300 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



never so wisely, trying every inflection and modula- 

 tion of voice at my command no reply. Let Pitka 

 try again, and at once came the hooting answer of the 

 bird of night. 



Pitka was very clever at making the moose call 

 with mouth and hands, but, of course, this method 

 did not carry very far. We were very anxious to 

 see whether or no a moose would come to the call of 

 our hunter, and persuaded him to hold a stance the 

 very night of his joining us. 



" Me call up big horns, you shoot um, I guess," 

 the man said, confidently. Early morning and late 

 evening are the times most chosen for calling up 

 moose, but Pitka would none of either, and waited 

 until the night had fallen. 



I shall never forget the weirdness of the scene, the 

 wonder of it, the witchery of the night, the perfect 

 moon, lighting the open glades with shafts of silver 

 glory, the slanting shadows falling athwart the eerie 

 spaces, the great trees, the curve of the river, the 

 shimmer of the water, and the silence that could be 

 felt as with a touch. 



We took up positions allotted to us by our hench- 

 man, a mile or more away from camp, and I lay be- 

 hind a fallen log, not far from Pitka, and so could 

 watch his every action. Instead of giving the call in 

 the open, as I had expected, and as one always sees 

 it in pictures, the hunchback set himself about four 

 feet away from the largest tree in his neighbourhood, 

 and as the grunting, sighing, coughing roar struck 

 against the tree stem, the sound broke up and rang 



