BULLETS AND THEIR BILLETS 



the gunwale from time to time. In such 

 weather one would scarcely hope to see 

 anything carrying horns ; sensible beasts 

 would keep the shelter of the woods. 

 However, as the canoe slowly advanced, 

 freezing fingers held the glass on lake 

 edge and mountain side. Where the 

 lake narrowed towards the middle, 

 something on the opposite side caught 

 the eye, something which looked like 

 the roots of a spruce overturned by the 

 wind close to the shore, roots curiously 

 symmetrical in their arrangement. At 

 six hundred yards the observer's mind, 

 after swinging from doubt to certainty 

 and back again, settled to conviction. A 

 moose lay there, the body entirely con- 

 cealed, showing only a stately head, with 

 horns still in velvet. Yet he hesitated 

 to speak, knowing how disconcertingly 

 the keen-eyed chasseur resolves your 

 discovery into stump or stone. The slow, 

 noiseless progress continued, and at five 

 hundred yards indubitable ears were 



169 



