s with their rich, red tide. The King Moose stands at
bay.

With the last echo, the challenge is flung again. It is ruthless,
insistent, and deep with the violence of outraged might.

The answer comes. It comes in man's own good time. It comes in the crack
of a rifle, and the moose jolts round with a spasmodic jerk. In a moment
a movement amongst the surrounding tree-trunks captures its gaze. There
is a pause, breathless, silent. Savage wrath leaps anew, and down sweeps
the great head till the spread of antlers is couched like a forest of
lance points. The huge body is hurled in a headlong charge.

It is an act of supreme courage as splendid as it is hopeless. The
elusive foe applies a wit, a skill undreamed of in the beast mind. He is
gone in a flash, and the wounded creature stands amazed, furious,
baulked, while vicious hoofs churn the soil, and a deep-throated roar
awakens again the echoes of the forest.

But there is desperation added to defiance in the challenge now. There
is uncertainty, too. The heaving flanks are dripping with a crimson
tide. The creature is sorely wounded. For all its pride and courage, its
sufferings admit of no denial. The foe has scored. He has scored
heavily.

The climax is approaching. The final challenge is taken up at last as
the king beast would have it.

The man reappears. In a moment he is standing out amidst the
tree-trunks, slim, erect, a puny figure in a world of giants. He is not
so cowardly after all. He stands there calmly, with eyes alert,
watchful, measuring, ready to gamble his wit and skill against whatever
odds may chance.

The moose only sees. It has no thought. Only its rage. No calculation
but its immense strength. Savagery, courage, alone inspire its warfare.
So it is that fierce satisfaction rings in its greeting of the vision.

It is a moment pregnant with possibility. The doomed creature summons
its last ounce of physical might. Down drops the head till the hot blast
of nostrils flings up the mouldering soil of the ages. The great split
hoofs stamp a furious tattoo. They claw at the loose earth. Then, like a
flash, an avalanche of rage is flung into the combat.

The time has come. The man has played his game to the desired end. The
creature's fury has no terror for him. With his rifle pressed to his
shoulder, and eye glancing over the sights, he waits calmly, and full of
simple confidence. Twenty yards! Fifteen! With the low, sweeping
antlers, and the rus