both," replied Chabot.

We took the trail at the water's edge, and found it smeared with blood. The bull could not have gone far. A short walk brought us to the windfall where we had turned back the night before, and which had seemed so deep in the woods.

A hundred yards beyond it lay the bull on his right side. The second shot had struck him in the center of the left ham and ranged through him. The meat was spoiled, as was the hide--that is, the hair came out so badly that it was not worth while to prepare it; but the neck and scalp were perfect, except a bad scar on the forehead, received in fighting.

He was a grand sight as he lay dead in that silent autumn forest--for I never can get over the impression that somehow or other the moose is a survival of a long past order of nature, a fit comrade for the mammoth and the cave bear. He was short and thickset, with immense chest power--probably a swamp moose. The neck was short and stout, and he had a Jewish cast of nose. No bell--merely the common dewlap. He measured at the shoulder 6 feet 6 inches; 9 feet 8-1/2 inches from nose to tip of tail; girth at shoulders, 6 feet 2-1/2 inches. We skinned and decapitated the moose, one after the other. The meat of both was completely spoiled, and it seemed wicked to leave those two huge carcasses to the bears and wolves; but there was no help for it, so we started for Mattawa. I doubt if we could have carried out any of the meat if we had tried, for we had to throw away everything not absolutely necessary on the long portages that followed. At last we reached Rosiceau's, on Snake Lake, and, with the welcome the old man gave us, felt quite at home once more. Then passing by the scenes of a former hunt, we reached Fort Eddy, an old Hudson Bay post, and then the Ottawa River. We ran the Cave rapids, and at sundown on a beautiful day the town of Mattawa swung in sight, and the hunt was over.

The country we had traversed contained little except bears and moose. We saw a few caribou tracks, and brought home with us a curious caribou antler, which we found in the woods.

The fur animals have, within the last five years, been exterminated, and the very few beaver that survive have abandoned their old habits, and live in holes in the banks of the larger streams. We found traces of one of these bank beaver, but he was probably traveling and we could not catch him. A few mink were shot, but the country is completely stripped of everything else of value. If the present law, prohibiting the trapping of otter and beaver, can be enforced, perhaps the land may be restocked, but it will take years. It is fit for nothing except fur and timber, and, with efficient game wardens, could be made to produce a large return from these sources. Partridges and loons abounded, but ducks were seldom seen.

The lakes form a complete system of communication by means of easy portages, but there are no streams that contain trout and no springs to supply drinking water. This lack of fresh water caused us considerable suffering, as the lake water is supposed to be dangerous, and a pail of spring water, which we got at the start, was carried for days over portages as our most precious baggage. We did not see a sign of a brook trout during the entire trip, and I do not believe that there were any in the waters we traversed. There may have been lake trout, but our trolling produced only pike and pickerel.

This absence of small game and fish makes the country very uninteresting, and the long monotony between most exciting events is the greatest drawback to hunting on the Upper Ottawa.

_Madison Grant._

A Hunting Trip in India

Early in 1881 I landed at Bombay, intending to get as many varieties of big game shooting as possible during the course of the year. I was well armed with introductions, including many from the Department of State, and during my stay in India was treated by the English military officers, civil officials, planters and merchants with a hearty hospitality which I cordially appreciated. Thanks to this hospitality, and to the readiness with which all to whom I was introduced fell into my plans, I was able to get a rather unusually varied quantity of sport.

My first trip was in March, after tigers. On the 1st of March I started from Hyderabad with Colonels Fraser and Watson, and traveled by palanquin that day and night, and most of the next day, striking the foot of the G[=a]t at a place called Rungapore, and then going on over a great plain, beyond which we camped. The scenery was magnificent, and we heard much news of the devastation of tigers among the large herds of miserable-looking cattle belonging to the poor villagers roundabout. The thermometer went up to 96 degrees in the shade during the day, but the nights were lovely and cool. Thanks to Colonel Fraser, we were fitted out as comfortably as we could be, and the luxury of the camp life offered the strongest possible contrast to my experiences in roughing it on the buffalo range in northwestern Texas.

