MOOSE HUNTING AND CALLING. 175 



what breeze there was, appeared to be growing lighter, and 

 I waited, straining my eyes at the dark bulk which was so 

 close. Perhaps only a minute passed, though it seemed 

 infinitely longer to me, and then the affair was taken out 

 of my hands. 



I have said that the lake was shut in by tall timber, and 

 probably this fact caused an eddy of wind. I was aware 

 of a touch of cool air on the back of my head, and at the 

 same moment of a tremendous stampede in front and an- 

 other to the right . . . crash, crash, crash. 



" Hear his horns in the timber ! " from Ed in a voice of 

 emotion. The sounds continued for a few moments, the 

 crashing of the gigantic deer as they galloped off among 

 the trees, and afterwards dead silence, to be broken at 

 length by the cry of an owl. 



" Mean luck ! " said Ed ; " I'm sure he had great 

 horns/' We turned the canoe about and made the shore, 

 then, lighting our lantern, walked dejectedly back across 

 the hardwood ridges to our log camp. Such was my first 

 experience of the Canadian moose. 



I think we sat up till one o'clock in the morning talking 

 it all over and trying to see how we might have bettered our 

 fortunes. " He'd have been our moose if we had had a jack 



same as Crook used at in Province/' remarked 



Ed ; " but jacking's against the law/' 



In another place, and with quite another companion than 

 Ed, I have seen jacking for moose practised, and I must 

 acknowledge, whatever the ethics connected with the method 

 may be, that it presents risks to the hunter as well as to the 

 hunted. In order to " jack " the hunters choose a dark, 

 still night, and having bound a lantern, the light in which 

 can be shut off, upon a mast rigged well forward in the canoe, 

 the man who is to shoot sits down in the bottom of the craft 

 in such a position that the lantern when opened shines over 

 his right shoulder and thus directly upon the sights of his 



