Shovellhorns, the biography of a moose

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Introduction

To those of us who love the woods and the waters it is a matter for congratulation that the most magnificent member of the deer family still spurns mother earth with his cloven hoof, or crashes down through the alders, while the stout bushes play a lively tattoo upon his broad-spreading antlers.

The finest specimens of some of our wild animals are to-day found in fossil rock and are merely suggestive of what the species has been in bygone ages ; but not so our antler crowned king, the moose ; he is more splendid, more terrible, more impetuous now than ever before.

To-day the moose is found in New Brunswick, northern Maine, Canada, Wyoming,

Idaho, British Columbia, Alberta, Minnesota, Manitoba, Athabaska, Yukon and Alaska. He ranges as far south as the parallel of forty-three degrees north latitude, and as far north as the Arctic Circle.

To show how tenaciously he clings to his favorite browsing-grounds, even in the teeth of advancing civilization, which in his case is the steam sawmill, and the rifle, it is merely necessary to glance at his record in Maine, one of the oldest settled states in the Union. Notwithstanding the fact that ten thousand hunters visit the state annually, and in nine years fifteen hundred moose were killed and shipped away, or accounted for in other ways, while as many more were killed and not accounted for, the moose still holds his own in the Pine Tree State. That he is able to do this is eloquent testimony to his cunning and his strength.

The moose-calf is born in April, and by the time he is a year and a half old, in his second autumn, there begins to grow a very insignificant set of antlers, of which he is doubtless more vain than of any that come afterward.

The manner in which these horns are grown is most interesting. They are formed of lime which is supplied from a large artery at the back of the head. All through the spring and summer, there is a continuous flow of blood, carrying lime, to the spot where the first bunch appears.

In regions where the moose are able to secure food which contains a great deal of lime, the horns are larger. This is the case in Alaska, where record-breaking antlers are grown. The horns of the Irish elk, which is similar to our moose, sometimes reach a spread of nine feet, although he is much smaller than the American moose. The weight of a fair-sized moose-calf is seventy-five pounds.

Moose, by the way, is an Indian name, meaning wood-eater, although to the scientist he is an elk, the largest member of the deer family, and not to be confounded with our American elk, or Wapati, which is a much smaller animal, successfully kept in parks and zoos. Nearly all experiments to confine adult moose, as in a park, have failed. The notable exception to this rule is at the Cincinnati park, where a pair have been kept for five years ; but most of the moose seen in parks are small immature animals, perhaps two years old.

The moose is a browser and not a grazer, his neck being too short to permit of grazing, and in confinement, his feed is what worries the keeper. Grass or hay are fatal to him, and all kinds of grain are about as bad. Browse that is cut fresh and thrown to him green, he will eat, but he seems to have need of a great deal of exercise to digest such tough fodder. If he could run thirty or forty miles each morning after breakfast, his digestion would probably be good, even in confinement ; but there is no windfall to breast and no alder thicket to crash through in the park, so he stands idly about and soon sickens and dies.

In large ranges, such as the Corbin Park in New Hampshire, and October Mountain in. western Massachusetts, the moose thrives ; but here his range is hundreds and thousands of acres, so the constraint put upon him is very slight.

The most magnificent specimen of the bull-moose that is known to have come under a tape measure and the results recorded, was shot by Mr. Carl Runguis, the animal painter, in New Brunswick a few years ago. This king of his kind stood just an even seven feet at the shoulders. His girth was eight feet, while the entire length of his head and body was nine feet seven inches. His great homely head alone i8 Shovethoms was two feet nine inches long. The breadth and weight of his antlers were not given, but, to make the picture complete, let us place upon him the finest set of horns extant, now in a museum at Chicago, and we will find that the entire spread of his massive antlers will be seventy-eight inches, supported by a burr five inches in diameter. The weight of this crown, which would burden any but its rightful wearer, is ninety-three and three-fourths pounds. Is it any wonder that as he travels his nose is thrust straight out, and his weighty headgear rests upon his shoulders ?

When you remember that the legs of an adult moose are four feet in length, you will better understand why his head is up among the lower branches of the forest, and how he can so easily rush with great speed through the windfall, over which man crawls slowly in pursuit of this majestic deer.

The coat of the moose is composed of rather coarse hair, smoky gray or rusty brown in appearance, and from three to six inches in length. Along the neck and back is a coarse, bristling mane, which stands erect when the monarch is enraged.

