BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 



BY NEWTON HIBBS (" ROXEY NEWTON"). 



Where echoes sleep in deepest forest shade, 

 Where legend says the chieftain slew his bride, 

 And airy phantoms float from side to side, 

 The monarch of the mountain ranges made 

 His home. In coat of sombre hue arrayed, 

 With eyes of liquid, beauteous brown, and wide, 

 He stood supreme, a king of power and pride. 

 From beaten paths a sturdy hunter strayed 

 Through silent, shadow-haunted, ancient wood; 

 And near the lair he came. An antlered head 

 Was raised, the air was sniffed, and then the sound 

 Of heavy hoofs was heard. He stamped he stood 

 In stupid awe. A crash! The monster, dead, 

 The hunter's prize, lay weltering on the ground. 



E N his far western habitat, the Moose usually lives higher 

 up the mountain-sides than either the Elk or the Deer, 

 though on some parts of the western slope of the Rockies 

 he is migratory, and changes his abode as the seasons 

 change. In summer, he is found only in the little parks at 

 the sources of creeks, as near the summits of the snow-clad 

 ranges as he can find the peculiar foliage plants suited to 

 his fastidious taste. He will seek the food he likes best, even 

 at the risk of his life. Shy and wary as he is, he has been 

 known to defy men and dogs in order to spend an hour on 

 the borders of a swamp where grew water-lilies and other 

 herbs and plants on which he was wont to feed. 



On one occasion, a party of hay-makers were camped 

 on a prairie, near a lake, high up in the Bitter Root Mount- 

 ains, fourteen miles from the timber. A lone bull Moose 

 was seen to pass near the workmen, and between the 

 wagons and the kitchen tent. His trail was within thirty 

 yards of the fire that blazed up and sent its curling smoke 



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