“See that--moose track--he go by yesterday;” and Jimmie pointed to enormous footprints in the muck of a marshy place. “Verrie big moose--we make call at next camp--think it is early for call.”
At the next camp Jimmie made the usual birch-bark moose-call, and at evening blew it, as he also did on the following morning. This camp was a divine spot on a rise back of a long sandy beach, and we concluded to stop for a day. The Norseman and I each took a man in our canoes and started out to explore. I wanted to observe some musk-rat hotels down in a big marsh, and the Norseman was fishing. The attorney was content to sit on a log by the shores of the lake, smoke lazily, and watch the sun shimmer through the lifting fog. He saw a canoe approaching from across the lake. He gazed vacantly at it, when it grew strange and more unlike a canoe. The paddles did not move, but the phantom craft drew quickly on.
“Say, Furguson--come here--look at that canoe.”
The Scotchman came down, with a pail in one hand, and looked. “Canoe--hell--it's a moose--and there ain't a pocket-pistol in this camp,” and he fairly jumped up and down.
“You don't say--you really don't say!” gasped the lawyer, who now began to exhibit signs of insanity.
“Yes--he's going to be d----d sociable with us--he's coming right bang into this camp.”
The Indian too came down, but he was long past talking English, and the gutturals came up in lumps, as though he was trying to keep them down.
The moose finally struck a long point of sand and rushes about two hundred yards away, and drew majestically out of the water, his hide dripping, and the sun glistening on his antlers and back.
The three men gazed in spellbound admiration at the picture until the moose was gone. When they had recovered their senses they slowly went up to the camp on the ridge--disgusted and dum-founded.
“I could almost put a cartridge in that old gun-case and kill him,” sighed the backwoodsman.
“I have never hunted in my life,” mused the attorney, “but few men have seen such a sight,” and he filled his pipe.
“Hark--listen!” said the Indian. There was a faint cracking, which presently became louder. “He's coming into camp;” and the Indian nearly died from excitement as he grabbed a hatchet. The three unfortunate men stepped to the back of the tents, and as big a bull moose as walks the lonely woods came up to within one hundred and fifty feet of the camp, and stopped, returning their gaze.