For the first two days we accomplished nothing, though several of the cattle we had put out for baits were killed, and though we started and beat the jungles with our elephants whenever we received khubber, or news. Our camp equipage included twenty elephants, forty camels and bullocks, thirty horses for the troopers, and fifty baggage horses. We had seventeen private servants, twenty-six police, fifty-two bearers, and an indefinite number of attendants for the elephants and camels, and of camp followers. An Indian of high position, Sir Salar Jung, was along also; so our total retinue comprised 350 men, in addition to which we employed each day of beaters 150 or 200 more.

On March 5th, one of the shikaris brought word that he had seen and heard a tigress and two cubs at a nullah about six miles away. Immediately we started up the valley, Col. Fraser, Col. Watson and myself, each on his own elephant. The jungle was on fire and the first beat was not successful, for we had to fight the fire, and in the excitement the brute got off. However, some of the watchers saw her, and marked her down in another small ravine. Through this we again beat, the excitement being at fever heat. I was, of course, new to the work, and the strangeness of the scene, the cries of the beaters and watchers, the occasional explosion of native fireworks, together with the quantity of other game that we saw, impressed me much. In this ravine I was favored by good luck. The tigress broke right in front of me, and I hit her with a ball from a No. 12 smooth-bore. She sickened at once and crawled back into the jungle. In we went on the elephants, tracking her up. She made no attempt to charge, and I finished her off with another barrel of the smooth-bore and two express bullets. The crowd of natives ran up, abusing the tigress and praising me, while the two colonels drank my health. We then padded the tigress and rode back to camp, having been gone from half past 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening. This tigress weighed, when we brought her in, 280 pounds; her living weight must have been much more.

Next day we again got news of a tigress, with one cub, but we failed to find her. The following day, for a change, I tried still-hunting through the woods. There was not much game, but what we did see was far from shy, and the shooting was easy. The camp was on a terrace, and from it we went up a range of hills to the stalking ground. It was a stony country and the trees were scrubby. I shot two cheetul, or spotted deer, and also two of the little jungle cocks. The next day again was a blank, but on the 9th we got another tiger. Thanks to the courtesy of my friends, I was given the first shot, again hitting it with one barrel of the smooth-bore. The heat was very great on this day. It was not possible to touch the gun barrels without a glove, and the thirst was awful. In the evening the cool bath was a luxury indeed. By moonlight the camp was very fine. The next morning I was off at daybreak, snipe shooting around a big tank, seven miles away. On my return I found that my companions had gone out for a beat, and so, after a hurried breakfast, I jumped on my horse and rode after them. That afternoon we beat two ravines and got a tiger. This was the last tiger that we killed. The weather was getting very warm, and, though we stayed a week longer out, we failed to get on terms with Mr. Stripes again. However, I shot three sambur stags. Two of them were weighed in camp, their weight being, respectively, 450 and 438 pounds.

It was now getting hot, and I determined to start northward for my summer's hunting in the Himalayas and Cashmere, although it was rather early to try to get through the mountains. I left Lahore on April 6th for the Pir Pinjal. My transportation consisted of eight pack ponies and three native single-horse carts. I was shown every courtesy by Mr. McKay, a member of the Forest Department, at Gujarat. I intended to make a hunt for gorals and bears in the mountains around the Pir Pinjal before striking through to Cashmere. The goral is a little mountain antelope, much like the chamois, only with straight horns. The bear in the region in which I was hunting was the black bear, which is very much like our own black bear. Further on in the Himalayas is found the red or snow bear, which is a good deal like the great brown bear of Europe, or a small and inoffensive grizzly. After leaving Gujarat, I traveled for several days before coming to my hunting ground proper, although on the way I killed some peacocks, partridges, and finally some very handsome pheasants of different kinds. The country offered the greatest possible contrast to that in which I had been hunting tigers. Everything was green and lovely, and the scenery was magnificent beyond description--the huge steep mountains rising ahead of me, while the streams were crystal-clear, noisy torrents. The roads were very rough, and the wild flowers formed great carpets everywhere.

