278 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



by winding, silvery streams, might dream that he 

 stood upon the roof of the world. At his feet on 

 every side lay some of the sublimest works which 

 that great Craftsman, Nature, has devised. 



At the end of the second day, although we had 

 seen a number of small bulls, we had only succeeded 

 in bagging one animal, since we had firmly decided 

 not to shoot at any heads which we thought did not 

 attain a measurement of at least sixty-five inches span 

 of horns. This standard may sound rather high to 

 sportsmen accustomed to moose hunting in the 

 Canadian forests, where a sixty-five inch head would 

 be regarded as the trophy of a lifetime. Heads of 

 seventy inches and over are by no means rare in 

 the Alaskan forests, and the writer to-day possesses 

 one head which he brought from the forests of 

 Alaska, and when killed the antlers exceeded the 

 gigantic spread of seventy-seven inches. 



One evening Ralph and I had wandered far from 

 camp in quest of spruce grouse, commonly known as 

 fool hens, which we shot for the pot with a small 

 '22 Winchester rifle. These silly birds will fly up 

 into a tree, and the whole brood, including young 

 and old birds, sit calmly a few feet overhead whilst 

 they are picked off one by one with a small-bore 

 rifle. By this means a good dinner may be assured 

 if the hunter is fortunate enough to encounter a few 

 of these birds in his day's wandering. Moreover, 

 the use of a noiseless rifle has the advantage that 

 its small report does not scarce the game in the 

 vicinity, as the use of a big shot-gun will do. 



