A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open Part 11

Arthur was steersman, Odilon bowsman, while I sat in the middle with my Springfield rifle. We skirted the sh.o.r.es, examining each bay.

Half an hour after starting, as we rounded a point, we saw the huge black body and white shovel antlers of a bull moose. He was close to the alders, wading in the shallow water and deep mud and grazing on a patch of fairly tall water-gra.s.s. So absorbed was he that he did not notice us until Arthur had skilfully brought the canoe to within eighty yards of him. Then he saw us, tossed his great antlered head aloft, and for a moment stared at us, a picture of burly majesty. He stood broadside on, and a splendid creature he was, of towering stature, the lord of all the deer tribe, as stately a beast of the chase as walks the round world.

The waves were high, and the canoe danced so on the ripple that my first bullet went wild, but with the second I slew the mighty bull.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by Alexander Lambert, M.D._

Colonel Roosevelt and Arthur Lirette with antlers of moose shot September 19, 1915.]

We had our work cut out to get the bull out of the mud and on the edge of the dry land. The antlers spread fifty-two inches. Some hours were spent in fixing the head, taking off the hide, and cutting up the carca.s.s. Our canoe was loaded to its full capacity with moose meat when we started toward the beginning of the portage leading from the southeastern corner of the lake toward the Lamberts' camp. Here we landed the meat, putting cool moss over it, and left it to be called for on our way back, on the morrow.

It was shortly after three when we again pushed off in the canoe, and headed for the western end of the lake, for the landing from which the portage led to our cabin. It had been a red-letter day, of the ordinary hunting red-letter type. I had no conception that the real adventure still lay in front of us.

When half a mile from the landing we saw another big bull moose on the edge of the sh.o.r.e ahead of us. It looked and was--if anything--even bigger-bodied than the one I had shot in the morning, with antlers almost as large and rather more palmated. We paddled up to within a hundred yards of it, laughing and talking, and remarking how eager we would have been if we had not already got our moose. At first it did not seem to notice us. Then it looked at us but paid us no further heed. We were rather surprised at this but paddled on past it, and it then walked along the sh.o.r.e after us. We still supposed that it did not realize what we were. But another hundred yards put us to windward of it. Instead of turning into the forest when it got our wind, it merely bristled up the hair on its withers, shook its head, and continued to walk after the canoe, along the sh.o.r.e. I had heard of bull moose, during the rut, attacking men unprovoked, if the men were close up, but never of anything as wanton and deliberate as this action, and I could hardly believe the moose meant mischief, but Arthur said it did; and obviously we could not land with the big, evil-looking beast coming for us--and, of course, I was most anxious not to have to shoot it. So we turned the canoe round and paddled on our back track. But the moose promptly turned and followed us along the sh.o.r.e. We yelled at him, and Odilon struck the canoe with his paddle, but with no effect. After going a few hundred yards we again turned and resumed our former course; and as promptly the moose turned and followed us, shaking his head and threatening us. He seemed to be getting more angry, and evidently meant mischief. We now continued our course until we were opposite the portage landing, and about a hundred yards away from it; the water was shallow and we did not wish to venture closer, lest the moose might catch us if he charged.

When he came to the portage trail he turned up it, sniffing at our footsteps of the morning, and walked along it into the woods; and we hoped that now he would become uneasy and go off. After waiting a few minutes we paddled slowly toward the landing, but before reaching it we caught his loom in the shadow, as he stood facing us some distance down the trail. As soon as we stopped he rushed down the trail toward us, coming in to the lake; and we backed hastily into deep water. He vented his rage on a small tree, which he wrecked with his antlers. We continued to paddle round the head of the bay, and he followed us; we still hoped we might get him away from the portage, and that he would go into the woods. But when we turned he followed us back, and thus went to and fro with us. Where the water was deep near sh.o.r.e we pushed the canoe close in to him, and he promptly rushed down to the water's edge, shaking his head, and striking the earth with his fore hoofs. We shouted at him, but with no effect. As he paraded along the sh.o.r.e he opened his mouth, lolling out his tongue; and now and then when he faced us he ran out his tongue and licked the end of his muzzle with it. Once, with head down, he bounded or galloped round in a half circle; and from time to time he grunted or uttered a low, menacing roar. Altogether the huge black beast looked like a formidable customer, and was evidently in a most evil rage and bent on man-killing.

