Canadian Wilds Part 13

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 cl.u.s.ters.

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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e 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.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AMPHIBIOUS COMBATS.

Very few of the present generation of hunters, I presume, have ever witnessed a fight between a beaver and an otter. I venture to think that the narrative of such an event will prove interesting to readers of _Hunter-Trader-Trapper_, especially as it comes first hand from the person who saw the fight from the start, and was in at the finish. It was an unique spectacle of once in thirty-five years of bush life.

I must digress a little at the start to explain that otters often, in the autumn, endeavor to find some tenantless beaver lodge situated on a chain of small lakes. If fortunate to find such, they at once pre-empt the old lodge and make it their home and headquarters. If the fish supply is ample in the lakes and small connecting creeks, they stay there until the snow hardens, and openings occur in the large rivers and then slide away to new fields, or rather, waterways.

This migration is generally about the 20th of March in our Northern Country.

One day in the latter part of October I portaged my bark canoe over the divide into another chain of lakes, with the object of ascertaining if there were any beaver in that section. I came out to the sh.o.r.e of the lower lake of the string, in a small gra.s.sy bay, and was just in the act of taking the canoe off my head, when out in the bay, an acre or two from sh.o.r.e, I saw a beaver swimming on the surface at a high rate of speed. Being yet early in the afternoon I wondered at this and waited, with the canoe still tilted on my shoulders. All at once a long, s.h.i.+ny, snaky looking animal broke water in the wake of the beaver and a short distance behind the latter, evidently in pursuit.

The beaver was no sooner aware of this than he appeared actually to stand half out of the water, the next instant he turned and faced his pursuer. The distance between the two was so short that in a moment they were fast to each other's throat and then for some minutes neither could be seen for the churning and splas.h.i.+ng of the water. I took the opportunity while they were thus engaged to unload my canoe and slip it half way into the lake ready to embark.

After the first fierce fighting impact and deadly grip, when they appeared pretty well exhausted--the fight going on at times on the surface--and again both would disappear beneath the waters of the lake, still locked together with the tenacity of bulldogs. Then they rose to the top, this time separated, and at some little distance apart, both plainly much spent. Then they circled about one another, much in the same way as two boxers sparring. Again a mad rush at each other, and again the strong jaws of his opponent, and the same scene was enacted again. I thought it was about time to push out and take a closer aspect of affairs. The fight was interesting, but the chance of getting a beaver and an otter, with one shot, far surpa.s.sed the proverbial, "two birds with one stone."

What little breath of wind that ruffled the bay was in my favor, so with both barrels of my gun c.o.c.ked leaning against the canoe bar, I sculled the birch silently but swiftly thru the water unnoticed by the combatants. When just about to take my gun, "the moment too late"

occurred right then, and they separated as by mutual consent; the beaver swimming toward the sh.o.r.e and the otter pawing the water in a blind, dazed sort of a way. The latter being the nearer to the canoe and the most valuable of the two, I fired and killed him. On the flash and report of the gun, the beaver dived and I pushed the canoe in his direction, with the other barrel ready when he should come up.

I had over-shot the place when he had disappeared and waited looking toward the sh.o.r.e, where I expected he would next come to view.

Minutes pa.s.sed and no sign, I turned about in the canoe thinking possibly he had doubled under. Not ten feet from the stern of the canoe, there was Mr. Beaver, dead without my firing a shot, dead from his wounds. I pulled him into the canoe and paddled back and picked up the otter.

After getting ash.o.r.e and examining them both carefully and again when skinning them, I found the beaver had died of his terrible wounds and no doubt the otter was in the last throes of his life also, when I gave him his quittance. The hair and skin on their bellies were much scratched and cut up by the sharp, hard claws of their hind feet.

Their necks were one ma.s.s of teeth marks, and the jugular veins in each were pierced. Both would have died of their wounds in a little while, without the use of the gun, had I withheld my fire for a few minutes, for they were fast bleeding to death.

I ascertained afterwards that this beaver had been the only one in the lake; the otter no doubt had driven him out of his house, and not content with this had pursued him, courting battle. In the fight that ensued, of which I had been a witness, both had met their death.

The sight I witnessed some years ago is so unique that I think it will prove interesting to the readers of _Forest and Stream_.

I was at the time stationed right in the moose country, having for its center the great Kipewa Lake. One day toward the end of November, when, as yet only the bays of the big lake were frozen, I started to visit some mink traps in my canoe, accompanied by a small little rat of a dog. It was still open water in the body of the lake, but as I have said, the bays were frozen a couple of inches thick. There is a long point of land jutting into the lake. Open water washed the beach on my side of this; but on the other side was a frozen bay. I landed about the middle of the point to fix up a mink trap. The little dog ran up into the timber, and a minute or two after I heard him giving tongue in a savage manner for so small a beast, and I knew he must have started up something extraordinary, possibly a bear. I ran down to the canoe for my gun, and started off in the direction of the barking, which by that time was becoming more remote. Pus.h.i.+ng on, I came out to the sh.o.r.e on the opposite side of the point. Here I witnessed a sight never before nor after seen by me during a residence of over thirty years in the wilds of Canada.

