A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



too much noise on the frozen ground, I discarded them, and in 

 my stocking feet, to a continuous accompaniment of chills, 

 followed in the wake of Mac and the moose. Thus for a half 

 hour. Then, as we crawled along the tracks made by the bull; 

 a violent snapping of branches and crunching of hoofs in the 

 frozen moss warned us that we had jumped the moose. Aban- 

 doning our former caution, we made a hurried spurt over the 

 nearest rise in the direction of the retreating animals. Bursting 

 through a clump of firs, I stopped abruptly when, forty yards 

 distant, I saw the gray back and inquisitive, homely head of 

 the cow moose over the tops of the willows. A moment later 

 the broad blades, head, and hump of the bull slowly came into 

 view from behind a clump of trees, where it had stopped to 

 listen. At the report of the carbine the cow moose disap- 

 peared among the trees with one long stride, while the bull, 

 with lowered head, staggered in circles to the accompaniment 

 of three more shots in rapid succession. At the fourth shot 

 the moose collapsed, and was breathing its last when I ap- 

 proached to give it the finishing shot. Mac, to whom con- 

 sistency was unknown, and who, if not watched, was unmerci- 

 fully cruel to smaller animals and to pack-horses, could never 

 bear to witness the end of a large animal, and, according to his 

 custom, now covered his face with his hands to shut out the 

 view. But in a few moments his face was all smiles again, and 

 shortly afterward, spattered with blood, he was skinning and cut- 

 ting up the moose to the accompaniment of Under the Old Apple- 

 Tree, which had reached this remote land via the phonograph. 



The antlers of this moose were quite thick, had one twelve 

 and one-half and one ten inch blade, carried twenty-five points, 

 and measured fifty-seven inches across the widest spread. It 

 was still early in the morning as we packed our dunnage to the 

 scene of the killing, cut off the head and hind-quarters of the 

 moose, had. the heart for luncheon, and, burdened only with our 

 blankets, tramped into camp by the close of day. 



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