On the 16th of April I began my shooting, having by this time left my heavy baggage behind, and having with me only what the coolies could carry. I had two shikaris, four servants and twelve coolies, besides myself. On April 16th I killed my first goral. I had hunted in vain all day, but about 5 o'clock one of the shikaris advised my starting out again and climbing around the neighboring cliffs. I did this for two and one-half hours, and then got a close shot and killed the little beast. This was my first trial of grass-shoes, and my first experience in climbing over the stupendous mountain masses; for stupendous they were, though they were only the foothills of the Himalayas proper. Without grass-shoes it is impossible to climb on these smooth, grassy slopes; but I found that they hurt my feet a great deal. The next day I again went off with my two shikaris over the mountains. Each of them carried a gun. I had all I could do to take care of myself without one, for a mis-step would have meant a fall of a thousand or two feet. In the morning we saw five gorals and I got one. At 10 I stopped and a coolie came up with a lunch, and I lay reading, sleeping and idly watching the grand mountains until the afternoon, when we began again to examine the nullahs for game, being all the time much amused by the monkeys. At 4 we started again, and in a jagged mass of precipices I got another goral. The next day I repeated my experience, and had one of the characteristic bits of bad luck, offset by good luck, that come to every hunter--missing a beautiful shot at fifty yards, and then, by a fluke, killing a goral at 300 yards. The animal, however, fell over 1,000 feet and was ruined. I myself had a slip this day and went down about fifty feet. The following day I again went off to climb, and the first ascent was so steep that at the top I was completely blown, and missed a beautiful shot at a goral at fifty yards. I then arranged a beat, but nothing came from it, and the morning was a blank. In the afternoon I gave up beating and tried still-hunting again. It was hard work, but I was very successful, and killed two gorals and a bear.

At this time I was passed by two English officers, also going in to shoot--one of them, Captain S. D. Turnbull, a very jolly fellow and a good sportsman, with whom I got on excellent terms; the other, a Captain C., was a very bad walker and a poor shot, and was also a disagreeable companion, as he would persist in trying to hang around my hunting grounds, thus forcing me continually to shift.

On April 21st I tried driving for gorals, and got four, and on the next two days I got three gorals and two bears. So far I had had great luck and great sport. The work was putting me in fine trim, except my feet, which were getting very sore. It was very hard work going after the gorals. The bears offered easier stalking, and, like our American black bear but unlike our grizzly, they didn't show fight. The climbing was awful work. The stones and grass-shoes combined bruised and skinned the soles of my feet, so that I could not get relief without putting them in clarified butter and then keeping them up in the air. Accordingly I tried resting for a day, and meant to rest the following day too; but could not forbear taking a four hours' stroll along the banks of the brawling, snow-fed river, and was rewarded by shooting a surow--a queer, squatty, black antelope, about the size of a Rocky Mountain white goat and with similar horns. The next day I rested again, hoping my feet would get better. Instead they got worse, and I made up my mind that, as they were so bad, I might as well get some hunting anyhow, so off I tramped on the 27th for another all-day jog. It would be difficult to describe the pain that my feet gave me all day long. However, it was a real sporting day. I suffered the tortures of the damned, but I got two gorals and one tahr--a big species of goat with rather small horns--and then hobbled back to camp. Next day I stayed quietly in camp, and then started back to the camp where I had left my heavy baggage. On the way I picked up another black bear. My feet were in a frightful condition, but I had had a fortnight's excellent sport.

I then went on to Cashmere, and on May 6th reached Siringur. The scenery was beautiful beyond description, and the whole life of the natives very attractive to look at. However, something did not agree with me, for I was very sick and had to go to bed for several days. There were one or two American friends there, and these and the Englishmen, to whom I had letters of introduction, treated me with extreme courtesy. As soon as I got well, I started off for the real mountains, hoping especially to get ibex and markhoor. The ibex is almost exactly the same as the European animal of that name. The markhoor is a magnificent goat, with long whitish hair and great spiral horns. They also have in these Cashmere valleys a big stag called the barramigh, which is a good deal like our wapiti, only not half so large. On May 21st I started off, first by boat, but I was bothered from the beginning by chills and fever. I was weak, and glad I didn't have to march. At first, all I did in shooting was to have my coolies beat some brush patches near camp. Out of one of them they started a little musk-deer, which I shot. Soon I began to get very much better and we took up our march. I was going toward Astor, but encountered much snow, as it was still early in the season for these high mountains. I saw some grand barramigh, but their horns were, of course, only just growing, and I didn't molest them.

