116 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



with his hand for us to remain quiet, and I at once 

 divined his object ; he was making for the edge of the 

 woods, some hundred yards or so from the direction of 

 the moose. Presently a few loud snappings of dead 

 branches, purposely broken by the Indian as soon as he 

 had reached the covert, was followed by the well-coun- 

 terfeited call. The ruse succeeded ; the suspicions of 

 the bull were allayed, and the horns were again dashed 

 against the stems as he unhesitatingly advanced towards 

 our ambush. At length we can plainly hear his footsteps, 

 and the rustling of the little bushes ; every now and then 

 he utters a low, satisfied grunt to himself, as he winds up 

 the ascent. Now our pulses and hearts beat so, that it 

 becomes a wonder they do not scare the moose, and we 

 grasp the stocks of our rifles tightly as we wait for his 

 appearance. Here he comes ! The moonlight just catches 

 the polished surfaces of his great spreading horns ; a black 

 mountain seems to grow out of the barren in front, and 

 the bull stands immediately before us, his gigantic pro- 

 portions standing out in bold relief against the sky, and 

 clouds of hot vapour circling from his expansive nostrils, 

 as he pauses for a moment to gaze forward from the 

 acquired elevation. He must see the glitter of the moon- 

 light on our barrels as they are raised to the shoulder, 

 but it is too late for retreat ; the sharp cracks of the two 

 rifles proclaim his doom, and as they are lowered the 

 great moose falls heavily over, without a pace accom- 

 plished in retreat, instantaneously dead. Our wild yell 

 of triumph was echoed by the Indian from the woods 

 behind, who hastened to join us ; the echoes, so strangely 

 and rudely evoked from the distant forest, gradually fade 

 away, and all is again still, save where a distant crack 



