2o6 The Wilderness Hitnter. 



or other such place (a course of procedure which often 

 works well in still-hunting); but all in vain. 



Our main difficulty lay in the character of the woods 

 which the moose haunted. They were choked and tangled 

 to the last degree, consisting of a mass of thick-growing 

 conifers, with dead timber strewn in every direction, and 

 young growth filling the spaces between the trunks. We 

 could not see twenty yards ahead of us, and it was almost 

 impossible to walk without making a noise. Elk were 

 occasionally found in these same places ; but usually they 

 frequented niore open timber, where the hunting was 

 beyond comparison easier. Perhaps more experienced 

 hunters would have killed their game ; though in such 

 cover the best tracker and still-hunter alive cannot always 

 reckon on success with really wary animals. But, be this 

 as it may, we, at any rate, were completely baffled, and I 

 began to think that this moose-hunt, like all my former 

 ones, was doomed to end in failure. 



However, a few days later I met a crabbed old trap- 

 per named Hank Griffin, who was going after beaver in the 

 mountains, and who told me that if I would come with 

 him he would show me moose. I jumped at the chance, 

 and he proved as good as his word ; though for the first 

 two trials my ill luck did not change. 



At the time that it finally did change we had at last^ 

 reached a place where the moose were on favorable ground. 

 A high, marshy valley stretched for several miles between 

 two rows of stony mountains, clad with a forest of rather 

 small fir-trees. This valley was covered with reeds, alders, 

 and rank erass, and studded with little willow-bordered 



