244 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



With this weapon he has killed over a score 

 of moose, by fair still-hunting ; and he tells 

 me that on similar ground he considers it if 

 anything rather less easy to still-hunt and 

 kill a whitetail deer than it is to kill a 

 moose. 



My friend CoL James Jones killed two 

 moose in a day in northwestern Wyoming, not 

 far from the Tetons ; he was alone when he 

 shot them and did not find them especially 

 wary. Ordinarily, moose are shot at fairly 

 close range ; but another friend of mine, Mr. 

 E. P. Rogers, once dropped one with a single 

 bullet, at a distance of nearly three hundred 

 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 disturbed 

 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 ex- 

 ceptional circumstances a blacktailora white- 



