A BULL MOOSE SOMETIMES DANGEKOTTS. 319 



if the son had broke loose, and was runnin' away in a fright. 

 A long trail of light flashed and streamed along the sky 

 where it passed. It was out of sight in a moment, and the 

 fiery tail it left behind faded into darkness. A little while 

 after, maybe ten minutes after it disappeared, that boomin' 

 sound came driftin' down the wind, and I somehow tho't 

 it was mixed up hi some way with that great ball of fire 

 that flew across the sky. Maybe I was wrong, but I've 

 always tho't it was the bustin' into pieces of that fiery thing 

 that lighted up the old woods that night, that broke the 

 forest stillness, like a far off cannon. I never heard it so 

 loud at any other time, and when I hear it now, I always 

 say to myself, there goes another of Nater's fireballs into 

 shivers. I've hearn it in the daytime, when the air was still, 

 and the forest voices were hushed, but I never at any other 

 time, day or night, saw what I suspicioned occasioned it. 

 The Ingins used to say it came from the mountains, but 

 it don't. I've hearu some folks pretend that it comes from 

 the bowels of the airth, but it don't ; its a thing of the air, 

 and I've a notion it travels a mighty long way from its 

 startin' place afore it reaches us. 



" Talkin' about that trip among the Adirondacks, puts me 

 in mind of an adventer I had with a bull moose, on one 

 occasion among them. There are times when sich an ani- 

 mal is dangerous. I've hearn tell of elephants gittin' crazy 

 and breakin' loose from their keepers, or killin' them, ami 

 makin' a general smash of whatever comes hi their way. 1 

 believe its so sometimes with a bull moose ; and when 



