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Updated: June 22, 2025
After Mustagan had pushed in the pole two or three times and found nothing but the ordinary snow, which was being rapidly dug away, he at length struck against something hard, which was about fifteen feet in from the end of the now long tunnel. When the dogs came in for their last loads Mustagan pulled out the pole and let the dogs put their noses to the opening.
The natives were always delighted to see the boys, and utilised what little English they possessed in order to impart to them as much information as possible. The visits to Big Tom and Mustagan were always a great pleasure.
Said Big Tom, who was a famous moose hunter, and who had listened to Mustagan with a good deal of interest and some amusement: "Let me have that horn, and I will show you how it ought to be done. You boys watch the woods and be ready to run."
So intently was she watching the battle that she had not the slightest suspicion of the presence of these hunters. This was a new complication. What was to be done? If possible she must be killed. The meat of a cow moose is very much superior to that of the bull. Gliding past the boys like a panther went Big Tom from the front to consult with Mustagan, who was at the rear.
Quietly and quickly was a gun lifted up, and with a word to the men, to steady, with their paddles, the canoe in which Mustagan was seated, he fired, and the report was followed by the plunge of the body of a great deer, as he fell headlong in the water not thirty yards away.
So, unsuspected, they watched the strange antics of these animals, until suddenly the reports of a couple of guns rang out, and then up sprang both Mustagan and Paulette and dashed down to the foot of the tree, loudly calling to the rest of the party to quickly follow.
"Be careful," said Mustagan, "as you move around among the apparently dead ones. Wolves are most treacherous brutes, and sometimes badly wounded ones will feign to be dead when very far from it. By doing this they hope to escape the extra bullet or fatal blow of the axe that would quickly finish them.
Mustagan had taken the precaution to bring along some torches which he had specially made. The principal materials of them were rolls of birch bark saturated in balsam gum. The gum had been boiled down, and otherwise so prepared, that when ignited it made a most brilliant light and yet emitted but little smoke. At length the diggers came to a wall of icy snow, which was very close and hard.
On the contemplated trip Mr Ross decided that, in addition to some younger Indians, he would take with him two old, experienced men, who were perhaps the most famous hunters of their tribe. One of these was our old friend, Big Tom; the other was called Mustagan. He was almost as large as Big Tom, and had a wonderful record.
Not many days after the return from the muskrat hunt the weather became, for that land, decidedly warmer. This created so much excitement among the generally stoical Indians that the boys could not but observe it. So one day, when a number of them were at Sagasta-weekee, Sam asked Mustagan the cause of it. The old man answered but one word, and that was: "Niskepesim."
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