LETTER XIX. 227 



Jocko was very wrath, and, standing looking 

 at the grand head thrown back on the snow, the 

 huge horns looking black against their back- 

 ground, I didn't care how angry he was. 



If only I could have brought my moose of 

 yesterday back to life and sent him after his 

 fellows, I should have been quite happy, although 

 I was dead beat, and had ten miles through the 

 snow between me and my dinner. After gral- 

 loching my beast, Jocko, still grumbling at my 

 suicidal folly in not firing, rose to return. Imagine 

 my disgust, when I heard him console himself 

 thus : ' Ah, well, there's the other two bulls safe 

 enough anyways.' And I am sorry to say he 

 was quite right. My first two shots had been as 

 clean as if made at a target, and though moving 

 through thick timber at 200 yards, the two bulls 

 lay there dropped dead in their tracks, each with 

 a bullet behind his shoulder. 



I make no boast of the shooting, though to 

 shoot a moose moving through timber at that 

 distance is not so easy as the size of the beast 

 would lead you to believe. They were good 

 young heads and well worth keeping, but I would 

 have given a good deal to have missed them, and 

 so avoided an unwarrantable slaughter and un- 

 witting breach of the game-laws of the country. 

 Those who have shot moose in these dense forest 



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