AFTER A MOOSE. 381 



unfortunately caught sight of him just as he was trot- 

 ting off into the darkness. They said he saw them by 

 the light of our camp-fire a mile distant. It might 

 easily be so ; for I remembered that John, maddened by 

 the myriads on myriads of musquitoes, collected an 

 enormous pile of brush and threw it all together on the 

 fire. Instantly a flame shot up high as the tree-tops, 

 lighting up the lake like a conflagration. Unluckily 

 this was done just as they were unconsciously approach- 

 ing the moose. But for this they probably would 

 have got a shot. 



That night was one long to be remembered. I 

 thought that there could be no new experience to me 

 in the way of musquitoes, but this dead lake of mud 

 furnished one. The atmosphere seemed made of them, 

 while smoke, their deadliest enemy, they apparently no 

 longer feared. John, whom I always had found pecu- 

 liarly indifferent to their bite, was here compelled to 

 surrender, and, in his desperation, rolled himself into 

 the very sparks of the fire, where I thought he must 

 roast. I wrapped myself in my blanket and tried to 

 sleep. In the morning the roof of the tent was literally 

 black with them ; you could have hived them like bees. 



Yours truly. 



