A CASE OF NERVE.
In the far interior where flour is scarce and our living consists of
either fish or flesh, both of which we have to get when we can and
how we can, the game laws are a dead letter. Nets were always in the
water the year round and no one moved from the posts without a gun.
Fish and potatoes were our staple diet and were it not for the
abundance of the former we could never have lived in the country.
Lakes were all about us and when one was fished out we moved our nets
to another.
Flesh, however, could not always be got, and when the chance offered
we killed, in season or out. Nothing, however, was wasted. Should we
shoot a deer or moose in summer, the surplus over what we could
consume in a day or two was either jerked and dried or salted. Many a
time have my men had to visit our nets a mile or two off to get
wherewith for our breakfast. If successful the fish had then to be
cleaned and cooked before we broke our fast. Such being our hard
battle for life I may be excused for the following story:
An Indian came in late one afternoon from his hunting grounds at the
south to get his spring ammunition. It was about the middle of April
and there was at the time a hard crust on the snow. He told us that
on the way he had seen cuttings of a very big bull moose and he was
sure he was on the top of a mountain near by where he had noticed the
cuttings. He had no gun and besides the moose was useless to him so
far from his camp being four or five miles from our post. Now he
continued if you want to have him you can come along with me in the
morning and you will surely kill him. He can't get away with the
crust. The Indian was so sure of our success that he told me to take
my two men with sleds to bring home the meat and hide.
As it was all ice walking except one short portage to the foot of the
range of mountains he named, we decided to leave the post an hour or
so before daylight so as to be there at the earliest possible moment.
Our preparations were soon made and we took a little sleep dressed as
we were and then started. We took two little partridge curs to head
off the moose and keep him amused until I could catch up and shoot.
The hunt was going to be such a dead sure result that mine was the
gun in the party. It was a smooth bore H. B. and carried bullets 28
to the pound. We had a cup of tea and a bite of galette at the foot
of the mountain and left our sleds there together with the Indian's
bundle of ammunition, tea, tobacco, etc., he had traded at the post.
My men each carried one of the dogs in a bag to let go at the proper
moment. As the Indian proposed in the first place to still hunt the
bull, he reasoned that it being yet so early perhaps I would get a
shot when he jumped up from his bed of the night.
We had to wear snow shoes in the green bush as the crust was not
sufficient strong to support a man without them. We whipped strips of
old rags about the frames to deaden the noise when walking on the
hard snow. The Indian led off putting down each foot with the utmost
care and I followed gun in hand the men being told to keep an acre or
two behind us. The ascent was gradual and pretty free from
undergrowth. We were getting near the summit when all at once the
Indian called out, "he's off." After the stillness of our procedure
these words were quite startling. The men heard him and hurried
forward to us. The dogs were emptied out, they caught the tainted air
in a moment and away they ran.
This was the first time I knew of an Indian's acute sense of smell,
and after, when I came to consider it, could not think otherwise than
that it was wonderful. From the place where we stood when he said,
"The moose is away," was fully two acres to his lair, so it was
impossible he could have seen or heard him go. In fact, he told me he
smelt him when he sprang up. This I disbelieved at the time, but in
after years had many instances that could not be doubted. Already the
dogs were giving tongue down the descent on the other side and as
they were barking apparently in the same place the moose was said to
be at a standstill. The face of the mountain on the other side was
wooded with a young growth of trees, in some places growing in
thickets or clusters.
The Indian and the men followed me down hill and I approached the
place where I heard the dogs, gun in hand. The dogs were, by the
sound of their barking, running in on him and taking a nip at each
run. After careful peering into the clump of trees I thought I made
out his fore quarter and fired. The moose simply sat down and
elevated his head until his neck appeared as long as that of a
giraffe. I thought this was the forerunner of his tumbling over dead.
This, however, was not the case, for the next minute he broke cover
and charged straight for where I was standing, a distance of only a
few yards. My companions turned and fled and I looked around for a
suitable tree to dodge behind, but none was near. My left barrel was
yet loaded and I realized my very life depended on my coolness and
accurate shooting.
It takes considerable more time to write this down than the event
itself took. I planted myself firmly on my snowshoes and waited the
proper moment. All fear had passed and I fully realized it was death
to me if I missed my shot. On he came his great eyes blazing green in
his anger and the coarse hairs on his neck and shoulders standing up
like quills. In a case of strong tension on the nerve like myself at
that time moments appear hours. He was in the act of making his last
spring before reaching me when I took a snap sight along the barrel
and fired fair in the forehead. I had just time to step to one side
when he fell dead right in my old tracks. Death had been so
instantaneous that he was so to speak "killed on the fly." We skinned
and cut up the meat and were back at the post before the midday thaw
set in. It was only that night when I looked at the adventure from
all points of view that I fully saw the great danger I had run.