The moose has three peculiarities which look almost like deformities, and at once differentiate him from his wild kindred. These are his long, overhanging, prehensile upper lip, with which he reaches so effectively for lily-pads and browse ; the hump at the shoulders, and his ridiculous little tail, which seems to have been made for some other animal and then stuck upon him by mistake.

But when this mighty lord of the wilderness swings down through the timber, his hoofs clacking like huge castanets, his great antlers laid back upon his shoulders, his breath whistling through his wide-extended nostrils like a small steam-engine, his eyes blazing, his mane bristling, the rage of battle quivering in every muscle and ligament, his peculiarities are forgotten and one swings his hat about his head and shouts for the king, although at the time he may be doing homage from the top of a tree, while the monarch stamps and snorts at the foot.

The bison and the beaver have practically disappeared from the confines of the United States, but this mighty deer still clings tenaciously to four or five states. Men lure him to death with their moose calls ; they track him through the deep snows when he is helpless, and in a score of ways lead him to destruction. But he fights the battle of wilderness cunning, against the artifices of civilization, as no other wild creature can. It is a supreme tribute to his quick wit and to his strength that every moose killed in the state of Maine averages in cost to the hunter six hundred dollars.

King of the Wilderness, I greet thee and pray that before it is too late, legislators and all who love primitive nature unspoiled by the ruthless hand of greedy man, will arouse themselves to the necessity of protecting thy crown of horns, before we lose forever the last priceless heritage of the red man, his tall, striding moose.

CHAPTER I A CALL IN THE STARLIGHT Shovelhorns

CHAPTER I

A CALL IN THE STABLIGHT

On a perfect autumn night, the waters of Lake Lonely, in northern New Brunswick, are as smooth as a mirror and as transparent as glass. So still it is that it might well be the abode of the Great Spirit, which is the Indian tradition concerning Lake George.

The only sounds that disturb the stillness are the demoniacal laughter of a loon, the occasional peeping of a hyla, or the sudden splash of a great trout as he jumps for some night-moth or fly.

It was upon such a night as this that out of the dim depths of the mysterious woods there came a tall, strident, dingy, gray figure, seemingly clumsy and awkward, but moving as furtively and silently as a shadow. When the tall stranger emerged into the full moonlight, wading knee-deep in the water, and began cropping lily-pads, there was revealed the rather grotesque form of a cow-moose, which suffers considerably in comparison with the bull-moose, unless he is minus his antlers, the crown of his splendor.

But even this old cow was a magnificent figure as she lifted her head, towering to her full height to sniff the night-wind.

At the shoulder she was as high as a tall man, over six feet. Her head was massive and its long prehensile upper lip seemed almost like a deformity until one saw her reaching for lily-pads or browse. Then it was seen to be most admirably adapted to its purpose.

Man in his ignorance sometimes smiles at the seeming grotesqueness of nature's handiwork, but when he sees the ridiculed member doing the work that nature intended, a sudden silence falls upon him and the marvel of it all is apparent.

Just at the old cow's shoulders was a good-sized hump, which also added to her ungainly appearance. Toward the hind quarters she sloped away considerably, and her tail was another of nature's practical jokes, for it was very short and insignificant for so large an animal.

Suddenly, upon the stillness, from the other side of the lake, sounded a long, deep-chested bellow, which terminated in a high crescendo ; — just about such a sound as one often h^ars from the chest of a great Durham, only this bawl was more prolonged and not so mellow.

The old cow listened intently until the sound died away and then fell to cropping lily-pads again. Soon the call was repeated with more insistence, more pathos, and more entreaty, £^nd this time she answered with a kindred bawl.

Then from the opposite side of the lake was heard a faint crashing and thrashing in the underbrush, as though some animal of gigantic stature was making his way through the woods in hot haste.

It was nearly half a mile across the lake, and three-quarters around the end ; and judging from the thrashing in the underbrush, and an occasional pleading bellow, which said as plainly as such a harsh reverberating sound could say, "I am coming, wait for me," the great antlered king of the wilderness sought his mate.

But the old cow, with true feminine perverseness, after plainly intimating by her answering calls that she would wait, loped off into the woods, so that when the mighty broad-antlered king of the forest rushed, blowing and snorting, to the point where the cow had been feeding a moment before, his prospective mate had vanished, and the lake was shimmering in silent loneliness.

After blowing and pawing about for a few seconds, the wilderness monarch thrashed off through the bushes after the wayward cow, and, following the instinct of his kind, he went in the right direction.

