142 True Aroostook Woops. 

we knew of, as there presenting a long, straight view, always 
looking gamey, when we would step around light and slowly, 
as we peeped over the ground with rifle held ready, or see 
moving those aforesaid antlers up and down, as he reached 
and pulled off a mouthful of choice, gray moss from the old 
spruce top lying upon the ground, left by the lumbermen a 
year, or years before, yet bearing a crop for them still. And 
when walking along upon the top of the breezy ridge, we 
often stopped and leaned beside a tree, looking well over the 
down grade to windward; then on through the beech nut 
grove, carefully here in beech nut time for under these 
trees, as well as the deer, they often stray. 
Morning and evening, in the birch bark canoe, as we 
paddled noiselessly close in under the shores, up and down 
the still water streams, scanning the mossy meadows or look- 
ing eagerly over the windward side on the scrubby barren, 
sometimes aided by the glass to take in as well the far 
distance. 
At the turn of the stream, moving the rifle nearer and even 
holding it in readiness as we slowly moved around, knowing 
that in a moment the view to be before us showed a feeding 
ground of water grasses and lilies, shoal water, a handy cover 
and a well trodden trail leading to the forest beyond. Very 
many miles thus we passed over with the rifle always ready. 
We were looking for the handsome set of antlers that we 
coveted from the very first of our leaving the immediate 
vicinity of the camp, always listening, watching, never for- 
getting to be ever quiet, avoiding the small, sharp, cracking 
sticks upon the ground, picking our way over and around the 
partly. decayed limbs and old windfalls for fear of those crack- 
ing, so and always with the lightest 
eon . 

