The first night out from Vermilion we made camp after dark and, on waking, found that in our blankets we had lain directly across four new bear-tracks.  Moose-tracks are plentiful at every stopping-place, so we see to it that both guns and camera are primed.  At eight next morning we pass Not-in-a-gu Seepee.  Some Indians hail us, asking for tea, and from these we learn that ten families who made this their winter camp last season bagged eighty moose among them.

At half-past two our chance came.  To get away from the noise of the engine, the Kid and I had moved our work directly after breakfast to a flour-laden scow that we had in tow, and I was dictating this story to the machine when the sharp eyes of Showan in the distance spied a moose.  He was on the shore cropping willows.  It had been generously agreed that if opportunity offered at a moose the shot was to be mine, so in excited whispers the news is telegraphed to our end of the scow and my rifle is handed up.  The fireman slows up on the engine, but still its throbbing sounds distressingly loud as we creep up on the feeding moose and scan the lay of the land, calculating his chances of escape.  The banks are high,—­perhaps one hundred and fifty feet—­and sheer, but there are two gullies which afford runway to the bench above.  What an ungainly creature he looks as we draw in nearer, all legs and clumsy head,—­a regular grasshopper on stilts!  He reminds me of nothing so much as those animals we make for the baby by sticking four matches into a sweet biscuit.  And now at last he sees us.  I fire, and the shot just grazes his spine.  Will he take to a gully?  No, he plunges into the river instead and we follow him up in the little tug.  One more shot is effective, and I have killed my premier moose.  “Cruel!” you say.  Well, just you live from mid-May to mid-September without fresh meat, as, with the exception of Vermilion’s flesh-pots, we have done, and then find out if you would fly in the face of Providence when the Red Gods send you a young moose!  To illuminate the problem I transcribe the menu of one sample week of the summer.

[Illustration:  My Premier Moose]

This is the literal “dope sheet” of the camp cook: 

Monday:—­Dried caribou and rice.

Tuesday:—­Salt fish and prunes.

Wednesday:—­Mess-pork and dried peaches.

Thursday:—­Salt horse and macaroni.

Friday:—­Sow-belly and bannock.

Saturday:—­Blue-fish and beans.

Sunday:—­Repeat.

Dragged ashore, the moose proved to be a male of two prongs, about eighteen months old, and weighed perhaps four or five hundred pounds.  A full-grown moose of this country will sometimes dress half a ton.  We are to learn that there are many viewpoints from which to approach a moose.  The Kid wants its photograph, Chiboo and Mrs. Gaudet each eloquently argue for the skin, the rest of us are gross enough to want to eat it, and Se-li-nah, looking demurely off into the pines, murmurs gently in Cree, “Marrow is nice.”  Poor young stripling of the Royal House of Moose, you could not have fallen into more appreciative hands!