98 SPORT INDEED 



big one at that. But alas for my program, and for 

 all human speculations when a bull-moose is at the 

 bottom of them ! 



I directed one of the guides to carry up my bed- 

 ding, a few slices of deer meat, some bread and a large 

 onion ; this he did and then left me to my cogita- 

 tions. These were full of the moose and caribou, and 

 spiced with the thought that, like Selkirk, I was 

 " monarch of all I surveyed." 



I spent the afternoon on the bog, my heart swelling 

 with a hunter's hope and pumping its valves so 

 fiercely that a caribou might have heard the throb- 

 bings had he been near enough. But he was too 

 wary to venture so close. It is true there were many 

 of them in the bog, and they came near enough to get 

 a scent of me ; but when they got it, it seemed to be 

 all they wanted, for their stay on or around that bog 

 was cut off very short. In a word, they skipped away 

 without my getting even a glimpse of them. 



As I was stealthily picking my way back again, 

 however, a cow-moose dodged through the trees in 

 front of me. I stopped for several minutes and then 

 crept forward a few feet until a new vista opened up 

 in the spruces. I looked and listened for sounds of 

 any kind, but heard none. Presently a noise came 

 from what appeared at first to be a forked branch 

 away off to my right, and I finally made out that it 

 was a cow-moose. I thought she might have her 



