e humbugging scrapes we used to
call adventures at home are only play for girls. It's something to talk
about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a
creature like that moose. I said I'd get the better of his ears, and I
did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep."

Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this
injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of
Dol's ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a
needed ten hours' slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the
next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.

He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over.
Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to
fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined
the ground about the clump of hemlocks.

The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose
morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.

"I guess we've got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose," he
said. "I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded. I'm
for following up his tracks, though I guess they'll take us a bit up the
mountain. If he's hurt bad, 'twould be kind o' merciful to end his
sufferings. If he ain't, we can let him get off."

"Right, as you always are, Herb," answered Cyrus. "But what on earth
made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
before he was shot, you'd have said he had as much fight in him as a
lion."

"That's the way with moose a'most always. Their courage ain't that o'
flesh-eating animals. It's only a spurt; though it's a pretty big spurt
sometimes, as you boys know now. It'll fail 'em in a minute, when you
least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn't know where his
wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a
thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys," wound up
Herb, "I shouldn't be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives up
a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day. The
air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we'd better give up
the trailing after all."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Dol indignantly. "Do you think a shower will melt
us? Or that we