Pathfinding on Plain and Prairie: Stirring Scenes of Life in the Canadian North-westMcDougall, John
History
Pathfinding on Plain and Prairie: Stirring Scenes of Life in the Canadian North-west
McDougall, John
Frontier and pioneer life -- Northwest, Canadian; McDougall, John, 1842-1917; Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
The nature of the ground where we were was such that we could make
better time on foot than with horses. Accordingly we left our
mounts, and ran back a distance of about a mile to intercept the
moose. I was on the spot some time before the next best, and as the
big buck was coming straight for where I was in hiding, I fully
expected to have the first shot; but while he was still more than a
hundred yards away, and fairly rushing through the water by the force
of his swimming power, and even as I stood behind a tree admiring the
noble fellow, suddenly there came a shot from down the shore and the
moose fell over almost without a struggle, being fairly hit just
under the butt of his big antler. I jumped out on the beach, and
looking in the direction of the report saw my friend Jacob quietly
loading his old flint-lock, a significant smile overspreading his
face. I shouted to him, "If you did take my shot you made a very
good one;" to which he answered, "It was enough for you to have left
us in the race," and thus we were mutually appeased and complimented.
But meanwhile Mark had divested himself of his clothing and was
swimming out to the moose, which he soon towed into the shallow
water, where we all took hold and pulled the immense carcase up the
bank. While Jacob and Mark skinned and cut him up I went back for
our horses. Bringing them up, we packed most of the meat back to the
Mission, and late in the evening again started after our party of
hunters, whom we came up with away down Battle River. Holding an
open-air service and stationing our guards, we went to sleep, and
with the first dawn of day were astir again. Holding a short morning
service, we very soon were jogging down the winding saddle-path which
was but the adoption and endorsation by man of the buffalo-path of
the preceding ages.
In the course of years I have travelled thousands of miles on
buffalo-paths, and often I have wondered at and admired the
instinctive knowledge of engineering skill manifested in the
selection of ground and route made by those wandering herds of wild
cattle. If one was in doubt as to a crossing let him follow the path
of a buffalo. Gladly have I often taken to these in the winter time,
when the snow was deep. Taking off my snow-shoes, I have run behind
my dog-train on the packed trail made by the sharp hoofs of the
migrating buffalo. But alas! as I write these paths are about all
that we have left to remind us that a short time since these vast
plains fairly trembled to the roar and tread of these wonderful herds
of nature's stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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