For over an hour he thus kept us from the sh.o.r.e, running to meet us wherever we tried to go. The afternoon was waning, a cold wind began to blow, s.h.i.+fting as it blew. He was not a pleasant-looking beast to meet in the woods in the dusk. We were at our wits' ends what to do. At last he turned, shook his head, and with a flourish of his heels galloped--not trotted--for fifty yards up beside the little river which paralleled the portage trail. I called Arthur's attention to this, as he had been telling me that a big bull never galloped. Then the moose disappeared at a trot round the bend. We waited a few minutes, cautiously landed, and started along the trail, watching to see if the bull was lying in wait for us; Arthur telling me that if he now attacked us I must shoot him at once or he would kill somebody.

A couple of hundred yards on the trail led within a few yards of the little river. As we reached this point a smas.h.i.+ng in the brush beyond the opposite bank caused us to wheel; and the great bull came headlong for us, while Arthur called to me to shoot. With a last hope of frightening him I fired over his head, without the slightest effect. At a slas.h.i.+ng trot he crossed the river, shaking his head, his ears back, the hair on his withers bristling. "Tirez, m'sieu, tirez; vite, vite!"

called Arthur, and when the bull was not thirty feet off I put a bullet into his chest, in the sticking point. It was a mortal wound, and stopped him short; I fired into his chest again, and this wound, too, would by itself have been fatal. He turned and recrossed the stream, falling to a third shot, but as we approached he struggled to his feet, grunting savagely, and I killed him as he came toward us.

I was sorry to have to kill him, but there was no alternative. As it was, I only stopped him in the nick of time, and had I not shot straight at least one of us would have paid forfeit with his life in another second. Even in Africa I have never known anything but a rogue elephant or buffalo, or an occasional rhinoceros, to attack so viciously or with such premeditation when itself neither wounded nor threatened.

Gentle-voiced Arthur, in his delightful habitant's French, said that the incident was "pas mal curieux." He used "pas mal" as a superlative. The first time he used it I was completely bewildered. It was hot and sultry, and Arthur remarked that the day was "pas mal mort." How the day could be "not badly dead" I could not imagine, but the proper translation turned out to be "a very lifeless day," which was true.

On reaching Lambert's camp, Arthur and Odilon made affidavit to the facts as above set forth, and this affidavit I submitted to the secretary of mines and fisheries of Quebec, who approved what I had done.

On the day following that on which we killed the two bulls we went back to Lambert's home camp. While crossing one lake, about the middle of the forenoon, a bull moose challenged twice from the forest-clad mountain on our right. We found a pawing-place, a pit where one--possibly more than one--bull had pawed up the earth and thrashed the saplings roundabout with its antlers. The place smelled strongly of urine. The whole of the next day was spent in getting in the meat, skins, and antlers.

I do not believe that this vicious bull moose had ever seen a man. I have never heard of another moose acting with the same determination and perseverance in ferocious malice; it behaved, as I have said, like some of the rare vicious rogues among African elephants, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses. Bull moose during the rut are fierce animals, however, and, although there is ordinarily no danger whatever in shooting them, several of my friends have been resolutely charged by wounded moose, and I know of, and have elsewhere described, one authentic case where the hunter was killed. A boy carrying mail through the woods to the camp of a friend of mine was forced to climb a tree by a bull which threatened him. My friend Pride, of Island Falls, Maine, was charged while in a canoe at night, by a bull moose which he had incautiously approached too near, and the canoe was upset. If followed on snow-shoes in the deep snow, or too closely approached in its winter yard, it is not uncommon for a moose to charge when its pursuer is within a few yards. Once Arthur was charged by a bull which was in company with a cow. He was in a canoe, at dusk, in a stream, and the bull rushed into the water after him, while he paddled hard to get away; but the cow left, and the bull promptly followed her. In none of these cases, however, did the bull act with the malice and cold-blooded purposefulness shown by the bull I was forced to kill.

