42 BIG GAME OF NOETH AMERICA. 



I had learned, by former experience and observation, that 

 as long as the snow remained soft the Moose were loath to 

 leave the haunts where the quaking aspen and willow grew. 

 In the region of Warm River they grow at the heads of the 

 little spring branches; on the border of the parks in the 

 high regions. I began the task, always laborious with snow- 

 shoes, of climbing the great, frowning mountain. 



As the engineer works out a switch-back for a railroad 

 over a mountain summit, I wound my way up— how many 

 hours I do not know; but after attaining an altitude of two 

 thousand feet above the steaming river, I could look back 

 at the black smoke from the cabin-fire, and it seemed only 

 a stone's throw away. Yet I was rejoiced, for the feeding- 

 ground of the game was even then before me. 



The furrows, broad and deep, partially filled with the 

 snow-fall of a day, told plainly that the Moose had been 

 there only the night before. They had -wallowed about like 

 hogs in a meadow; they had broken down the brittle, frozen 

 bushes, and had left the deep-marked roads to lead me to 

 the next grove, a half a mile over a low hill and through 

 the pine park. 



I moved silently, cautiously, and swiftly — full of hope 

 that I might surprise this shyest of game in its lair; but I was 

 doomed to disappointment, as I had so often been before. 

 As silently as I moved, over the most noiseless of courses, 

 I found only the beds and fresh trails left, in a hurried 

 flight, by two large Moose. They had i)lunged into the 

 depths, and had left a road such as a rotary snow- plow 

 would leave — ten feet wide in places. 



These beds were on the snow, packed and hard, in the 

 way to allow them to hear and see to the best advantage, 

 by supporting them as near the surface as possible. The 

 coat tliey wear, of coarse, long hair, makes the best of 

 wraps for a snow-bed, so that they suffer no hardshiiDS from 

 cold or wet. From the evidences of hasty flight and speed, 

 I Judged that I must have been very near them when 

 they started. Their plunging must have been desperate; 

 but even on that still morning, and in a field suited for a 



