MOOSE-HUNTING. 127 



was late, and he had taken to a tamarack swamp, 

 I gave him up. Before sunrise the next day I was 

 on the ground again. It was the fall of the year, 

 and the rutting season had commenced. In an 

 opening covered with spikes'* I took my post. My 

 birch-back horn soon echoed over the unpeopled 

 waste ; and long and silently I waited for a re- 

 sponse. At length the delay told upon my patience, 

 and I would have quitted my station, but that the 

 faintest sound caught my ear. At first I thought 

 it might be a loon,t but again it was repeated more 

 distinctly, and evidently closer, leaving no further 

 doubt upon my mind that it emanated from the 

 quarry I sought. 



' The approach of moose to the call of the hunter 

 is often slow and tedious. They are so suspicious, 

 especially old ones, that they see or imagine danger 

 on every side. Patience and perseverance are great 

 helps at all times and in all employments in hunt- 

 ing more especially. While listening to hear the 

 game again, in response to my call another moose 

 spoke from quite a different direction. Here was a 

 piece of luck ! If neither winded me, I was most 

 certain to get more moose beef than would feed the 

 camp, and a good few dollars for the hides. Again 

 my call was placed to my lips, and again the answer- 

 ing voice of both deer reverberated .through the 

 woods. In ten minutes more, the tallest bull, with 



* Anglice, dead pine-trees that have lost all their minor branches, 

 f Great Northern diver. 



