“We must wait here,” Ganawa advised, “so he will get over being scared.” And as the hunters stood and looked around, they saw that the evening before the moose had fed freely on poplar and birch brush close by, and had then selected a well-sheltered bed behind a thicket of spruce, where he had been apparently lying down all night.
After an hour’s rest, the hunters again took up the trail, and they found that the moose had soon slowed down to a walk.
Early in the afternoon the moose suddenly appeared in plain view, as the hunters peered [[209]]over a ridge. There he stood, a fine young bull moose, feeding on some willows. By crawling a few rods westward behind the ridge, Ganawa approached within thirty yards and brought down his game with one carefully aimed shot. Ganawa carried an old Hudson Bay smooth-bore gun, and he seldom fired at moose or deer at a longer range.
There he stood, a fine young bull moose, feeding on some willows.—Page 209.
Lead and powder were so very expensive to the old-time Indians that they could not afford the wild shooting of many present-day white hunters, but were compelled to stalk their game until they had approached within close range.
The hunters set to work at once to dress their game, but the afternoon was well advanced when the meat was cut up and hung up in trees out of reach of the wolves. Certain choice parts they had laid aside for a big hunters’ feast: The tongue, a piece of the stomach which makes excellent tripe, the kidneys, a piece of liver and some choice fat steak and a piece of suet. The hunters had [[210]]walked some ten miles; they had not eaten fresh moose meat for weeks and they felt ravenously hungry.
In a very short time there would be meat broiled, meat fried, and meat boiled, and they would have a feast such as only hungry hunters and explorers ever enjoy.
So busy had the boys been cutting out the meat and hanging it up in trees that they had not noticed a change in the weather. And now a great disappointment was in store for them. Ganawa climbed up on a big rock and pointed toward the northwest. “Look, my sons,” he said earnestly. “Do you see the black clouds? They will bring snow and a big, cold wind; and very soon it will be dark. Take up the meat for our feast and follow me. We must walk fast to find a good shelter, or we shall freeze to death. This ridge and the small bushes will give us no shelter in a storm and no wood for our fire.” [[211]]