368 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



not great when we could see nothing of our moose 

 where we had last left him. Carefully scanning the 

 opposite side of the gulch, we could make out a vast 

 heap of dirt and leaves, and at once knew that this 

 was Brer Bar's cache. It was quite a comical sight, 

 this vast heap with everything carefully covered up, 

 except a single hoof left sticking up in the middle, 

 as though any one were welcome to take that, but 

 leave the rest for his lordship's own repast. The 

 tracks all round were quite fresh, and we at once 

 followed them into the brush, only to find another 

 smaller heap or cache, and at intervals of twenty to 

 thirty yards two or three smaller ones still. At the 

 last one, in a thicket of impenetrable brush, we got a 

 hurried glimpse of a shaggy form crashing through 

 the underwood. There was no chance of a shot 

 then, and no use to follow, for, as Tom said, " It's 

 a dead-sure thing he won't get off this lay till we've 

 given him the bust ! " 



With a presentiment of coming events, we proceed 

 to remove all the smaller caches down to the main 

 horde, so that our friend will have to come out into 

 the open. This done, we ensconce ourselves behind 

 a clump of convenient trees, about sixty yards from 

 the cache, and calmly await the course of events. 

 Calmly is a feeble index of my real feelings ; in fact, 

 I doubt if any one was ever calm under similar cir- 

 cumstances. I .mean I was calm at first, because it 

 was as yet early in the day, and one might be reason- 



