Habits, Haunts and Anecdotes of the Moose and Illustrations from Life Part 3

Another guide has to say of visiting sportsmen: "Some of them shoot all right, of course, but others are regular Spaniards. I had a fellow up this way last fall that thought he was death on anything walking on four legs, and that his gun was the best shooting tool ever turned out of a gun factory. I paddled him right up to a bull moose standing in the water one day, and he fired every shot in his magazine at it without rumpling a hair.

"He didn't know enough to stop pumping the lever when all his sh.e.l.ls were gone, and just about then I chipped in with my rifle and put a ball through the moose's shoulder that dropped him handy to the bank. The sportsman was in the act of pulling the trigger of his empty gun, when he saw the moose fall, and he didn't for a moment doubt but what he had killed him. He felt so good that he rose right up in the canoe and yelled, and the next thing I knew the canoe kind of slid out from under us and over we went into four feet of mud and water."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL MOOSE IN CARIBOU LAKE.

Photographed from Life.]

A New York sportsman had his guide call a moose into the East Branch thoroughfare one evening just before dark, and the guide tells of his difficulty in pointing him out to the sportsman, who happened to be nearsighted. The moose walked right out into the water away from the concealment of the bushes and stopped. The guide nudged the sportsman and whispered to shoot.

"Shoot what?" said the sportsman in a louder tone than was prudent under the circ.u.mstances. "I don't see anything to shoot."

"Shoot the moose," he whispered again, "there he stands under that broken-topped spruce."

The lawyer craned his neck and peered into every shadow but the right one.

Two or three rods below the moose was a clump of bushes growing out beyond the general sh.o.r.e line. The lawyer finally singled this out as the moose and opened fire. He was perfectly cool, and every one of his shots went straight to the centre of the object at which he was firing.

Moose are notoriously slow to start when alarmed, provided they have not scented the hunter, and the one in question stood motionless until the sportsman had fired five shots at his inanimate target and had but one cartridge left in the magazine. Then the moose turned to escape, and, as luck would have it, dashed directly into the line of fire. The lawyer saw it, and with his sixth and last shot dropped the moose stone dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL MOOSE IN ALLAGASH STREAM.

(St. John Waters.)

Photographed from Life.]

On another occasion, a sportsman, to show his contempt for Maine's prohibition law, got gloriously full every day before ten o'clock.

The guide left him in the canoe one afternoon while he went ash.o.r.e to look for some game signs on a bog near at hand. As he was returning he saw a nice moose step out of cover within ridiculously easy rifle shot of the sportsman. The sportsman at once opened fire on the moose, but after many shots the animal trotted off, untouched.

"'T was this haway," said the bibulous hunter, in explaining his misses, "when that moose came out there was only one, all right enough, but when I cut loose with the old gun, blame if the moose didn't double up into two. I couldn't shoot both at once, and while I was pumping it into one the other got away. Mus' ha' been I shot at the wrong moose."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL AND COW MOOSE.

Photographed from Life.]

"You want to hear how my sports shoot?" said another native guide. "Well, I'll tell you a little story and then you can judge for yourself. I started out on the river one afternoon with a man from Boston, to look for moose.

It was a nice, quiet afternoon, and a good one to get game. We dropped down stream with the current, and the first thing we knew there was a big bull moose right out in the centre of the stream, sousing his head under water, and feeding on the lily roots. Mr. A. was paralyzed at the sight, for he never attempted to shoot. I held the canoe by putting my paddle down to the bottom, to give him a chance to recover his nerve, and after a while he realized what was expected of him, raised his rifle and fired. The shot did not go any where near the moose, and the animal just raised his head and stood there, looking back over its shoulder. I whispered to Mr. A.: 'You missed. Shoot again.' As it happened, my paddle slipped off into deep water, and we were floating down on the moose and getting a good deal closer than necessary. Mr. A. raised his gun and shot again, and then, as the moose started to walk towards the bank, he got the action limbered up and fired four more shots as quick as he could work the lever. None of them touched the moose, and it moved off into the bushes, without seeming to mind the racket very much. The moose wasn't nearly as rattled as Mr. A.

That man was completely prostrated with excitement. Nothing would do but we must go straight back to camp. He said his nerves were too badly broken up to stand anything more of the kind that day.

"Well, sir, we hadn't gone more than three hundred yards on our return trip, when I saw another bull on the bog adjacent to the stream. I paddled Mr. A. within good, easy range, and he tried his luck again, but the bullet struck the water twenty feet to the right. With that he began to swear, and he threw his rifle down on the bottom of the canoe, cussing it and everything else in sight. The moose gave a sudden jump and disappeared in the alders. I reckon the swearing scared it more than the shooting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOOSE CALVES LEAVING WATER.

(Mud Pond Region.)

Photographed from Life.]

"We hadn't more than a mile to go to reach camp, when Providence, just to tantalize that man, gave him another opportunity. As we came around the last bend, there stood a bull and a cow on the bank, not a great way off.

Mr. A. shot twice at the bull, as he stood there, and never touched a hair.

"T ain't no use trying,' he said, 'I can shoot at a paper target all right, but when it comes to game it's a different matter.' If all the hunters who go into Maine could shoot as well in the woods as they can at a mark there wouldn't be a decent head left in the State.

