DRIED SPINACH OR MOOSE STEAK?

By N. Vernon-Wood

From the Bar WB Outfit, Pipestone Creek, Alberta; to Mr. John Lincoln, Wall Street, New York:

DEAR FRIEND:

You’ve heard 47 different varieties of that yarn where the guy shoots the farmer’s cow in mistake for a deer, an’ I guess like me you thought that a bird who’d make a boner like that should see a specialist. Well, I hate to admit it, but I come awful close to gettin’ elected to that club myself.

Last summer, we accumulated another tenderfoot trap in these here hills. It ain’t the usual Dude Ranch deadfall, but just a mess of log cabins by a lake, with a couple of snow peaks in the door yard. It’s run an’ owned by an honest to gosh Marquis, with all the frills of a shootin’ box in the Tyroll, an ‘the deft an sophisticated service”—see advts.—“of a Ducal country home.”

Natchelly there ain’t any place in this scheme for uncouth waddies like Sawback, or me an Jim, so when we have to infest that part of the country, we camp at a respectful distance.

Bout the only times the Markee deigns to be aware of our existence is when his pack string strays, or a couple of his victims get bushed. Then the proletariat are expected to dash madly about, an give a good imitation of the faithful varlets strivin right mightily to discover My Lord his palfreys.

We done it, too, not because we are so neighborly with the aristocracy, but because old Sawback Smith is hired to wrangle, pack, guide, an as general factotum. While he’s a top hand, the noble employer finds so many side lines for Sawback to tend to while he’s restin, we sort of feel it’s up to the commoners to rally round, an not let the Baron get the idee that his man has bit off more than he can chew. On top of that, there’s a right attractive filly holdin down the kitchen at the camp, an the boys ain’t adverse to bein invited to surround a cup of coffee an a wedge of pie before hittin the trail back.

Dave White (Airtights, Gents Furnishin, Hardware, Feed, Harness, and Insurance) shure does a land office business in silk neckerchiefs an ice cream shirts last summer.

Me, I ain’t all het up with enthusiasm about this new spread. The Duke has planted his snare plumb in the middle of a patch of country I’m in the habit of harassin durin the huntin season. He’s got a lease on a township, an is one of these here little brothers of the birds an beasts. While I’m in line with a reasonable amount of conservation, an dead agin killin just to see a beast fall over, I’m also one of the old reactionaries who still figger that game was put in the mountains to provide huntin for men, an mebbe the odd woman. I can’t see eye to eye with the Markee when, as Sawback tells me, he won’t even bump off the saddle chewin porcupine or haze the bears who bust open the meat house ever so often.

The word goes forth that there’s to be no assault, mayhem, or battery committed on any bird, beast, or fish whatsoever on the Duckal domain.

Last fall, I’m on my way to the forks of the Cross, an make camp about a mile from this Ki Wet Tin Ok Camp, as it’s called.

That evenin Sawback drifted over, to hear some talk that wasn’t all cluttered up with French, Latin, Oxford English, an Back Bay American.

Durin the gab fest he tells about a bull moose that’s sort of the star attraction over to the Chalet. He’s got a taste of salt, at the horse lick, an acquired a likin for spud peelins an such. The dudes spent time an miles of fillum takin his picture, an all in all he’s worth quite a price on the hoof to the Markee as a adjunct to the free life of the Far West.

Accordin to Sawback, he’s a roan. You see ’em fairly frequent, a sort of blue roan that’s right pretty. They ain’t so scarce as to be all hopped up about, though.

I thought Sawback looked kinda peeked, an after a while he come out with the reason. A bear has raided the meat house again an the camp is on a diet of dried spinach, powdered eggs, an beans.

“I ain’t throwed my lip over a hunk of beef, pork, or sow belly this two weeks,” he says, “an pretty soon I’ll be turnin myself out to graze with the rest of the cayuses.”

I’m movin camp a few miles down next day, an figger to start huntin just as soon as I am offen the Markee’s pet game preserve, so I tell Sawback that, if I can get any meat, I’ll let him know an he can ride over an snare him a quarter. All I need is enough red steak to do me till I get to the forks, where I hope to bust a sheep. An I’d ruther masticate mountain sheep than anything I know of.

Next evenin, I’m sneakin around the shore of Wedgwood Lake, and just as it’s gettin dusk I spot a moose crossin the shallows at the far end. I wait until he is out of the drink, and plaster him. Openin him up to cool, I leave him lay, an next day I send the wrangler hightailin back to the Duke’s, with word for Sawback to grab him a pack pony an rally round the meat market.

By noon we are at my kill, an when the old waddie sees it he let out a whistle.

“Feller, you don it,” he says. “By the woolly hind quarters of Astor’s pet goat, that’s the Markee’s blue moose. Man, oh, man, if he ever gets onto this he’ll have you racked, thumscrewed, burnt an quartered, an flung into the moat, not to mention pinched, unfrocked, struck offen the rolls, an excommunicated.”

“Aw, coil your rope,” I tell him. “You or your princely employer can’t tell the color of a beast’s hide from the gravy. Load your bronk, an if His Serenity wants to keep his damn pets sacrosanct, let him bell ’em, or fence ’em.”

Just the same, I did feel some egregious.

THANKS FOR THE MAGAZINES an newspapers. Last winter, we was stormbound so much that I learnt all of the Stockman’s Almanac by heart, an most of the Government’s report on grasshopper control. I sure was pinin for a change of thought.

—Yours truly, TEX.

Hunting and Fishing, June 1935, 11