A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE 355 



is ordinarily no danger whatever in shooting 

 them, several of my friends have been resolutely 

 charged by wounded moose, and I know of, 

 and have elsewhere described, one authentic 

 case where the hunter was killed. A boy carry- 

 ing mail through the woods to the camp of a 

 friend of mine was forced to climb a tree by a 

 bull which threatened him. My friend Pride, 

 of Island Falls, Maine, was charged while in a 

 canoe at night, by a bull moose which he had 

 incautiously approached too near, and the 

 canoe was upset. If followed on snow-shoes in 

 the deep snow, or too closely approached in its 

 winter yard, it is not uncommon for a moose 

 to charge when its pursuer is within a few yards. 

 Once Arthur was charged by a bull which was 

 in company with a cow. He was in a canoe, 

 at dusk, in a stream, and the bull rushed into 

 the water after him, while he paddled hard 

 to get away; but the cow left, and the bull 

 promptly followed her. In none of these cases, 

 however, did the bull act with the malice and 

 cold-blooded purposefulness shown by the bull 

 I was forced to kill. 



Two or three days later I left the woods. 

 The weather had grown colder. The loons had 

 begun to gather on the larger lakes in prepara- 

 tion for their southward flight. The nights 



