A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



the wake of the creaking and groaning supply - wagon. That 

 night we camped in the brush by the roadside, and at dayhght 

 the next morning we started again for the moose country. 



As the frosts had not yet turned the leaves of the bushes, 

 birches, and maples to autumn tints, the scenery along the road 

 consisted of a dense wall of thick, green foliage, through which it 

 was impossible to see any distance. Recent rains had reduced 

 the road in the lower places to a continuation of ponds and mud- 

 holes, through which our party struggled and splashed to the 

 accompaniment of v/hip-cracking, lumber-camp profanity, and 

 the creaking and rattling of the protesting wagon over logs and 

 bowlders. Fresh moose-tracks were very plentiful in the soft, 

 black mud, and toward noon Gray informed us that a mile 

 farther on, several hundred feet from the road, was a pond 

 where we should probably see some of these animals if we 

 walked far enough ahead of the noise made by team and wagon. 

 On forcing our way through the thick spruces to the edge of this 

 circular sheet of water, which was about a half-mile in diameter, 

 we beheld six moose — a bull with a medium-sized head, two 

 cows, and three calves — feeding in the water near the shore. 

 Hearing the distant rattling of the approaching wagon, these 

 moose splashed through the water to shore and immediately 

 were out of sight in the thick woods. Later in the afternoon, 

 tramping somie distance ahead of the wagon, we suddenly came 

 face to face with a young bull and a cow moose, which in 

 several strides were lost to view in the thickets that bounded 

 the narrow, winding road. 



Often, during the day, spruce and birch grouse flushed from 

 the side of the track and lighted on near-by low trees to flutter 

 to the ground in answer to the whip-like crack of the deadly 

 little .2 2-caliber Winchester carried by the cook for the purpose 

 of supplementing our regular fare by whatever small game he 

 could shoot. The evening of the second day out from the 

 settlements we pitched our tent near where a stream known 



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