and the Maritime Provinces. 269 



Another sweeping detour down wind, and then John approached the 

 top of the ridge with the utmost caution. He seemed to know instinctively 

 that the moose was close at hand and that one incautious mistake would 

 be fatal. He brushed the twigs aside carefully and scanned the ground 

 with great alertness. Removing our snow-shoes we followed him on hands 

 and knees around a little birch knoll from whose top the snow was being 

 sifted by the biting wind. But wary though our movements were, the royal 

 game was still more wary. He had heard the thud of an overlapping 

 snow-shoe, or the scrape of our frozen clothing against the matted firs, or 

 else his super-sensitive nostril had caught a wayward whiff of human scent. 

 We heard a tumultuous crashing in a thick snarl of whitewood on our 

 left, followed by the muffled impact of hurrying feet upon the ground, and 

 caught a glimpse of a huge black monster tearing through the brush. A 

 tremendous roar indicated the discharge of John's venerable piece, and 

 then I heard the vicious crack of my friend Harry's rifle several times 

 repeated. As for myself, the episode was altogether too impromptu ; it left 

 me where it found me, petrified in a devotional attitude, half-way up the 

 knoll. John bounded to the top of the knoll and then set off in desperate 

 pursuit, leaving us to follow as best we could. We soon caught up to him 

 where he had paused to load his gun. He said the moose was only 

 slightly wounded and we were probably in for a long chase. We followed 

 the tracks across a barren and then to the bank of Rocky brook, up 

 which the moose was trotting at a rate that left little hope that we could 

 overhaul him before night. We pressed onward wearily, walking and run- 

 ning by turns, and once very nearly came to grief in an air-hole. Mile after 

 mile we sped in dogged silence up the long white avenue as the sun dipped 

 lower and lower to the western verge. At last John stopped, and wiping 

 the solution of powder and perspiration from his face, exclaimed in feeling 

 tones : 



" Mujago ! Mujago ! Too bad, too bad. Can't ketch that moose 't all. 

 Dark purty soon. Track all time gitin' old, you see." 



John was almost heartbroken. Brushing the snow from a rampike 

 that stretched across the stream and motioning us to sit down and rest, he 

 limped wearily up the ice to take a final view around the next bend in the 

 stream. Suddenly he raised his hands and shouted something in the 

 Indian jargon that was so exultant in its tone that we knew the game was 

 ours. Hurrying to the bend as fast as our leaden limbs could be per- 

 suaded to respond, we saw the moose about two hundred yards away, 

 standing in the centre of a kind of frozen pool or pond, and making des- 

 perate but unavailing efforts to extricate himself. 



" By jing," said John, " that moose got him in trap this time, sure ! 

 Brook freeze up, then fall away, ice come down in middle ; so slippy you 



