STALKING A MOOSE
One morning, when the lads awoke at day-break, Ganawa was gone. The
lads arose, started the fire in the tepee and boiled some fresh beaver
meat. The night had been quite cold and some hot broth seemed good for
breakfast.
The boys had guessed right that Ganawa had gone scouting for moose
tracks, and in a short time he returned to tell the boys that during
the night a young moose had crossed the lake near their camp and had
travelled east against the wind.
“We must eat,” he said, “and then we must follow the moose. We must
wear our warm winter moccasins and we must take our blankets, for no
hunter can tell how far he may have to track a moose.”
It took some time before the hunters were ready to take the trail. “The
moose may be a long way ahead of us,” Ganawa told the lads, “because I
cannot tell at what time of the night he passed our camp. We must
follow him slowly and you, my sons, and the dog must travel a good way
behind me so we do not scare him. If we scare him, he will start
running and we shall lose him.”
The animal had been going at a walk. He had followed the general
direction of a small spring stream that enters Lake Anjigami near the
camp of the hunters. This spring brook heads in a spruce swamp about a
mile from the lake. “If he has gone into that swamp it will be very
difficult to follow him,” remarked Ganawa, as the hunters started on
the trail.
It was found that the game had passed along the spruce swamp. At the
end of the swamp it had turned leisurely a little more easterly until
it came to a high ridge within sight of one of those small lakes which
are scattered by the tens of thousands over a region north and south of
Lake Superior.
On the high ridge the moose had fed on the twigs of young poplar trees,
breaking down some of them of the thickness of a man’s wrist. At the
north end of the lake it had crossed the outlet and had stopped to feed
on some low willows and juneberry bushes. It had not touched pin-cherry
and choke-cherry, but it had fed freely on young white birches and on
the bushy moose-maple, which never grows to tree size.
“How can an animal grow big and fat when it eats nothing but wood?”
asked Ray.
“The little twigs, my son, which the moose eats are not all wood,”
replied Ganawa. “There is much food in them and in the buds. Moose and
deer live on browse in the winter, grouse and fool-hens live on buds,
rabbits and mice live on bark, and if the squirrels have not enough
hazelnuts and seeds they also eat buds.”
After they had cautiously followed the trail for about two hours,
Ganawa sat down on a log.
“My sons,” he said, “take a rest. This track was made last night. In
some open spots the wind has filled in the footprints and in some
sheltered spots the sun has melted the edges of the snow just a little
bit. I fear he is a long way ahead of us, but if it does not begin to
snow, we must follow him till we find him; for when the weather gets
cold the wolves may drive all the moose out of the country.”
During the afternoon, the hunters found several places where the moose
had lain down. As the wind had veered toward the north, the game had
also turned north. “He smells danger ahead of him,” Ganawa told the
boys, “and he listens for danger behind him. He has not been scared and
does not know that hunters are following him.”
About an hour before sunset, the hunters made camp in a sheltered
hollow near a small stream, and built a fire on the leeward side of a
big log.
“We may build a fire,” said Ganawa, “but we must not use our axes. If
the moose hears the sound of an ax, he will get up and run a league.”
After the hunters had eaten their meat and drunk some hot broth, they
scraped away the snow from the ground and made a bed of spruce and
balsam boughs. Bruce and Ganawa gathered some more dead wood for the
fire, but Ray was so tired that he wrapped himself in his blankets, and
very soon he fell asleep with Tawny curled up at his feet.
For some time Bruce and Ganawa tended the fire in silence, for the
ever-changing flames of a camp-fire seem to incite the imagination to
recall the past and to peer behind the veil of the future. During the
night Bruce and Ganawa took turns replenishing the fire, for no
camp-fire can be built in such a way that it will keep a man warm all
night without being replenished several times. This is especially true
if dry and dead wood has to be used. But even under the most favorable
circumstances, when the camper has cut stout back-logs or can use rocks
as a back-wall and can use green birch, hickory, ash, or hard maple as
fuel, he will have to get up once or twice, for even the green woods
mentioned burn fast with the free access of air.
The night was not cold, as winter nights go, and when, after a hearty
breakfast of toasted meat, boiled meat and hot broth, the hunters again
took up the trail, each of them felt fit to follow the trail all day.
It was just light enough to see the tracks when they started, and
Ganawa cautioned the lads to avoid all noise. “Be very careful not to
break any sticks, and you must not talk. It may be,” he explained,
“that the moose is leagues ahead of us, but we cannot tell; he may not
be far away. You, my sons, should walk about fifty paces behind me, and
you must be sure not to let Ohnemoosh break away when I see the moose.”
They had travelled about a mile when the lads were made to realize that
their guide had not needlessly cautioned them against making noise. He
now halted suddenly and motioned the lads not to come nearer. Then he
peered carefully through some bushes just ahead, but presently motioned
to the lads to come up to him.
“Look!” he said, pointing to the bed of a moose. “It is almost warm
yet. I think we scared him.” The tracks showed plainly that the moose
had stood for a moment facing his back trail. Then he had turned around
short and trotted off in a northwesterly direction against the wind,
for during the last twenty-four hours the wind had swung around from
northeast to northwest.
“We must wait here,” Ganawa advised, “so he will get over being
scared.” And as the hunters stood and looked around, they saw that the
evening before the moose had fed freely on poplar and birch brush close
by, and had then selected a well-sheltered bed behind a thicket of
spruce, where he had been apparently lying down all night.
After an hour’s rest, the hunters again took up the trail, and they
found that the moose had soon slowed down to a walk.
Early in the afternoon the moose suddenly appeared in plain view, as
the hunters peered over a ridge. There he stood, a fine young bull
moose, feeding on some willows. By crawling a few rods westward behind
the ridge, Ganawa approached within thirty yards and brought down his
game with one carefully aimed shot. Ganawa carried an old Hudson Bay
smooth-bore gun, and he seldom fired at moose or deer at a longer
range.
Lead and powder were so very expensive to the old-time Indians that
they could not afford the wild shooting of many present-day white
hunters, but were compelled to stalk their game until they had
approached within close range.
The hunters set to work at once to dress their game, but the afternoon
was well advanced when the meat was cut up and hung up in trees out of
reach of the wolves. Certain choice parts they had laid aside for a big
hunters’ feast: The tongue, a piece of the stomach which makes
excellent tripe, the kidneys, a piece of liver and some choice fat
steak and a piece of suet. The hunters had walked some ten miles; they
had not eaten fresh moose meat for weeks and they felt ravenously
hungry.
In a very short time there would be meat broiled, meat fried, and meat
boiled, and they would have a feast such as only hungry hunters and
explorers ever enjoy.
So busy had the boys been cutting out the meat and hanging it up in
trees that they had not noticed a change in the weather. And now a
great disappointment was in store for them. Ganawa climbed up on a big
rock and pointed toward the northwest. “Look, my sons,” he said
earnestly. “Do you see the black clouds? They will bring snow and a
big, cold wind; and very soon it will be dark. Take up the meat for our
feast and follow me. We must walk fast to find a good shelter, or we
shall freeze to death. This ridge and the small bushes will give us no
shelter in a storm and no wood for our fire.”