28 NATURE'S REALM. 
breakfast, and Joe had to let out more than 
one whoop before he would leave the carcass. 
Carrying one rifle, the blankets rolled up 
with the Johnnys inside, each one with their 
axe and kettle, and knife on their belt, the bait 
bag and drag being brought up by the hind- 
most, the first spotting or blazing both sides of 
the trees selected on the route, trap-setting 
commenced. The objective point was another 
stream supposed to be sixteen miles distant on 
a southern course, but as the start was not early 
thirty-five traps were only got down. With a 
pair of roasted partridges for supper the day 
ended. Next morning work was resumed with 
a result of fifty-six traps, a big day’s work. 
The forest was nearly all hardwood and many 
old and some new signs of moose were passed. 
The night of the third day, with fifty more traps 
set, brought them to the margin of what seemed 
a long and rather narrow lake. Before they 
got to sleep sounds of moose feeding were 
heard by Fred, and as the bait bag and drag 
required renewing, he told Joe there was a sight 
for moose steak for breakfast. 
By the peep of day Fred was stealing along 
the margin of the lake with the moose signs 
showing very plenty, the animals having made 
it a favorite summer resort, which they hang 
round until the ice makes so strong they can 
no longer break it. As the lake seemed to nar- 
row below him Fred quietly crept down about 
half a mile until he reached its outlet ; here he 
disturbed a bank beaver at his morning meal 
and could have killed him only for fear of dis- 
turbing higher game. This beaver is not at 
all different in appearance from his fellows. 
Why he prefers a solitary state (the beaver 
being a regular family man and a very sociable 
animal) is one of the unsolved problems. In- 
dians say he is a lazy fellow—‘‘ won't work ; 
maybe lost his wife or got sick, hunt medi- 
cine.” Toa certainty the castors of a bank or 
solitary beaver are worthless. But Iam digress- 
ing from Fred. Not caring to go around the 
far end and side of the lake, as he could see no 
end to it, he resumed his back tracks, and 
when about half way the passage of something 
on the opposite side of the lake caught his 
quick ear. Raising his sight to four hundred 
yards he quietly dropped behind a balsam fir, 
and immediately a moose emerged from the 
opposite margin, walked a few steps to the 
water and threw up his head. After standing 
a few seconds, and, as Fred expected he would, 
be turned, probably getting the scent of camp, 
although a quarter of a mile distant. Fred 
had him covered from the instant he emerged ; 
also had a good rest on the limb ofatree. But 
as it was a rather long shot and the animal was 
head on, deemed it prudent to wait until he 
could get a sight behind the fore shoulder. The 
moment the moose turned Fred fired. The 
shock brought him to his knees and just as he 
recovered ball number two reached him and 
he gave three bounds and fell in a heap, turn- 
ing asomersault. The first ball went through 
the shoulder, breaking the bone ; the second di- 
rectly through his heart. Fred now collected 
some driftwood for a raft to cross and before it 
was ready Joe was on hand with his axe, and 
in a few minutes they crossed, and then bleed- 
ing and skinning commenced, and the carcass 
was unjointed and withed up to the surround- 
ing trees. Ashe was a four-year-old male and 
not a bad set of antlers, the head was also 
hoisted up, although Joe remarked that ‘he'd 
be darned if he would haul it out.” With 
enough to replenish the bait bag and a new 
drag, with asteak piece, and setting up a couple 
of traps, the boys put across to camp, and before 
they had finished their broiled steak there com- 
menced to fall heavy, wet snow. 
“Up blanket,” says Fred ; ‘‘it isno use to go 
on; it will freeze by morning and all the traps 
behind us, if we go on, will be hard and fast.” 
The heavy snow also bent the undergrowth 
in all directions, making it so disagreeable and 
so wet to travel that no person, unless a hunter, 
can have any idea of such a tramp. 
The next morning was better, the snow frozen 
hard to the bushes, but the sixteen miles was a 
hard tramp, as they had to clean and rebait 
their one hundred and forty traps, out of which 
they took twenty-seven marten and a rascally © 
fisher who had destroyed five before he got into 
a steel trap. Don’t imagine, dear reader, that 
the boys carried this game very far without 
halting and skinning. As for the stretching, it 
is all done after hours, and generally the first 
work of a hunter is to get a number of stretch- 
