ONCE MORE A BAD MISS 91 



to the highest reach, and he was not over thirty yards 

 away. 



On our side of him a dead tree, about ten inches in 

 diameter, reached out parallel with the middle of his 

 body. I hesitated a second or so in debating whether 

 to fire over or under this impediment, and finally 

 reached the decision to fire under it. I coolly and care- 

 fully took aim and fired. The moose quickly turned to 

 run, and as he did so I fired two more shots at him, 

 wondering between times why he did not drop. 



He showed wonderful alertness in getting out of 

 sight, and, with what wind I had left, I ran after him, 

 but he disappeared as if by magic. In fact, it was 

 very hard even to trail him, and we didn't succeed in 

 getting a certain and sure sight of his line of retreat 

 until we had circled twice over quite a good piece of 

 ground, reaching back to a small ridge. 



There were no signs of blood, no signs that he was 

 faltering in his movements ; but plenty of signs to show 

 that he hadn't been hit, excepting where we found a 

 bunch of hair, which had been shot off his mane as he 

 swung around. 



To say that I was doubly chagrined at this second 

 streak of bad shooting does not at all do justice to my 

 feelings. For the life of me I couldn't account for it, 

 excepting upon the theory that the elevation and the 

 state of exhaustion which I was in after my hard walk 

 and climb in both instances must have made me unsteady. 