Two or three days later I left the woods. The weather had grown colder.

The loons had begun to gather on the larger lakes in preparation for their southward flight. The nights were frosty. Fall was in the air.

Once there was a flurry of snow. Birch and maple were donning the bravery with which they greet the oncoming north; crimson and gold their banners flaunted in the eyes of the dying year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Antlers of moose shot September 19, 1915, with Springfield rifle No. 6000, Model 1903.

This rifle, now a retired veteran, is not heavy enough for steady use on heavy game; but it is so handy and accurate, has such penetration, and keeps in such good order that it has been my chief hunting-rifle for the last dozen years on three continents, and has repeatedly killed heavy game. With it I have shot some three hundred head of all kinds, including the following:

Lion, hyena, elephant, rhinoceros (square-mouthed and hook-nosed), hippopotamus, zebras of two kinds, wart-hog, giraffe, giant eland, common eland, roan antelope, oryx, wildebeest, topi, white-withered lechwe, waterbucks, hartebeests, kobs, impalla, gerenuk, gazelles, reedbucks, bushbucks, klipspringer, oribis, duikers, steinbok, dikdik, monkeys.

Jaguar, tapir, big peccary, giant ant-eater, capybara, wood-deer, monkey.

Cougar, black bear, moose, caribou, white-tail deer.

Crocodile, cayman, python.

Ostrich, bustard, wild turkey, crane, pelican, maribou, ibis, whale-head stork, jabiru stork, guinea-fowl, francolin.]

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

The frontispiece I owe to the courtesy of Mr. Theodore Pitman, a fellow Harvard student of Archie's, whom we met on Buckskin Mountain; being both a hunter and a lover of the picturesque, he was as much impressed as we were by the scene when a cougar stood in a pine, with the Grand Canyon as a background. The photograph at the end of the book is by Doctor Alexander Lambert, and the tail-piece is from a photograph by him.

I had been told by old hunters that black bears would sometimes attack moose calves, and in one instance, in the Rockies, my informant described to me how a big grizzly, but a few weeks out of its den in spring, attacked and slew full-grown moose. I was not surprised at the latter statement, having myself come across cattle-killing grizzlies; but I wondered at a black bear, which is not much of a beast of prey, venturing to meddle with the young of so formidable a fighter as a moose. However, it is true. Recently my nephew Hall Roosevelt, who was working at Dawson City, went on a moose hunt in the valley of the Yukon.

One night a moose cow pa.s.sed by the camp, having first swum a stream in front of the camp. She was followed at some little distance by a calf.

The latter halted near the camp. Suddenly a black bear, with a tremendous cras.h.i.+ng of branches, came with a rush through the bushes, and seized the calf; although it was driven off, it had with its teeth so injured the spine of the calf that they were obliged to shoot the latter.

On a hunt in the Northern Rockies, Archie met a man who had two dogs, an ordinary track-hound and a Russian wolfhound. One day they came across a white goat, and before the slow creature could reach the precipice the dogs overtook and bayed it. The track-hound merely jumped to and fro, baying; but the wolfhound rushed straight in and caught the goat by the neck on one side; whereupon the track-hound seized the other side of the neck. Immediately, with two wicked backward thrusts of its horns, first to one side, then to the other, the goat killed both its a.s.sailants; the stiletto-like horns were driven to the hilt with a single jab.

The attack by the moose upon us, mentioned in the final chapter, was so unusual that I give the deposition of the two guides who were with me, and also the report of the senior of the two, the game warden, in reference to the occurrence. They are as follows:

CANADA

PROVINCE OF QUEBEC, DISTRICT OF QUEBEC,

I, Theodore Roosevelt, residing at Oyster-Bay in the United States of America, do solemnly declare as follows:

That I have just returned from a trip in the Tourilli Club limits as a Guest of Dr. Alexander Lambert, I had the ordinary game license No. _25_ issued to me on the 6th day of September instant.

