The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1911-09-14
THE WOODS WILL SOON Be FULL OF
HUNTING PARTIES
Game is Plentiful and Deer Are Very Tame
Moose Frequently Seen

seeking possible aid We didn't tell
him how near to being past all aid
he had come, and | guess he never
knew it. But never again, and / have
hunted almost everywhere where
there are woods since then, have
failed TO follow the rule never TO fire
at anything in the woods, no matter
how positive | might be Of its identi-
ty. until / had seen something tangi-
bic that would put that identity be-
yond all doubt.
1T WAS a startling instance of how
isolation and distance in the woods
and absence of all human habitation
are not a guarantee that one is the
only person abroad that led Nat Moore
to make the VOW He was oat
hunting moose in January. The snow
was what moose hunters call shoal
and light, a condition so unfaYorable
that Nat believed no one else would
have yentured out to run down a
moose in it.
He started a moose and followed
it eight miles straight into the very
depth of a wilderness that was deep
enough for all purposes at the start.
AS the moose came out of thicket
Nat saw it go up little rise of ground
about 20 rods ahead of him. He tried
to pull the case of his rife off, bat it
WIS frozen on, and by the time he
got it off the moose was going 3Yer
the knoll Nat hurried to the top of
the knoll
AT the foot of it, on the opposite
size and about so rods away, was a
narrow spruce thicket into which the
moose had gone not more than min
ute ahead of the hunter, who hurried
on to the thicket. In a clump of high
bushes he caught a glimpse of the
moose, to him as plain as day. 1t Was
as black as a bear, he said, and he
put his rifle to his face and took good
aim.
I could hit a quarter every time
a good deal further away than that
patch of moose was Nat Moore said,
relating the incident, and so there
wasn't any doubt but that I'd hit the
mark. | pulled on the trigger two
thirds hard enough to drop the ham
mer. when | thought of a resolve
had made never to shoot until | knew
beyond a doubt what | was shooting
at, although in this case | thought
there WAS about as much probability
OF another man being anywhere in
that wilderness just then as there
was of the United States army marcr-
ing through it. But | stepped three
steps to one side. which would any
how give me a better and surer shot
than from where | stood, and there
in place of the moose stood mani"
Fifteen feet on the other side Of
the man was a tote road, and this
man happened to be as courageous i
woodsman as Nat himself was and he
was out looking after moose. He had
come along there in the road just af
ter Nat moose had passed through
and on and had stepped out of the
road to look at the tracks the moose
had made in the snow. Any one but
Nat Moore | guess, would instantly
have dropped in his tracks overcome
by the narrow escape from killing
fellow being he had had, but Nat kept
right on after the moose and killed ii
on the ridge 100 yards further on
Then the relapse came and so aear
to collapse did it bring the hunter,
neryy IS he was, that the man he he'd
Just missed killing for moose had
to help him back to his cabin.
Then Nat Moore took a vow neYhr
to break the rule that would insure
the life and safety Of others in the
woods against his gun, and he never
did, although he lost the chance of
bagging many a moose caribou, deer
and bear by adhering to 1t. Every
hunter who lives up to that rule has
had many similar and aggrayating
losses of game. but he has never kill
ed or wounded any person on the pre-
sumption that because he saw a
movement or heard a noise in the
woods it was made by deer or bear
or a rabbit"