Thirty or forty rods from the lake, his keen ear caught the snapping of a twig not far ahead and he slowed down to a cautious trot. As the eager bull drew near to a thicket from which the sounds came, he was treated to a genuine surprise, for at the moment he hesitated at the edge of the cover, a second bull, almost as gigantic as himself, charged forth upon him.

Here, then, was the secret of the waywardness of the old cow. There was a rival in the field.

Blowing and snorting with rage, he met the newcomer and the impact of their broad antlers rang out with a harsh, hard sound through the forest.

For a second neither yielded ground, but the strength of the great bull was too much for his rival. Fighting desperately, he was borne back into the thicket from which he had emerged.

Saplings bent and broke with a loud report as the battle swayed from point to point. There were hoarse bellows of rage, snapping of teeth and the terrible impact of sharp-cutting hoofs. Foam dripped from their muzzles and their breathing was in quick, hard gasps.

Suddenly, as though worsted, the great bull gave ground, stepping aside as his adversary lunged at him. This exposed his rival's broadside, and as he passed, he raked him mercilessly across the back and flank with his heavy antlers, drawing blood in several places. One deep cut gaped open to the bone.

A Call in the Startighi 31

The stratagem was new to the younger bull, but he was not daunted and charged valiantly back at his adversary. This time, being enraged with his impudence, the old champion of many battles met him squarely and bore him back through the bushes, fighting desperately.

Again and again the old bull broke down his defense and gashed his shoulders and sides with his horns, but he was game and contested every rod of the ground.

Gradually the bending and thrashing and breaking of the saplings drew near to the lake. Clearly it was now a running fight, for suddenly the courage of the larger bull seemed to collapse, and he broke from the cover and plunged into the water. The victor contented himself with standing upon the bank, snorting and stamping in mighty rage. Swiftly the form of the vanquished bull slipped away, and in a few minutes only his nose and antlers showed like a mere speck far out in the middle of the lake.

When he had satisfied himself that his love-making would not he again disturbed that night by the stranger, the bull went back to the thicket where the old cow waited his coming.

In the wilderness, as in civilized communities, " to the victor belong the spoils." He had conquered his rival, and henceforth the allegiance of this particular moose-cow was his. The vanquished bull might seek a mate in other regions, but if he was wise he would not again invade his domain.

For a month or six weeks the old cow and her spring calf with the conquering bull came and went about Lake Lonely and in among the foothills of the more rugged adjacent country.

During the last week in October, a canoe containing two persons and a camping outfit was pushed into the stream, known as

Indian River. This river had its source in this picturesque New Brunswick lake, and the wilderness hunter and his guide began the arduous task of forcing the canoe up the stream.

They were in no hurry, however, and camped and hunted by the way, so it was nearly a week later when they drew the canoe upon the bank at the source of the stream, which was at the lower end of Lake Lonely.

They soon had their tent pitched and a camp-fire burning. Half an hour's fishing in the lake gave them all the trout they could eat in two days and it was with contented minds that they smoked their evening pipes before the camp-fire and told stories of the wilderness and big game.

The hunter was a stalwart young fellow from the city, who always spent his vacations in the big woods, muscular and athletic and a great talker.

The guide was an old Scotchman who had grown gray, swinging the paddle and handling the rifle. He was tall and spare, with a quick alert manner and a step as light as that of a cat. His face was so tanned and sunburned that his wrinkled skin was about the color of leather. His habitual expression was solemn, almost funereal, but his keen blue eyes often twinkled humorously under his shaggy eyebrows. His words were very few and usually cynical, but if one really wanted to know what he thought, he had merely to watch his eyes, for he often said one thing, and meant quite another.

Whenever he took a new man into the woods he always cautioned him about handling his rifle carefully. His rule in this particular was as effective as it was astonishing.

" Now, mon," he would say, pointing one skinny finger at the would-be Nimrod,

''dinny pump lead in every direction. This is serious beesness and no Fourth of July picnic, and by the livin' God if ye shoot me instead uv a buck, I'll return lead for lead, if there's a breath of life left in me. I dinny want to murder you, mon, so be careful."

This rule for two had the desired effect and men who hunted with Sandy McPherson never did any accidental shooting, but occasionally a rather nervous individual refused to agree to such an arrangement and sought another guide, saying that he did not care " to hunt with a madman."

The following afternoon the guide carefully cut a section of bark about three feet long from a small birch and skilfully fashioned it into a sort of megaphone or horn. One never would have imagined, had he not seen it done, that so symmetrical a horn could have been made from such rough material.

