MOOSE-CALLING. 117 



marks the flight of the stai-tled moose, the late comrades 

 of our noble bull. 



" Pretty handy on to five feet/' said John, as he with 

 difficulty raised the ponderous head from the bushes, to 

 display the breadth of the antlers ; "that's a great moose, 

 old feller, that ; hind-quarters weigh goin' on for a hun- 

 dred and fifty weight each ; we have to get two or three 

 smart hands to back him out.'' 



The night was now far advanced, and it was with 

 well-earned satisfaction that we stretched ourselves in 

 front of a roaring fire, wrapping our blankets tightly 

 round us. Though frosty, it was clear and calm ; we 

 needed no camp, and John dragged up log after log of 

 the dead dry timber, which was strewed in plentiful 

 confusion over the barren, until we had a fire large 

 enough to have roasted our moose whole. The kettle, 

 filled from the brook below in the swamp, soon boiled, 

 and after a refreshing cup and a biscuit a-piece, we finally 

 tightened our blankets round our forms, and, with pipes 

 in our mouths, gradually dozed off". 



Towards the morning is the coldest time of the night, 

 and I more than once awoke from the cold, and went on 

 the barren for fresh fuel to supply the quickly-decaying 

 embers. There was the same solemn stillness over the 

 face of that wild scene : the moon was down long since, 

 but a few brilliant streamers of the aurora played in the 

 clear sky in the north, and by their light I could just 

 discern the great dark form of the moose in the bushes, 

 all covered with the thick rime frost, and guarded by 

 two colossal stems, which pointed sternly at the victim 

 with their whitened branches, as if to demand vengeance 

 for the death of the forest monarch. At intervals the 



