Morning journal and courier., 1886-07-24
A Yarn of the Moose Hunt.

Yarn of the Moose Hunt. One day this week Nathan B. Moore, o1 Bingham, came into the Lewiston (Me.,
 Journal office in company with one of his old friends, a Lewiston amateur hunter, and remained long enough to spin few yarns of the moose hunt and leave behind him an en. vious longing for the woods. /
 MT. Moore is si1ty-eight years old. He is
 thin and poor, with gray hair and beard and
 walks as though he had carried many bur-
 den. He is, however, as active today as he
 was thirty years ago and as much at home in
 the woods as ever. His days of steady
 hunting are over now, for his boys have
 grown up and have scattered and his good
 wife dou't want him to be alone in the woods
 or tending the traps. He has been at it six
 ty years. He began when he was seven. His
 father used to take him out along the line of
 traps and let him tend him. If any big
 "critter' had been trapped he used to run
 back and find his father. Think of your
 seven-year-old baby alone in the forests
 where bears and wild cats are half as thick
 as the spruce trees. When one of the big
 traps was found sprung he had to find his 1 father, and often It was no easy matter for l the little fellow to find his way back home
 again. Perhaps you think this IS easy. Try
 it sometime, and in the painless forest with
 dimmed sun above, you are liable not to l know whether you are standing on your head
 or feet, or whether your right arm is your right arm or your left leg. Ever since these 1 early days he has been hunter and a trap per, & farmer and guide, and has an honor
 able record at each of them. He has always l been at Bingham near the "Forks." He has l already killed his two hundred and seventy 1 fifth moose. He hopes to kill his three l hundredth, and as the present law permits l only one moose year to be killed by any person, his only hope is that he will kill 1 moose in his ninety-third year and in all the years that intervene. He hasn't kept any run of his bear hunts or of his slaughter of l carbon and deer. Nowadays he never goes l on hunt, because it is not worth while to start out for only one moose. He reckons a | moose as the noblest game in the woods of | Maine, and fondly believes that at their pres ent rate ot increase the Maine woods will | again be alive with them.
 | We begged MT. Moore to relate good sto- | ry, if he had one in his 1arder, of how he | was at one time or another nearly killed by ! moose at bay, and with many misgivings MT. | Moore related good story of narrow | cape in the forests near the forks of the Ken | nebec.
 'T was out moose hunting once several years ago." said Mr. Moore. sI had | companion and just before night we tracked | two moose on the light snow into 8 yard we'll up the mountain. It was getting too | dark to hunt, so we went back and camped | for the night. The morning was excellent, l for light snow had fallen. We started on
 as soon we could and came up to them l in about an hour or two. Both of them | were up hill from when we first saw them
 one being about fifty rods from the other 1 They saw about as we saw l them. The bull moose started straight down the hillside, while the COW moose 1 made an angle so as to meet him about at | the foot of the bill. l never saw an animal go as the bull moose did. Half down the side of the hill was big spruce that had been feled across the edge of rock so that between the edge of the rock and the tree there was a space of several inches. The moose was going fastest at this point, and just here l saw him catch and go over in the air and strike broadside on the snow. He got up quick and made for the foot of the hiil leaping a rod at leap. Twerty five rods farther he went into the yard and turned. I fired and he fell, thrashing his head. On going up to him saw that his foreleg as big as a tea ket- tie and all smashed to flinders, with pieces of bone sticking out. I then saw what made him jump and leap so coming down hill. He had caught his leg in the spruce and had broken it.
 "We then left him and went after the COW. We found her where she had slipped,
 
 down there is hard beaten road that the moose makes She had left no track on this, but a little farther on found where she had gone on and we followed. A little ahead of we heard the dogs bark aud we knew they were on the moose We found her in an open place two rods wide, surrounded by thick cedars and pine. Near her were the mooses beds. They never lie i'll the same place but once. The snow being soft their warm bodies melt it, and after they rise the melted snow freezes into ice and is too hard for comfortable bed after that. Beyond the icy places where they had laid an 'open,' with the snow from eight to ten inch es thick.
 "We went into the thicket and threw down our gun cases and made for her. 1 settled myself along the road that led into the open place where the moose stood at bay. The dogs made for her and she came out. I never saw 8 COW moose so ugly before. She was terribly mad. Her eyes glared, her brstles were all on end, her ears were laid back. It is not often that you see such sight. Bad business, said 1 to myself, if that critter gets at us.'
 "A funny thing now happened. Instead of making for the dogs, as in nine cases out of ten a moose always does, she made for me. I was in the middle of the road, wear ing snowshees, and had dropped on one knee with my rifle over my arm waiting. I knew if I got a good sight at her and my gun went she was as good as dead, for in those days I missed nothing. I waited until could see the little mark to shoot at on her breast and I pulled the trigger. There was no report. The hammer fell with a dull sound and the next minute had risen to my feet and was going down the hard road with the moose coming at rod at jump.
 ''Just then the other man fired and broke the moose's fore leg.
 ''IU didn't stop her even for minute. She jumped wilder than ever after me.
 nnan1np moose beds. If I could cross them and reach the snow could run away from her on my snow shoes, but there was great danger in crossing the icy beds where the moose had been lying of being tripped and of falling. It would have been death to fall under the moose's fore feet.
 q made for the opening though and it was the awfullest run I ever made. I could touch the oHtter's nose once just as struck the snow. Once her fore foot hit my snow shoe behind and almost tripped me. I won by six inches and once in the snow she gave up the chase and turned back
 q looked at my rife and found that dry twig had caught over the tube and had broken the force of the hammer and had made it fail me.
 "We killed the moose five minutes after ward" in dream. He was hunting with Captain Fernald of Wilton and party of other gen. tlemen. They were in camp at Pierce Pond. It was one Sunday night. He dreamed he s1ong, black sided fellow'' coming down the shores of Fierce Pond where they were in camp.
 Before week, gentlemen said he, five | will see something to remind me of my | dream" .-
 The next day he went down to the pond | after water. Up the lake he saw his ''long, | black-sided fellow' coming down the pond l He watched. At first he couldn't say wheth- 1 CT it was bear or a moose. By and by the | horns lifted from the water. He went into | camp and told them. They laughed and said | it was another dream. MT. Moore took two ] rifles, went out and with one shot brought | the moose low upon the bank of the pond, | where he lay thrashing his head in the wa | ter. The gentlemen in the camp then came | ont and looked. The moose was the biggest l ever shot by MT. Moore He weighed four 1 teen hundred pounds. 1