After supper they sat about the camp-fire for an hour, waiting for darkness, but as there was a full moon and the stars were so thick that the heavens seemed almost luminous, not much was gained by waiting. Finally they pushed the canoe into the water and paddled silently to the upper end of the lake. They kept close to the shore and went as much as possible in the shadows cast by overhanging trees on the water, which under the magic touch of moonbeams and starlight and with the heavens plainly mirrored in the depths beneath, seemed almost phosphorescent.

Once when the canoe brushed against a bunch of reeds near shore, a duck gave a frightened quack and rising in air flopped away to a distant part of the lake. Again, they heard the soft winnowing of wings as a flock of night voyagers flew by overhead, uttering occasional soft quacks as they went. Now and then an old bullfrog croaked feebly in the pickerel grass near the bank, but most of the frogs had lost their enthusiasm these chilly autumn evenings. With them spring is the time to sing and to court. Now they would soon be sleeping in their mud-beds at the bottom of the lake, or under the dead leaves along shore.

Having reached the point which he had in mind, the guide ran the canoe under the lee of some alder bushes and tied her.

It was a fine vantage-ground from which to command the lake. At their back was a bluflF thirty or forty feet high and so steep that no quarry would approach from that direction. To the right and left they commanded both banks of the lake which were sandy and quite open.

The high bank would help keep the breeze from carrying their scent, even with the wind behind them, while the moon also at their backs lit the lake almost as bright as day, leaving them in the shadow under the bluff.

"Ideal spot," whispered the young hunter.

The guide chuckled. "The Lord must hev had moose-calling in mind when He struck it out," he whispered back.

Slowly filling his lungs, as though for a long swim under water, the guide lifted the birch-bark horn to his lips and from its bell sent forth such a deep-toned and mighty bellow, so sustained, so enormous in volume, that the young man in his astonishment said, " G-whiz," in his ordinary tone of voice.

" Shut up, will you," hissed the guide ; " sound carries an awful ways on a night like this."

Down the lake the deep-toned bellow rolled. The foothills on each side caught it up and tossed it back and forth in three distinct echoes. Finally it died away into a faint thia wave of sound, just as the wave^ die on the lake when a pebble is cast into the water.

After a minute or so the hills again reverberated with the resonant far-reaching call. This time it ended in three or four deep guttural grunts.

An owl, high up in a pine at the top of the bluff, set up a most unearthly screeching and laughter, just as though he alone saw through the little game and thought the joke too good to keep.

"I wish he'd shut up," whispered the hunter.

" He won't do no harm," returned the guide, " but if a loon should see us he would tell everybody within hearing. The loon is a maist uncanny bird."

For nearly two hours the moose-callers stayed in their place of hiding under the bluff, practicing their deceitful art upon Lake Lonely and the surrounding wilderness,

To the young hunter the silences that followed the periodic calls were like no other stillness he had ever felt. His nerves were keyed to the highest pitch, and his ear-drums strained almost to the burstingpoint, but listen as he would he heard no answering challenge that night.

At last when the patience of the young hunter was exhausted, they turned the bow of the canoe toward camp and paddled silently back.

" Didn't have much luck, did we ? " said the younger man as they disembarked.

" Oh, I denno, mon," replied old Sandy. "Maybe we did, and maybe we didn't. Moose-calling is maist uncertain business. But I tell ye one thing. If you shoot a bull-moose this trip you will larn patience, mon, if you don't anything else."

For five days the two campers lingered about Lake Lonely. In the daytime they fished, hunted partridge, and looked for

A Call in the Starlight ^i

moose signs ; in the evening they practiced the art of moose-calling.

The fifth day of their sojourn they were rewarded for their patience by finding fresh moose signs in a little run about two miles from the head of the lake.

" Mon," said Sandy, pointing to a fresh track of enormous size in the moist earth, " there's your bull and if you get him, he will be the biggest bull that has gone out of this region in years. He's been away on a journey and has just got back, or we would have seen signs of him before."

The city hunter was all excitement and to his keen imagination the head and horns of the bull-moose already loomed up big in the window of the store where he worked.

By eight o'clock that evening they were once more located in their old hiding-place under the bluff, sounding the defiant challenge of a belligerent bull. One hour went by and two, and the hopes of the young hunter, which had been high earlier in the evening, were at a low ebb. At last when they were just considering giving up for that night, faint and far away among the foothills they heard their challenge answered. The rival must have been two miles away, but there was no mistaking his deep-chested bellow of defiance.

