20 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



I summoned the boys from the i^rairie-grass meadow, 

 and they tried to drive him out for me; but all the noise and 

 diligent search they and I made failed to rouse the Moose 

 from liis hastily chosen lair in or about tlie lake. He knew 

 the situation, and was master of it; he simply defied us. 

 The noisy hay-pitchers returned to work, and I, jeered and 

 ridiculed by them, walked sadly back to the tent, too much 

 abashed to be able to convince them that I had really seen 

 a Moose; yet the next day the same dark object passed 

 the trail that threads the prairie from the mountain to the 

 lake. 



I hastened to the scene of my former disappointment, 

 and walked upright to within forty yards of the Moose, as 

 he stood crunching the root of a lily. I fired, and the 

 plunging of that great beast in three feet of water was 

 like the explosion of a submarine torpedo. He stopped 

 after a few jumps, and stood broadside again. I fired again, 

 when he pitched heavily forward, dead — shot through the 

 heart — and floated out from shore, propelled by his insen- 

 sible struggles. 



This Moose was about four years old. He was black and 

 glossy on his sides, while his back was yet brown with 

 coarse tatters of his last winter's coat. His horns were clean, 

 white, and new — ready for the warfare of the approaching 

 mating-season. He was fat, and would have weighed, 

 dressed, about seven hundred and fifty pounds. 



My companions now apologized for their skepticism of 

 the day before, and congratulated me on my skill and good 

 fortune. Some of them even went so far as to say that they 

 knew all the time the Moose was in there, for I never made 

 a mistake in matters pertaining to game, but that they 

 simply wanted to have some fun with me. 



Judge Caton, in his grand work, "The Antelope and 

 Deer of America," accurately describes this great mammal 

 in these words: 



Largest of all the Deer family, and most ungainly in form. Head long 

 and narrow; eyes small and sunken; nose long and flexible, and covered with 

 hairs, except a spot between the nostrils; ears very long and coarse; antlers 



