The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 09, July, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 09, July, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Here, about two o'clock, we turned up a small branch three or four rods
wide, which comes in on the right from the south, called Pine Stream, to
look for moose signs. We had gone but a few rods before we saw very recent
signs along the water's edge, the mud lifted up by their feet being quite
fresh, and Joe declared that they had gone along there but a short time
before. We soon reached a small meadow on the east side, at an angle in
the stream, which was for the most part densely covered with alders. As we
were advancing along the edge of this, rather more quietly than usual,
perhaps, on account of the freshness of the signs,--the design being to
camp up this stream, if it promised well,--I heard a slight crackling of
twigs deep in the alders, and turned Joe's attention to it; whereupon he
began to push the canoe back rapidly; and we had receded thus half a dozen
rods, when we suddenly spied two moose standing just on the edge of the
open part of the meadow which we had passed, not more than six or seven
rods distant, looking round the alders at us. They made me think of great
frightened rabbits, with their long ears and half-inquisitive, half-
frightened looks; the true denizens of the forest, (I saw at once,)
filling a vacuum which now first I discovered had not been filled for me,
--_moose-_men, _wood-eaters_, the word is said to mean,--clad in a sort of
Vermont gray, or homespun. Our Nimrod, owing to the retrograde movement,
was now the farthest from the game; but being warned of its neighborhood,
he hastily stood up, and, while we ducked, fired over our heads one barrel
at the foremost, which alone he saw, though he did not know what kind of
creature it was; whereupon this one dashed across the meadow and up a high
bank on the north-east, so rapidly as to leave but an indistinct
impression of its outlines on my mind. At the same instant, the other, a
young one, but as tall as a horse, leaped out into the stream, in full
sight, and there stood cowering for a moment, or rather its
disproportionate lowness behind gave it that appearance, and uttering two
or three trumpeting squeaks. I have an indistinct recollection of seeing
the old one pause an instant on the top of the bank in the woods, look
toward its shivering young, and then dash away again. The second barrel
was levelled at the calf, and when we expected to see it drop in the
water, after a little hesitation, it, too, got out of the water, and
dashed up the hill, though in a somewhat different direction. All this was
the work of a few seconds, and our hunter, having never seen a moose
before, did not know but they were deer, for they stood partly in the
water, nor whether he had fired at the same one twice or not. From the
style in which they went off, and the fact that he was not used to
standing up and firing from a canoe, I judged that we should not see
anything more of them. The Indian said that they were a cow and her calf,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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