Very soon I got into a country where the red bears literally swarmed. From May 26th to June 5th, during which time I was traveling and hunting all the time, I shot no less than sixteen, together with two musk-deer, but saw nothing else. The marching was very hard, and some of the passes dangerous. I met a British officer, Lieutenant Carey, on the 30th, who treated me very well indeed. The scenery was very beautiful, although rather bleak. I did not pick up strength as much as I had hoped. On June 3d I christened my camp Camp Good Luck, because of the phenomenal success I had with the bears. That morning we left by 4 to cross the river before the snow had melted. The thermometer would go down to 30 degrees, even in the valleys, at night, so that everything would freeze, and then would go up to 110 in the day, and when the snow melted the streams would come down in a perfect torrent. Not two miles beyond the river I saw three bears on the side of a hill, a she and two two-year-old cubs. My shikari made a splendid stalk and brought me within forty yards, and I got all three with a shot apiece. The delight of my camp followers was amusing. I then left the tents, and, taking only my blankets and a lunch basket with me, started off again. At midday I slept, and at 2 o'clock started up the nullah, seeing a number of bears. One of them I got within fifty yards, and two others, right and left, at 100 yards. The skinning took a long time, and the stream which I had to cross was up with the evening flood, so that I didn't get back to camp until 10 o'clock. I had shot unusually well, I had been happy and was all tired out, and it is needless to say how I slept.

Soon after this I began to suffer from fever, and I had to work very hard indeed, as I was now on the ibex ground. For several days, though I saw ibex, I was unable to get near them. Finally, on June 9th, I got my first one, a young buck with small horns. I had to hunt way up the mountain, even beyond bush vegetation, and the hot sun at midday was awful. Nevertheless, by very hard climbing, I managed on this day to get within shot first of a herd of nine females, which I did not touch, and then of the young buck, which I killed. On June 13th, by another heart-breaking climb, very high up, I got a second small buck. I did not get back to camp that night till half past 9--tired out, feet badly cut with the stones and bruised all over; but in spite of the fever I enjoyed every day--the scenery was so grand and the life so exhilarating. Four days afterwards came a red-letter day. I started early in the morning, clambering up among the high mountains. Until noon I saw nothing; then several flocks of ibex came in sight, one of them of eleven big bucks. I had to wait four hours to get into a position to stalk; then by quick work and awful climbing I came within close range and killed three. It was half past 10 in the evening before I got back to camp, very nearly done up, but exultant over my good luck.

The traveling now became very severe and I had a great deal of difficulty even with the coolies, and though I hunted hard I got little game until July 8th. I had been shifting, trying to get on markhoor ground, and on this day I killed my first markhoor. The shikaris and I left the coolies to go around the path while we went over the mountain, a five hours' climb, keeping a sharp lookout for game. Just at the beginning of the ascent we saw three fine-looking markhoor grazing in a nullah, and after a stalk of about a mile, during which time it began to rain, the beasts went into a jungle on the steep side of the mountain. Through this we still-hunted and I got a shot through the bushes at 100 yards. By good luck I hit and great was the rejoicing. Five days later I got two ibex, which at a distance we had mistaken for markhoor. Then I was attacked by a terrible dysentery and was within an ace of dying. For a fortnight I was unable to leave camp, excepting when I was carried slowly along by the coolies in the effort to get me out of the mountains. On August 1st I shot a second markhoor. We were journeying at the time. In the very rough places I had to walk, though awfully weak; elsewhere the coolies carried me. The markhoor was just below us, round a turn in the Indus Valley. I was in advance with one of the shikaris and got a quiet shot, and more by good luck than anything else--for I was very weak--I killed. I now began gradually to pick up strength, and when near Astor I got a urial, a kind of wild sheep.

I had no other experience of note till I got back to Siringur, where I stayed to recuperate, and at the end of August went off once more into the foothills, this time after barramigh. In a week's work I killed three, but again became sick, and had to give up and come in.

