MISCELLANEOUS HUNTING METHODS 149 



the supply of pine should be exhausted. The 

 stump stands high above the ground, showing the 

 depth of snow when the ancient wood-chopper 

 on his snowshoes invaded the virgin forest. 



What scenes had that stump, and the tree of 

 which it had been a part, witnessed! It had stood 

 there since long before the Genoese navigator 

 unrolled for mankind the map of a larger world. 

 Still sound at the core, it will stand there long 

 after the present generation has made way for 

 the great-grandchildren of those who stripped the 

 forests of the pine. 



As one idly dreams of the ebb and flow of the 

 snow fields in the many years which have passed 

 since the old pine was felled, of the moose which 

 browsed there before the white men came, of the 

 Indians who hunted them, of the hungry wolf- 

 pack which had attacked them when helpless 

 in winter drifts, he may perhaps hear, far down 

 the slope of the ridge, the breaking of a stick, 

 followed by silence. What could have caused the 

 stick to break.? There it is again, and nearer! 

 How the blood tingles at the thought that it may 

 be the long-awaited moose ! 



It could not have been a squirrel or a rabbit, 

 and a man would not spend so many minutes in 

 moving so short a distance. And that dark 



