MOOSE-HUNTING 



Mac clinging to the bridle, clung to the narrow ledge with its 

 fore-feet while its hind-quarters struggled in space. Before I 

 could cut the cinch the rotten bridle parted, with the result 

 that Mac sat down very suddenly and the horse was killed 

 instantly on the rocks a hundred feet below. 



We sorrowfully gathered our belongings, which were scat- 

 tered along the slope, made two heavy and cumbersome packs 

 of them, and after painfully laboring over the top of the moun- 

 tain, made camp at timber-line in a basin on the other side of 

 the range. As we finished our meal in front of the tent we 

 looked over miles of burnt country, dotted with lakes and 

 barrens, and terminating in the snow-covered range of moun- 

 tains over which we had come into this country. Late in the 

 afternoon a reconnoitring expedition showed that the basin 

 in w^hich we were camped was much tracked up by moose. 

 While returning to camp shortly before twilight, Mac discov- 

 ered two moose feeding in a swale below us, and a hurried stalk 

 brought us to within forty yards of them before dark. On 

 their proving to be cows, we stumbled back to a cheerless camp 

 in the dark. 



I had hardly fallen into an exhausted sleep when Mac awak- 

 ened me with the announcement of breakfast. I was finishing 

 this frugal meal in the uncertain light when Mac came scram- 

 bling down from a bowlder back of the tent in search of the 

 glasses. I followed him to the top of the rock, to discover six 

 moose in sight within a mile of the tent. The two cows of the 

 evening before were where we had left them; a cow and calf 

 were feeding close by; and on the opposite slope another cow 

 fed through the willows, followed by a large bull, whose wide- 

 spreading antlers glistened in the early morning light. 



We scrambled down into the basin, crawled by the browsing 

 cow and calf, and picked our way through the frost-covered 

 bushes until we could hear the movements of the two moose 

 in the brush ahead of us. My heavy, hobnailed boots making 



3(>3 



