MOOSE HUNTING. 155 



yards, but it was the still Indian summer weather, and I 

 had not got a shot. " Sartin, Mister, you break too many 

 sticks," said Peter. That was all very well, but as I could 

 not walk perfectly silently at the rate of five miles an 

 hour through a thick wood barred with treacherous ram- 

 pikes and underlaid with rotten sticks as I was neither a 

 crawling serpent nor a jack snipe as I had to perform or 

 try to perform these acrobatic feats, moreover, with my 

 backbone doubled up like the letter S and finally, as my 

 leave was up next day, I rather despaired of getting a 

 moose. But Peter Joe, as I afterwards learned, was at all 

 times and under any circumstances able to circumvent the 

 wily moose. On the third day like the man of genius 

 that he was he determined that as I could not go to the 

 moose the moose should come to me. 



It was a still mild morning the trout were jumping in 

 the rivulet, a restless kingfisher was flying backwards and 

 forwards screaming harshly, and a loon was laughing as he 

 floated on the smooth surface of the lake when I heard 

 a sound which made me hold my breath; it was the 

 who-o-o-oop of the hunter thrice repeated. This was the 

 signal that the fleet Peter, who had taken a long circuit 

 through the woods, had started a moose. What glorious 

 excitement ! My eyes are strained peering into the forest. 

 A stray black fly not yet frozen up looks as big as a turkey, 

 and when a cock partridge at the edge of the lake beats 

 his muffled drum my heart leaps into my mouth. Dead 

 silence succeeds, and the woods swim before my over- 

 strained eyeballs. I listen in vain for the sound of 

 approaching steps, when close to me a moving object 

 catches my eye. It is no, it isn't yes, it is a grand 



