s antlers till it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those
terrible horns coming within half an inch of Dol's feet.

With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and
succeeded; for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus
was bawling at the top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:--

"Are you all right, Dol? Don't be scared. Hold on like grim death, and
we can laugh at the old termagant now."

"I'm--I'm all right," sang out Dol, though his voice shook, as did every
twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting again. "But he's
frantic to get at me."

"Never mind. He can't do it, you know. Only don't you go turning dizzy
or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand off
from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can't shake
me down, if you butt till midnight."

Garst's last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches,
waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that
the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his
hemlock, so that his friend's nerves might get a chance to recover.

The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy,
charged the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then
charged it again, snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together
with a crunching, chopping noise.

"Ha! that's how he makes the row like a man with an axe--by hammering
his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol,"
sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and forgetting
camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to
leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.

"I owe you something for this, little man!" he carolled on in triumph,
as he watched every wild movement of the moose. "This is a show we'll
only see once in our lives. It's worth a hundred dollars a performance.
Butt and snort till you're tired, you 'Awful Jabberwock!'"--this to the
bull-moose. "We've come hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you
carry on the better we'll be pleased."

Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short his
pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another,
expending paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the
other of them. The ground seemed to shake under his thunderin