148 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



lazy man's expedient. Most sportsmen prefer a 

 more active participation in the hunt. 



A passive form of still-hunting, when dry leaves 

 and the usual tangle of dead brush underfoot make 

 it impossible to walk in quiet through the woods, 

 is to sit on an open hardwood ridge and wait 

 for the chance approach of a moose. The charms 

 of an afternoon in Indian summer will afford ample 

 reward, even if no animal larger than a squirrel 

 is seen. A few hours of a sunny day in early 

 winter may be similarly passed in keen enjoyment 

 — if the first snow of the season has softened under 

 the midday sun, and crusted in the chill air of a 

 frosty night, leaving the snow as noisy as the dry 

 leaves of October. 



To ears assailed daily and nightly through most 

 of the year by the sounds of the cities, the solitude 

 of the woods when the air is still is sure to be restful. 

 Such dreams as pass through the mind as one sits 

 — eyes wide open — waiting for the moose or deer, 

 which perhaps never comes! The mossy stump 

 of the old-growth pine yonder brings to mind the 

 picture of a former generation toiling laboriously 

 with their oxen to get the great sticks of pine to the 

 river and to the market, leaving behind the spruce 

 for the children and the grandchildren to cut when 