I forthwith returned to India, the hot weather being by this time pretty well over. As I was very anxious to kill an elephant, I went down to Ceylon, reaching that island the end of October and going out to Kandy. I met a number of Englishmen, who were very kind to me, as were some Eurasian gentlemen. On November 16th I left Minerva for a regular hunt. It was very interesting shooting through the tropical jungle and I had good luck. There were plenty of elephants, but at first I didn't get any, though I shot five spotted deer and a boar. Finally, however, I got two of the big brutes I was mainly after. One of them, which I killed on the 20th of the month, was said to be a rogue that had killed two villagers and done at intervals a good deal of damage to the crops. An old native tracker had guaranteed to show me this elephant. He kept his word. For three or four miles we had a very exciting track, and then came on him standing in the jungle, occasionally flapping his ears, and crept up to within thirty yards. I think he was asleep and I got a perfectly good shot, but, extraordinary to say, I missed. However, when he ran I went after him, and, getting very close, I shot him in the hip, so injuring his leg that he could not get away. He could still get round after us, and we passed a most lively half-hour, he trumpeting and charging incessantly, until, after expending a great quantity of cartridges, I finally put a bullet behind his eye, and down he went.

Soon after this I went back to Kandy, and early in December left India for good.

_Elliott Roosevelt._

Dog Sledging in the North

A good many years ago, my friends, Boies Penrose, Granville Keller, and I concluded that it would be a fitting termination to a very successful summer and fall hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains to endeavor to kill some moose and caribou in the Lake Winnipeg country, Manitoba. Thus we should combine very different kinds of sport amid surroundings more dissimilar than we imagined at the time. The whole of this rather memorable trip occupied nearly six months.

Our adventures during the latter part of the hunt, that is, during our sojourn in the far north--while a part of the every-day experience of those familiar with the winter life in the woods of that country--were of a character totally unknown to the majority of sportsmen in the United States, and for this reason it has been thought worth while to give a short account of them.

If my recollection serves me correctly, we arrived at Selkirk, at the lower end of Lake Winnipeg, in the latter part of October, to find navigation already closed. We had hoped to reach the upper part of the lake by means of a steamer, but found this impossible, and were therefore obliged to go on sleds to our first hunting ground--a moose country to the south of the head waters of the Fisher River, between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Winnipegosis.

At Selkirk we were joined by a Mr. Phillips, and we had there employed an Indian boy to look after the dogs. This Indian was a magnificent specimen physically, and certainly the best walker that I have ever known. With the exception of a pardonable fondness for our whisky, he behaved very well at first, but afterward became so insufferably lazy that he was scarcely fit for the simple work of driving one of the dog teams--a change which was to be attributed entirely to our kind treatment of him. He was, however, a good trailer, but the worst shot that I remember to have met. He seemed to have no difficulty in finding moose, but could not hit them, which was the exact reverse of our experience.

Portions of the country between Lakes Winnipeg and Winnipegosis, visited by our party, are as flat as the flattest portions of New Jersey, and for great distances nothing could be more level except possibly a billiard table. It is traversed by very few rivers or even creeks, there being immense stretches of territory where the only guide back to camp is the sun when it shines, or when it does not your compass, or the dog-sled trail through the snow leading to the camp. The different portions of this region are so much alike that it is almost impossible to tell one from another.

Owing to the fact that it is very dangerous to be caught out over night, with the thermometer ranging anywhere from zero to 50 degrees below, we took the precaution to mount a big red flag in the top of the highest spruce we could find near our camp, so that, by climbing a high tree anywhere within a radius of a mile or so, one could easily see this flag. To still further reduce the chance of getting lost, we blazed the trees in a straight line for four miles due south of the camp, and, as the dog-sled trail came into our camp (which was in the heavy timber) from the north, it was not difficult to find one's way home in the evening. These precautions--needless elsewhere, but wise in this country--were taken principally because each of us had always been in the habit for years of hunting alone--a practice which I would recommend to anyone who desires to be really successful in killing big game.

This vast expanse of flat country is quite heavily wooded over large areas, the timber being spruce, tamarack, poplar, birch, etc., with a great abundance of red and gray willow. The underbrush is sometimes very thick. There are, however, innumerable open places, which bear the local name of muskegs. These are, of course, marshes in summer, and covered with a heavy growth of grass; in winter they are frozen hard, and traveling over them is comparatively easy.

The moose seem to be fond of remaining close to the edges of these muskegs, which are usually fringed with a heavy growth of willows. It would appear, however, that they venture out into these open places either during the night, early in the morning, or late in the afternoon; and, as these were the times when we were very glad either to be in camp or to be returning to it, we had more success in finding the moose in the timber, or on the little so-called ridges, which sometimes attain the remarkable height of four or five feet.