Again the guide inflated his lungs, puffed out his cheeks and made answer. For five minutes there was absolute silence, then the foothills again echoed with a belligerent bellow, this time much nearer. Once more the guide made good with an equally sonorous bawl ending in a crescendo of direst rage.

The advancing moose seemed to take this as a sort of disparagement of his own valor, for while he had hitherto advanced cautiously, he now crashed through the underbrush like a cyclone, snorting and blowing as he came.

When almost down to the sand-bar at tho edge of the lake, he stopped just in the outer fringe of the cover, and for five minutes the lake was as still as though forsaken by all forms of life. The frogs ceased their croaking and the night-birds their cries. It was as though all the spectators of this night tragedy waited breathlessly to see the next move.

" He is suspicious," whispered Sandy, " but I guess I can start him." Again he lifted the birch-bark trumpet and woke the stillness with a bellow, prolonged and menacing, full of defiance and rage.

The young man's heart gave a great bound of 'exultation and the rifle came to his shoulder as the real monarch of Lake Lonely crashed through the underbrush on to the sandspit, snorting and blowing, his kingly head high in air, his eyes burning like coals, his mane erect upon his neck, and every inch of his mighty frame quivering with the rage of battle,

A moment he stood there in the full moonlight, clearly outlined against the thicket from which he had emerged ; regal with his mighty antler crown, the king of all the deer and nature's rightful sovereign of the northern wilderness. Then the forty-five calibre rifle in the hunter's hand belched fire and its detonating thunder filled the night with the crack of doom.

The king of Lake Lonely gave a quick, convulsive spring, but midway in air his brain refused to control his mighty muscles and he collapsed and fell sprawling and kicking, like a creature in which the life principle is strong and dies hard.

It was not until a second bullet, hurtled across the lake, had struck him fairly in the chest, that he ceased his struggles and lay still. Even in death, as the hunters found him, when they had paddled to the spot, he was still the antler-crowned monarch of the wilderness.

As inanimate as a fallen oak he lay, but his mighty stature still proclaimed him the colossus of the woods, although life had left him.

A month later the massive antlers were indeed in the show-window of the New York drug store, properly mounted and fastened to a portion of the bull's skull, which had been brought away for the purpose. The trophy was admired by all, but to any one who had seen him in his native wilderness, it was incomplete, for the picture was without its frame. The jewel had fallen from its setting, and as for Lake Lonely it was lonelier than ever, as the sorrowing moose-cow well knew.

For about four weeks the solitary old moose-cow and her last spring's calf lingered about Lake Lonely. For the first few days after the disappearance of the great bull, she wandered hither and thither, calling and calling, and then listening for the deep, far-reaching bellow that she knew so well ; but the only response was the mocking echo that played pranks among the foothills about the lake.

In the meanwhile the crisp, brown leaves fluttered down from the scrub-oak and the more gorgeous ones from the maple. The aspen and the poplar, the beech and the basswood were entirely bare. But with the waning glory of the old year, the stag-horn sumac, and the mountain-ash, the juniper, and the bittersweet, put on glorious red and crimson berries that shone with all the more dazzling brightness, because the rest of the wilderness had put off its regal splendor and donned the sober grays and browns in anticipation of coming snow.

With each week that passed, the north wind freshened and became more boisterous, for he knew that his hour was at hand. Each night he danced a jig in the denuded trees, causing their branches to rub complainingly together, while the boisterous roister whistled through the leafless twigs in uncontrollable glee.

Late in November the first snowfall came. Great feathery, drifting, floating flakes zigzagged down through the clear, crisp air almost as waywardly as thistle-down.

About this time the old cow allied herself to a small moose-herd that came into the vicinity of Lake Lonely. This was partly for company and also that she and her calf might enjoy the protection and advantage of the moose-yard during the coming winter. Nearly all the members of the deer family are gregarious, and at certain times of the year associate together in herds, both for mutual protection and also that their united strength may combat the ever sifting, drifting snows which are a serious menace even to the strongest and most intrepid member of the family, the moose.

This herd was a small one, consisting of a bull, a cow, a six-months-old calf, and the last year's calf, now a year and a half old. The leader was a large, broad-antlered moose of perhaps six years, and to his wisdom and woodcraft all looked for food and safety.

They lingered about the lake until it was apparent that the winter had set in in earnest; then the lordly bull led his little, silent, gray-brown procession twenty miles down Indian River, into a densely wooded region, where two smaller streams entered the larger one, which they were following. Here they took up winter-quarters.