THE MOOSE. 229 



meadow, mud wallow 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 oc- 

 casionally found in these same places ; but 

 usually they frequented more 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 trapper 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 