"Now, there is a sample of your city sportsmen. That man fired nine shots at those moose and he never drew blood, and I could have hit the larger majority of them with a brick. Yes, sir; if I'd had a good brick I could have swatted any one of those animals in the short ribs."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COW MOOSE SWIMMING MOOSEHEAD LAKE

Photographed from Life.]

One of the most amusing incidents to others than the partic.i.p.ants, and a most painful one to them, was the experience of two young moose hunters from far off Oregon, who tried their luck in the lower Dead River region of Maine with a jack. The night selected was one of exceptional darkness, the scene, a large bog about five miles from camp, and all conditions pointed to a most successful first attempt at this most unsportsmanlike branch of hunting. Supper over, with both eager for the fray, an early start was in order, and soon the silent craft with its over-anxious freight left the bank and started down stream. The intense stillness of an early summer night was not broken save by an occasional muskrat hurrying to its home in the bank or the ripples playing round the bow of their canoe. Mile after mile was reeled off, when suddenly a loud splashing was heard dead ahead in the stream. It was a simple matter for the man with the jack to light it, but his experience with the instrument in question was limited, and he had not discovered the slide arrangement by which the light is quickly covered without extinguishing it. The splashing continued, and both were undecided whether to back out of their present position or light up and see what the real cause of the disturbance was. The man in the stern suggested that the lamp had better remain in the bottom of the canoe, while his friend in the bow considered it far better to have a little light on the subject and therefore be able to get their bearings. By scratching a match and connecting it with the wick, the jack threw a strong light far ahead on the silent waters. It required but a second to see a large dark object ten rods ahead, waist deep in the water, and standing head on. Moose fever had attacked both of the men, and they sat motionless as the large black object cautiously moved nearer, wondering at each step who was challenging him in his woodland retreat. By a superhuman effort the stern man, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, told his friend to extinguish the light, as the animal would be upon them in a short s.p.a.ce of time. The animal, which proved to be a large bull moose, decided that a closer inspection of these trespa.s.sers was in order. He was now scarce a rod away, and the light from the jack being exceedingly bright made him somewhat bewildered, with the result that he charged the canoe. The water, being shallow at this point, favored the men and prevented a possible catastrophe. His lordship jumped in and the men jumped out of the canoe. They crawled to the bank and secreted themselves as best they could under a neighboring tree, while the animal made short work of the frail craft he had suddenly taken possession of. A reasonable time having expired, the guides at the camp became somewhat anxious as to the safety of their charges, and started in search.

At the approach of another craft the moose trotted off into the woods, leaving the thoroughly frightened sportsmen in their undesirable position, where they were found and taken back to camp, two sadder, and I might add, wiser Oregonians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO MAGNIFICENT TROPHIES OF THE CHASE.

The one on the left formerly held the Maine Record.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG BULL MOOSE CAUGHT IN DEEP SNOW.

(Northern Aroostook.)

Photographed from Life.]

A n.o.bLE ANIMAL--BUT 'TWAS JUNE.

The waters of Black Pond, which but a scarce hour before had been lashed into foam by a southwardly breeze, were silent. In the west the myriad tints of a golden sunset were disappearing and the tiny stars were beginning to peep through their blanket of blue. Against this majestic picture, in the foreground, stood tall pines, rising like sentinels from the bog in which for years they had found their growth. Far out on the lake could be heard the solitary cry of a loon calling to his mate. What can be more sublime, more entertaining, to the true sportsman than to be left alone with nature in this paradise? A suggestion from the guide that we skirt the sh.o.r.e and see if there be any game in the pond brought hearty approval from his employer, and seating myself in the bow, we were soon under way. Such music the tiny ripples make as they frolic and dance at the bow, as the craft glides noiselessly along, the whirr of many wings, and a large flock of wild ducks are up and away at our approach. The moon is on the rise, and lights this woodland paradise with its shining rays. Suddenly a loud splashing was heard down the sh.o.r.e not many rods distant, and the guide sheers off so as to approach the forest denizen from the side. Again the splashing, and twenty rods distant can be seen a large moose, throwing the water from off his sides, unconscious of any human intruders. Such a picture as he made, standing side on, fearless and brave. The guide had stopped paddling, and the momentum gained was carrying us nearer every second. Suddenly, coming into his line of vision, he turned his head in our direction and showed us a most magnificent pair of velvet-covered antlers.

In his eye was the look of defiance, and, with his great head lifted high in the air, the water still dripping from his brown coat, he seemed to say, "Well, it's June, what are you going to do about it?" And so it was. We left him, and slowly paddled back to camp, wishing that the seasons for a scarce minute had changed,--that October had been June, that June had been October,--and most of all that we could have used a rifle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COW MOOSE ON Sh.o.r.e OF ALLAGASH LAKE.

Photographed from Life.]

THE ABLEST ROMANCE IN MOOSE HISTORY IS THUS DESCRIBED:

The man who tells it says he was hunting in the mountains of Nova Scotia, when he saw a huge bull moose grazing on a patch of moss, a hundred yards away. He up and fired but when the smoke had cleared away, there stood the moose grazing as before.

Again he fired, and again he was chagrined to see that the moose didn't seem to mind it. A third shot, and the moose disappeared. Much excited, the hunter ran to the moss patch, and there, on the further slope, lay three dead moose. Pretty risky story to tell in Maine.

THE END.