A large cow moose was slipping about on the glare ice trying to make her way to the other side of the bay. I was so spellbound for a few moments that I let the opportunity pa.s.s to shoot. The ice was so glare that it was with difficulty the large animal could make headway at all.

My little dog had now come up with her, and very pluckily nipped her heels. The huge beast tried to turn in her headway to face the cur.

In doing so, her four feet all slipped at once from under her, and her great weight coming down so suddenly on the thin ice caused it to break in fragments, and the moose was in the water.

To get out of that hole with no bottom to spring from was more than that moose, or any other, could do, but the poor beast did not realize this, and continued swimming around, and every now and again getting its front hoofs on the slippery edge, only to fall backward again into the icy waters.

The dog followed it about the opening, barking continually, but the moose had more pressing business than to bother with a small dog. I saw that the creature would never succeed in extracting itself, and thought to end its misery. From where I stood the distance from the sh.o.r.e was about two hundred yards. I therefore started to load my gun (it was before the days of breechloaders), but when I got to the final of putting on the percussion cap, there was none.

Although I was positively sure the moose would be frozen stiff in that hole in the morning, the fascination of the sight kept me standing there on the rocks watching her struggles.

I must have stood there for two full hours, as the sun of the short November day began to get near the treetops, and a cold, cutting north wind began to blow.

The poor moose was now swimming about very slowly, and at times turning up on her side. This told me the end was not far off.

The last look I gave she had part of her head resting on the ice, and her body was floating on its side. Then I recrossed the point and paddled home as fast as I could.

Next morning we got a large canoe out of winter quarters, and with my two men we paddled back to the point, supplied with ropes and axes.

The night had been a cold one, and had increased the thickness of the ice sufficient for us to walk upon. We cut a couple of long pines, or levers, and went out to the hole. The head was frozen just in the position I had last seen it, and this kept the body from sinking. Our first precaution was to chop the ice away about the carca.s.s and get ropes about it. Then we got another around the neck and chopped the head clear.

We dropped it as it was to the sh.o.r.e, and there cut it up in quarters. All of the breast, neck and front legs were quite useless, being a ma.s.s of conjected blood and bruised flesh, caused by the moose's contact with the ice. These condemned parts, however, were not altogether useless, because I used them to bait my traps. Besides the eatable part of the meat, I got twenty pairs of shoes out of the hide.

Just after the above account of the very unusual occurrence was received, a press dispatch telling of a somewhat similar happening appeared in the New York newspapers. There is no doubt that accidents of one sort and another are responsible for the death of large game much more frequently than we imagine. It is certain also that among the young of such animals there is a considerable mortality, although we do not know that any observations on this subject have been recorded. Every man who has hunted much, however, has probably seen something of this, and we should be glad to record any such experiences of this sort which our readers have had. We ourselves have not infrequently found young deer and antelope that had evidently died from diseases, and more seldom have seen young elk, and on two occasions, young mountain sheep, dead, for whose taking off there seemed to be no reason to be advanced except sickness. It is well known that on the fur seal islands of the North Pacific and the Bering Sea, thousands of pups die annually from disease, in addition to the vastly greater number which starve to death through the killing of the mothers by pelagic sealing.

The _Sun_ account above referred to reads as follows:

Captains Wisner, Verity and Ira Udall, who have been across the bay to Fire Island beach, arrived here to-day. They say that two deer, one a fine large six-year-old buck and the other a doe, had walked out on the ice and had broken through. They had been unable to get back to the mainland and were carried with the current. They drifted across the bay a distance of nearly ten miles and were being taken out into the ocean when seen by Captains Udall and Verity from the State wharf east of the lighthouse.

The two men put off in a lifeboat and succeeded in driving the buck ash.o.r.e. The doe was almost dead by that time. Every effort was made to get her ash.o.r.e and save her life. A rope was fastened around her body and she was soon on sh.o.r.e, although after no little effort. She soon, however, died of exhaustion. The buck ran off east on the beach, but unless its instinct is strong enough to teach it to follow the beast east to the mainland, seventy miles distant, it will soon starve, as the sand hills and meadows are now bare of vegetation.

CHAPTER XXV.

ART OF PULLING HEARTS.

I see by inquiries answered and letters from F. Edgar Brown in an issue of Hunter-Trader-Trapper that my casual mention of pulling the heart of the fox in "Reynard Outwitted," has struck a chord of interest with trappers. As the knack of pulling the hearts of the smaller animals trapped is worth knowing, and will save the hunter dirty work in the skinning of the pelts, I will describe the process as plain as I can.

It is bad enough to skin an animal that has been struggling in a steel trap, and got the imprisoned leg a ma.s.s of congealed blood, without adding to the disagreeableness of the job crus.h.i.+ng in his head or breaking his back with a pole. This at least can be avoided by pulling down the heart till the cords snap. In no other way do Indians, or those who have learned trapping from Indians, kill the small animals they find alive when visiting their line of traps.

Foxes, martens, minks and rabbits are always killed in this way.

Lynx, of course, is a nasty animal to approach in a trap, still the Indian trapper never thinks of shooting, or hitting him with a pole.

On the contrary they fix a noosed cord to a young sapling cut for the purpose, and snare him from the length of the pole; once over his head they stand on the pole and let him struggle till dead. This prevents blood from being on the skin. A live bear in a steel trap must be shot to make "a good bear of him."