rustle ahead as the bull glided towards me. He had
heard the faint message and was coming to see if it were not his
tantalizing mate, ready to whack her soundly, according to his wont, for
causing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of him to the open
where he could watch her closely and prevent any more of her hiding
tricks.

I stood motionless behind a tree, grasping a branch above, ready to
swing up out of reach when the bull charged. A vague black hulk thrust
itself out of the dark woods, close in front of me, and stood still.
Against the faint light, which showed from the lake through the fringe
of trees, the great head and antlers stood out like an upturned root;
but I had never known that a living creature stood there were it not
for a soft, clucking rumble that the bull kept going in his throat,--a
ponderous kind of love note, intended, no doubt, to let his elusive mate
know that he was near.

He took another step in my direction, brushing the leaves softly, a low,
whining grunt telling of his impatience. Two more steps and he must have
discovered me, when fortunately an appealing gurgle and a measured
_plop, plop, plop_--like the feet of a moose falling in shallow
water--sounded from the shore below, where Simmo was concealed.
Instantly the bull turned and glided away, a shadow among the shadows. A
few minutes later I heard him running off in the direction whence he had
first come.

After that the twilight always found him near our camp. He was convinced
that there was a mate hiding somewhere near, and he was bound to find
her. We had only to call a few times from our canoe, or from the shore,
and presently we would hear him coming, blowing his penny trumpet, and
at last see him break out upon the shore with a crashing plunge to waken
all the echoes. Then, one night as we lay alongside a great rock in deep
shadow, watching the puzzled young bull as he ranged along the shore in
the moonlight, Simmo grunted softly to call him nearer. At the sound a
larger bull, that we had not suspected, leaped out of the bushes close
beside us with a sudden terrifying plunge and splashed straight at the
canoe. Only the quickest kind of work saved us. Simmo swung the bow off,
with a startled grunt of his own, and I paddled away, while the bull,
mistaking us in the dim light for the exasperating cow that had been
calling and hiding herself for a week, followed after us into deep
water.

There was no doubt whatever t