Up to the time of leaving this camp we had very little opportunity to use snowshoes, as the snow was not yet--about the last of November--deep enough to make these necessary. We hunted all of the time in moccasins, boots of any description being simply out of the question, as they would soon freeze as hard as iron. After the cold weather set in, one day's experience with boots was quite sufficient for me, and I came to the conclusion, as I had often before in other regions, that it is very difficult to improve, in the matter of clothing, upon the customs of the country. The sudden change to moccasins was very tiring at first, but after one gets used to walking in them he will find that he can walk further and hunt better in them than any other style of foot-gear. We used, as I remember, first one or two pairs of heavy woolen socks, then a very heavy so-called "German" sock, coming up to the knee, over which we wore the high laced moccasin of the country.

Before we had very long been engaged in moose hunting we all learned that we were not so expert in the art of killing big game as we previously imagined ourselves. In all my experience I have never met with any animal which is so difficult to get a shot at, even when quite numerous, as the moose in this region. It must always be borne in mind that to kill a moose--especially in a country where they have been hunted for generations by the Indians--by the thoroughly sportsmanlike method of following the trail of one until you finally get a shot at it and kill it, is a totally different thing from killing the same moose either by calling him at night in the autumn or by paddling on him in a canoe in the summer. In fact, of all the difficult things I have ever undertaken in the way of sport, I regard this as the most difficult; and before I got my first shot I began to think that there was a great deal of truth in the Indian's sneering remark, "White man no kill moose." Finally one day my luck turned, but that it did so was due more to the realization of my own inferiority, and lack of the proper kind of knowledge, than to anything else.

It happened in this way: having thoroughly convinced myself that the moose either smelt me or in some other way found out that I was in their neighborhood before I could be made aware of the same fact, I concluded that there was something radically wrong in my manner of hunting them, although I employed every method known to me--methods which had been acquired in an experience during which I had killed considerably over one hundred head of big game, throughout the Rockies and the Alleghanies. In short, I was exceedingly painstaking and careful. Notwithstanding all my precautions, however, I remember that I had the satisfaction one night of knowing that I had started during the day eight different moose, each separately, without hearing or seeing a single one of them. This sort of thing lasted for twenty-two consecutive days, or until I finally concluded that, as our Indian seemed to have no trouble in seeing moose, I would follow his tactics. Waiting, therefore, one morning until I was sure that the Indian had left camp, I changed my course so as to intersect his trail, followed this for some distance, and watched carefully his foot-prints, so as to read the record of his hunt.

Pretty soon it became apparent that he had come across a moose trail. He tried it first with the toe of his moccasin, then with the butt of his gun, and satisfied himself that it was too old to follow. He went on until he came across another trail, and evidently had spent considerable time in making up his mind whether it was worth while to follow this trail or not. He then followed it for a few yards, and, to my surprise, suddenly left it, and went off almost at right angles to the leeward. I supposed that he had given up the moose trail, but nevertheless I followed further on his track. Again to my surprise, I presently found him gradually coming around in a circuitous fashion to the trail again, until he finally reached it. He then immediately retraced his steps, making another semi-circle, bearing generally, however, in the direction the moose had gone, and again came to the trail. This occurred four or five times, until finally the explanation of his conduct flashed upon me, for there lay his cartridge. I saw--as he afterward described it to me--where he had shot at the moose, which had just arisen out of its bed a short distance away, but, as usual, he had missed it. Now I had noticed, in my three weeks' experience, that I had come upon the moose either lying down or standing in some thicket, but that they had been able to wind me considerably before my arrival at the spot marked by their beds in the snow. Not until then had occurred to me what is well known to many who still-hunt moose, namely, that before lying down they generally make a long loop to the leeward, returning close to their trail, so that they can readily get the wind of anyone following upon it long before he reaches them, when, of course, they quietly get up and sneak away. In fact, they do not seem to have an atom of curiosity in their composition, and in this are different from most other wild animals that I have known. By making these long loops to the leeward the hunter reduces to a minimum the likelihood of being smelt or heard by the moose; and in these animals the senses of smell and hearing are very acute, although their eyesight seems to be bad.

Having quite satisfied myself as to what it was necessary to do, I waited until the next day to put it into execution, because by the time I had made my discovery it was about half past 2 o'clock, and the sun was near the horizon.