aring right onto me.
I was to leeward of him, so he couldn't get my scent. A man's gun
doesn't take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped him
with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn't get him
back to camp till morning. He's not full-grown; but he's a fine fellow
for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I'd give the
biggest guide's fees I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear
him striking the trees with 'em as he tore along. He was a buster.

"But you'll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat for
the first time in your lives, I guess."

Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.

The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
a painter,--the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three
staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss
one point of his story.

Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or by
a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.

"I'm sorry to keep you awake, boys," said Herb Heal, making for the
fire, after he had finished his story; "but I haven't had a bite since
morning, and I'm that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I'll get
something to eat, and then we'll turn in. We'll have mighty hard work
to-morrow, getting the moose to camp."

Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks
and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious
bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and
set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white
spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground;
the other was split, and into it the candle was inserted, the elasti