THE MOOSE DEER. 57 



feat or ignominious gloiy. That is no sport for boys or 

 striplings, but hard work for strong, stout-hearted men. 

 But the science and the pluck of man prevails in the 

 end ; one by one the beasts are overhauled, the heaviest 

 first and the weakest, a rifle-shot, and a shrill u who- 

 whoop " announces the fall of the forest king a slash 

 of the keen knife steeps the snow with his life-blood, and 

 away, away, over the crackling crust, with the keen win- 

 ter's wind warming itself against your face, and your 

 heart thrilling with a rapture unknown to the laggard 

 loungers of city sidewalks, unsuspected by the sordid 

 and selfish voluptuary. 



Such, friends, is the winter Moose-hunt of the Cana- 

 dian -wilderness. Try it, friends, once, and my life on it, 

 each succeeding winter will find you rifle in hand, and 

 snow-shoe on foot, in the interminable forest northward 

 of Quebec, stretching thence on unbroken to the Arctic 

 seas for verily it is the king of American field-sports. 



