With a Tenderfoot 199 



sinking behind the distant hills, our object 

 being a shot at the ducks as they returned to 

 their roosting places for the night. It was 

 fast growing dark as we reached the island, 

 and fixing the blind took a short time. All 

 were then counselled to silence while the guide 

 took his birch-bark horn and began to call 

 for moose. At once we heard the answer of 

 a bull in the distant hills, probably two miles 

 away, for the night was still. At short inter- 

 vals the guide would call and the bull answer 

 closer and closer. The guide and the nimrod 

 jumped into their canoe to go toward shore, 

 and how the moose did bellow as he came down 

 the hill toward the lake! He approached 

 within one hundred yards of the shore, and 

 such noise and racket as he made with his ant- 

 lers ! but he would not come nearer. The guide 

 then coaxed and uttered the soft love-call of 

 the cow, but he would not move — only storm 

 and rage; then the guide roared, raged, and 

 challenged — what a combat in the still night! 

 It was evident the moose did not want a com- 

 bat with his antagonist, and he began to move 

 away into the dense forest as he snorted, 



