BIG MOOSE OF LITTLE TOBIQUE 1 13 



wasn't there. The stump, or whatever it was, had van- 

 ished. Here was a mystery, and not a pleasant one 

 for a sport to ponder on, especially if he prides him- 

 self on being a tolerably good shot. Again I looked 

 and then rubbed my eyes in wonder. The stump was 

 back again and in the identical spot it had occupied 

 before. 



Just at this moment I heard the guide give a " call " 

 on his birch-bark horn. No echo followed it, for the 

 woods were still soaking wet ; but it sounded very like 

 the plaintive call of a disconsolate lady-moose, and its 

 effect upon the antlers of my cedar stump was mag- 

 ical. They dropped at once out of sight and in a 

 second or two reappeared. The mystery was solved. 

 It was a moose indeed, but only a cow-moose. She 

 had been standing like a statue, and what I thought 

 were antlers were only her big ears which, standing 

 straight up and thrown forward, really looked like the 

 pair of antlers my son had described. 



The reason why my three shots had missed her 

 was plain enough. She had been standing between 

 two trees, with her head turned towards me almost at 

 right angles with her body, and the bullets had all 

 entered the intercepting tree which, in the uncertain 

 light, I had mistaken for the foreshoulder of a moose. 

 At the sound of the birch-bark horn she changed the 

 position of her ears, and then I had no doubt of her 

 sex. Nor was her gentleman attendant far away. 



