BIG MOOSE OF LITTLE TOBIQUE 1 17 



being was on their track. And yet I was afraid to 

 leave until the big fellow would step into the water. 

 This would show me that his suspicions were lulled. 

 Nor could I shoot, because I couldn't see him. Had 

 the guide been with me he might have handled the 

 electric lamp and its flash would have been sufficient 

 to direct my aim, had I been disposed to take advan- 

 tage of it — which I would not have done, for such an 

 act would have been unlawful. 



My hunting experience has often placed me in situ- 

 ations of intense excitement and anxiety, but none of 

 them contained as much of either as the present one. 

 I waited, it seemed to me, an age for the big fellow 

 to move. At last he made one step into the water, 

 and now came my chance. Leaving the blankets and 

 rug where they lay, and pointing the glass bulb of 

 the electric lamp to the ground, I tiptoed over logs 

 and under branches and through bits of water and 

 across bits of corduroy road, and did it all so gently 

 and quietly that none of the creatures I had left be- 

 hind heard me. If they had done so they gave no 

 evidence of it. I was glad to reach the road with the 

 conviction that my moose companions were still nib- 

 bling their lily-pads in peace and in the unconscious- 

 ness of danger. 



The guide assured me that my friend the moose 

 could be none other than the Big Moose of Little 

 Tobique. " I know this," he said, " by the manner in 



