no FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



plentifully strewed with moose huir, .showing how the 

 moose had strugsrled with the bear towards the woods, 

 where no doubt the affair was ended, and the bear dined. 

 The full-grown moose is far too powerfu' an animal to 

 dread the attack of the bear ; it is only the unprotected 

 calf, separated from its parent, which is occasionally 

 pounced upon. 



We reached the barren that afternoon, wet and un- 

 comfortable, and were riglit glad when a roaring fire 

 rose up in front of the little gipsy-like cam}), pai'tly 

 of cut bushes and partly of bircli bark, which the 

 Indian constructed for us in the middle. We did 

 not care for the possibility of disturbing any stray 

 moose that might be in the immediate neighbourliood ; 

 the wind was rising and chasing away the murky 

 clouds from the northwartl, and there was no chance of 

 calling that niglit, so we passed the afternoon in drying 

 ourselves, and keeping up the fire, which was no easy 

 matter, as the woods skirting the barren were at some 

 distance, and the barren itself offered nothing but clumps 

 of wet green bushes, moss-tufts, ground laurels, and rocks. 

 The night was clear and frosty, as is generally the case 

 after rain ; it was so cold that we could not sleep much, 

 and our wood failed us. Once, on going out to search for 

 some sticks, I heard a moose calling in the thick forest 

 through which we w^ere to proceed in the morning, in 

 search of more distant hunting-grounds. 



The prospect from our little grotto of bushes, as we 

 brealvfasted next morning, was charming ; the tops of the 

 maple-covered hills, which sloped down towards the 

 barren on either side, were delicately tinged with warm 

 brownish-red, deepened by the frost of the previous night; 



