258 The Wilderness Hunter 



yards. This happened by Bridger's Lake, near Two- 

 Ocean Pass. 



The moose has a fast walk, and its ordinary gait 

 when going at any speed is a slashing trot. Its 

 long legs give it a wonderful stride, enabling it to 

 clear down-timber and high obstacles of all sorts 

 without altering its pace. It also leaps well. If 

 much pressed or startled it breaks into an awkward 

 gallop, which is quite fast for a few hundred yards, 

 but which speedily tires it out. After being dis- 

 turbed by the hunter a moose usually trots a long 

 distance before halting. 



One thing which renders the chase of the moose 

 particularly interesting is the fact that there is in 

 it on rare occasions a spice of peril. Under certain 

 circumstances it may be called dangerous quarry, 

 being, properly speaking, the only animal of the deer 

 kind which ever fairly deserves the title. In a hand 

 to hand grapple an elk or caribou, or even under 

 exceptional circumstances a blacktail or a white- 

 tail, may show itself an ugly antagonist; and indeed 

 a maddened elk may for a moment take the offensive ; 

 but the moose is the only one of the tribe with 

 which this attitude is at all common. In bodily 

 strength and capacity to do harm it surpasses the 

 elk; and in temper it is far more savage and more 

 apt to show fight when assailed by man ; exactly as 

 the elk in these respects surpasses the common 

 deer. 



