222 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



do not notice that, and here as there are the forest-clad 

 hills rolling away into the distance. On the Athabasca 

 there are no mountains in sight and on the Bell when 

 I looked at right angles to the river's course I saw no 

 mountains, but whenever a long vista opened either ahead 

 or behind I was likely to see mountains in the distance. 

 None of them was snow-covered but their tops were 

 bare of trees, for the forest went only a third of the way 

 or half the way up their slopes. The highest of the 

 peaks would be under ten thousand feet. 



The down-river journey was monotonous but every 

 day something happened to vary the monotony a little. 

 One day a moose was standing on the river bank as I 

 drifted around a bend. I sat motionless on my raft 

 wondering how near I would pass, for the raft was at 

 the mercy of the current and was carried sometimes 

 along one bank and sometimes along the other. The 

 river here was about two or three hundred yards wide. 

 When I was still several hundred yards above the moose 

 he noticed my raft and began to watch it carefully. It 

 is the nature of animals that they do not recognize a 

 man as long as he makes no movement, and apparently 

 the moose took my craft and me for half a dozen tangled 

 spruce trees drifting together. Still, it must have seemed 

 to him that there was something peculiar, for when we 

 got abreast he suddenly plunged into the river and came 

 swimming towards me. He came within eight or ten feet 

 and then started to swim around me on the downstream 

 side. There was no noticeable wind but I suppose the 

 air must have been moving downstream, for when he 

 got in front of the raft he was scared by something, 

 turned around suddenly and swam back to shore. He 

 was not badly frightened for he stopped on landing to 



