178 SPORT INDEED 



for a tree, dash to the top of it and then down again, 

 dancing over the logs that may be in his way but 

 keeping a constant eye on the hunter. Then perhaps 

 he will stop his gambols for a moment to bark and 

 chatter at the " sport," winding up with a peal of de- 

 risive cachination that sounds — to the victim's im- 

 agination — something like: "What do you want 

 here ? You're a queer-looking chap, anyway. Why 

 you've got no tail ! Here, I'll lend you a bit of 

 mine ! " With this generous offer he will skip out of 

 sight, and the chances are a hundred to one that if a 

 deer or a moose or a caribou has been within earshot 

 of that laugh, he, too, has done some skipping of the 

 same sort. 



And now to return to my vigil. I heard a cow- 

 moose step softly into the water, drink her fill and 

 then as softly leave the stream and depart from my 

 neighborhood. The next morning we saw by her 

 tracks that she was a cow, and the same old cow we 

 had seen in the daylight. 



The dead-water, upon whose side I was couching, 

 lies in a wide hollow. On either side of it rises a tall 

 ridge covered with trees of spruce and white birch, 

 and whatever sounds are made on the one ridge are 

 echoed from the other. I heard the bark of a fox on 

 my side of the hollow, and in a moment or two an an- 

 swer came from the other side ; and then another bark 

 and another answer, and these kept duplicating until it 



