IN THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT 149 



Well, I was a fool. I was new then at the work, and 

 did the wrong thing. Slowly I rolled over on my back 

 and round till my feet were towards the moose. 

 Then, little by little, I raised myself, and aiming at 

 the point where the neck meets the chest, I fired. 

 For the space of a moment there was no result. 

 Then the moose swung round, and as he turned I 

 fired again at his shoulder. He dropped, recovered 

 himself, and crashed into the forest. A hurried in- 

 spection showed that the first ball had touched a 

 willow twig and turned. What had the second done ? 



We followed up to see. There was blood along 

 the track, and the moose was going on three legs. 

 Surely he could not travel very far like that, we 

 thought, and in that belief we hunted on. 



But it takes a good deal to stop a moose, and twi- //. 

 light found us still pursuing. With the last gleam of 

 the sunset we had come to the side of a smallish 

 muskeg. In the middle was a bit of open water, and 

 near it lay a fallen tree, its bare roots all sharp against 

 the whitening water. Nothing could be done by going 

 on that night ; we decided to stop and try to make out 

 something in the morning. As we stood for a moment 

 listening, for the wind had dropped, Kakikapo 

 suddenly drew my attention to a sound that came 



