126 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



left in the morning, and they were now returning. 

 Their voices had at first reached me apparently from 

 the dam at the foot of the thoroughfare, which is 

 easily two miles from where I was sitting. 



The reader can readily believe that this atmospheric 

 condition not only made hunting difficult, but gave an 

 uncanny feeling to the hunter himself. What effect it 

 had upon the sensitive deer and the secluded moose 

 can well be imagined. Very different was this season 

 from the one some years ago when four deer in one 

 day was the record for two of us. 



No wonder that we saw but the tails of vanishing 

 deer when we expected to see their heads. I saw 

 hundreds of these wild inhabitants of the forest, but 

 not a solitary buck did I see that I could be sure of. 

 Only the tails, only the tails, and this was repeated 

 over and over again, and day after day. 



Only near to running water was there any chance 

 of seeing them long enough to make out their sex 

 surely, and beside running water one buck was killed, 

 and another was fired at and missed, but with neither 

 of these did I have anything to do. This much for 

 the deer. 



Now for the moose. The numerous roads leading 

 to the lake, to the thoroughfares and to the dead- 

 waters, showed plenty of old moose tracks, but not a 

 single fresh one. Day after day I scanned the roads 

 on each side of the lake ; but, save for one track made 



