One Must Be A
Consummate Trailer, A Good Shot, Have Tireless Limbs And Wind And
A Complete Knowledge Of The Animal's Habits And Ways Of Moving And
Thinking.
One must watch the wind, without ceasing, for no hunter
has the slightest chance of success if once the Moose should scent
him.
This last is fundamental, a three-times sacred principle. Not
long ago one of these Chipewyans went to confessional. Although a
year had passed since last he got cleaned up, he could think of
nothing to confess. Oh! spotless soul! However, under pressure of
the priest, he at length remembered a black transgression. The fall
before, while hunting, he went to the windward of a thicket that seemed
likely to hold his Moose, because on the lee, the proper side, the
footing happened to be very bad, and so he lost his Moose. Yes!
there was indeed a dark shadow on his recent past.
A man may be a good hunter, i.e., an all-round trapper and woodman,
but not a moose-hunter. At Fort Smith are two or three scores of
hunters, and yet I am told there are only three moose-hunters. The
phrase is not usually qualified; he is, or is not, a moose-hunter.
Just as a man is, or is not, an Oxford M.A. The force, then, of
the phrase appears, and we were content to learn that young Bezkya,
besides knowing the Buffalo country, was also a good man and a
moose-hunter.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 96 of 252
Words from 25158 to 25409
of 67135
