MOOSE-HUNTING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 39 



overhanging ledges I worked my way, tired and half-dis- 

 couraged, to the green forest-line that crowned the canon 

 wall. 



Having gained the summit, I found the park to be a 

 beautiful level plateau, with large, straight pines, their 

 smooth, limbless trunks standing like pillars supporting an 

 endless canopy of interlacing boughs. 



The grand old trunks were so far apart that my progress 

 was not impeded, and I made a rapid cruise in search of 

 Moose-trails. I was not long in finding a deep road crossing 

 the park in a line as straight as a railroad. I examined the 

 well-beaten trail, and found fresh foot-prints, indicating that 

 the game had gone in the direction that took them farther 

 from the camp. I resolved to follow, and my speed for an 

 hour would have done credit to a racer of record. 



After the pines grew thinner, and I could see the canon 

 off ,to the right, a slight descent and a turn around a point 

 of a rocky cliff brought me to a cove, thick with quaking 

 aspen trees and brush. On these the Moose had been feed- 

 ing, and the snow was tramped as on the feeding-ground of 

 a hundred hungry cattle. They had twisted and broken 

 down trees fifteen feet high. The split and broken limbs 

 reminded me of the work of Bears in a berry-thicket. The 

 Moose will walk upon a bush with his breast, and bend it 

 down, eating all the twigs off as he passes over; and 

 again, he will reach up and bend down a large limb with 

 his nose. Over the bent limb he will throw one fore leg, 

 and hold it, as with a hook, till it is carefully trimmed. 



As I skirted the leafless thicket, I saw many evidences of 

 the great strength of these beasts, of distinct and strange 

 habits. I could see where they had plowed through the 

 snow in search of a broad-leafed plant that grew in the 

 mountain swamp, which was then solid, having frozen 

 before the snow came. The Moose had not attempted to 

 remove the snow by pawing, as the Deer do, but had rooted 

 about like hogs, or as they (the Moose) hunt for food under 

 water. The snow, seemingly, was not the least hindrance 

 to them in their search for food on the ground. 



