We drew near the quarry. He was a noble animal. The Sioux regarded him with looks of pride. It was a stalk well done; it had been a triumph fairly gained over an animal remarkable over all the wild animals of the North American forest for cunning and sagacity.
And now as we waited for the Iroquois, I had fully explained to me the tactics I had just witnessed. When the time for lying down comes, in the early dawn, the moose selects a safe spot to the leeward side of the trail he has followed; in fact, he retraces his trail for some distance before deviating from it. He takes up his resting-place for the day, guided by instinct to select a spot from which he can catch the wind of any person following his footsteps. To defeat this excessive caution was the object of those curious lines of approach taken by the Sioux; each time he came out within sight of the line on which he knew that the moose was to be looked for in some adjoining thicket. Thus each brake had been scanned. To have followed the trail would have been to have given the animal warning of our approach. It was only by cautiously examining all possible lurking-places from behind them, i. e. to leeward of them, that the result we have seen could be attained.
The work of skinning and cutting up the moose was now proceeded with. The distance from the camp was not far, and while the Sioux made ready the carcase, I went back along our track to bring the dogs for the meat. When I got back from the camp with the sleds all was ready. Skin, marrow-bones, and meat were all packed away, and before the low-set sun had touched the pine-tops in the west we were back again in our camp.
It was a grand feast that evening for both dogs and men. We sat long in the red light of the fire, frying the delicious marrow-bones, and toasting rich bits of meat. The Iroquois looked the picture of content. He had had a hard time of it for some weeks he told us; his gun had not shot straight; the moose had been wild, the days calm; but now plenty had come, and he seemed determined to make up for past misfortunes. He spoke English fairly well.
“White Brother,” he said to me, amid one of the pauses in our repast, “these are the happy moments in our lives; these are the moments which, when we think of them in civilization, draw us out again into the wilds. Months of hunger and cold are forgotten in a day such as we have spent to-day.”
“But,” said I, “you are a stranger here; your people dwelt far away beyond the great lakes, where the white man’s cities now cover the land, and where the rivers are furrowed by the wheels of his fire-boats.”
“Yes,” he answered, “that was my home, and a remnant of my race still dwell by the shores, of the St. Lawrence; but for me it would not do. I came here twenty years ago, a youth, in the canoe of a trader. I have lived in these woods and prairies ever since. In my own land I was a stranger, in this strange land I found myself at home.”
Next morning the return march to the hut was begun. The Iroquois formed one of our party. We moved over the snow-clad wilderness in silence. Red Cloud was busily engaged in forming plans by which we might hope to elude the designs of his enemies. The Iroquois, always reserved and taciturn, moved along wrapped in his blanket, silent and impassive; and I felt in no humour to break in upon the plans or meditations of my companions.
Darkness had quite fallen when the dogs, tired by the weight of the moose meat which they were hauling, came in sight of the hollow in which the hut lay. Then the weary load grew light in anticipation of home, and, pulling vigorously at the traces, the fire-lit doorway of the little hut was soon reached.