STEPPING-STONES 31 



moose must learn, and wilderness lore of all kinds 

 to master ere he could earn the freedom of the 

 wild. 



He was warned against the trappers who come 

 North yearly to hunt the bush folk for their hides, 

 and taught something of their methods as they 

 affect the moose tribe. Some of the despoilers, the 

 cow said, possess an almost supernatural knowledge 

 of the habits of the big deer, and can find their 

 most loved haunts, sleeping places, and roads to 

 the river in any weather ; guess, too, within an 

 inch or so, the span of horns of a moose going like 

 the wind, and tell his length of years by antlers, 

 bell, and coat. 



Horrid facts of the traps set were detailed. 

 These, laid after the time of horn-shedding, snared 

 moose as ignominiously as rabbits, in a loop, three 

 feet or so in diameter, artfully arranged on much 

 used trails running through thick brushwood, at 

 the approximate height of a fair sized bull. Attached 

 to the other end of the rope was a movable, but 

 heavy, baulk of timber. A moose sauntering down 

 the track in the dusk was practically certain to put 

 his head through the dangling snare, which, tighten- 

 ing as he rushed away in terror, commenced the 