On September the nineteenth, on Lake Croche, having with me as guides, Arthur Lirette and Odilon Genest, I killed an old bull moose as authorized by the license, which only permitted to me to kill one moose. That afternoon, shortly after three o'clock, we were returning in our canoe to the West end of the Lake, where a portage trail led to our camp; a small stream runs besides the portage trail; when half a mile from our proposed landing place, we saw an old bull moose on the sh.o.r.e. We paddled up to within a hundred yards of it. We supposed that when it saw us, it would take to the woods. It however walked along the edge of the water parallel to our canoe, looking at us. We pa.s.sed it, and gave it our wind, thinking this would surely cause it to run. But it merely raised its hair on its withers and shook its horns and followed after the canoe. We shouted, but it paid no heed to us; we then reversed our canoe and paddled in the opposite direction; but following us and threatening us, the bull moose turned and walked the same way we did, we renewed our former course, and thereupon so did the moose, where the water was shallow, we did not venture near it, but where the water was deep, we went within fifty yards; and it then thrashed the branches of a young tree with its antlers, and pawed the earth and advanced a little way into the water towards us, walking parallel to our canoe, it reached the portage trail, it turned and walked up this trail and sniffed at our morning's tracks, and we supposed it had fled; but on nearing the landing place, we saw it standing in the trail, and it rushed down towards us and we had to back quickly into deep water; we paddled on round the sh.o.r.e, hoping it would get tired and go; we shouted and tried to frighten it, but it merely shook its head and stamped on the ground and bounded in a circle; then it swaggered along grunting, it kept its mouth open, and lolled out its tongue and when it turned towards us, it ran its tongue over its muzzle, thus it accompanied us to and for an hour, cutting us off whenever we tried to land; then it turned, and went up the little stream, shaking its head, and galloping or bounding not trotting, for fifty yards, it disappeared around a bend of a stream, we waited a few minutes, and landed, and started along the portage trail for camp, after about ten minutes, the trail approached the little stream; then the moose suddenly appeared rus.h.i.+ng towards us at a slas.h.i.+ng trot, its hair ruffled and tossing his head.

Arthur Lirette, who is one of the game wardens of the Tourilli Club, called out to me to shoot, or the moose would do us mischief, in a last effort to frighten it, I fired over its head, but it paid no heed to this and rushed over the stream at us; Arthur again called: "Tirez, monsieur, tirez, vite, vite, vite," and I fired into the moose's chest, when he was less than twenty feet away, coming full tilt at us, grunting, shaking his head, his ears back and his hair brindled; the shot stopped him; I fired into him again; both shots were fatal; he recrossed the little stream and fell to a third shot; but when we approached, he rose, grunting and started towards us. I killed him. If I had not stopped him, he would have certainly killed one or more of our party; and at twenty feet I had to shoot as straight as I knew how, or he would have reached us. I had done everything possible in my power to scare him away for an hour and a quarter, and I solemnly declare that I killed him only when it was imperatively necessary, in order to prevent the loss of one or more of our own lives, and I make this solemn declaration conscientiously, believing it to be true, and knowing that it is of the same force and effect as if made under oath, and by virtue of the Canada EVIDENCE ACT, 1893.

(_Signed_) THEODORE ROOSEVELT,

Declared before me, this 24th day of September 1915.

(_Signed_) E. A. PANET, _N. P. & J. P._

TRUE COPY,

S. DUFAULT

_Deputy-Minister, Department Colonization, Mines and Fisheries, Quebec._

CANADA,

PROVINCE DE QUEBEC, DISTRICT DE QUEBEC.

Je, Arthur Lirette, du village de St-Raymond, gardien du Club de Peche et de Cha.s.se Tourilli, et Je, Odilon, Genest, du meme lieu, en ma qualite de guide, declare sollennellement que les faits relates ci-hauts par la declaration de M. Theodore Roosevelt, laquelle nous a ete lue et traduite en francais par le Notaire E.

A. Panet, de St-Raymond, que cette declaration contient la verite dans toute son etendue, et que si le dit Th. Roosevelt n'avait pas tue l'orignal mentionne par lui, que nos vies etaient en danger.