of the
invader.

Ned glanced toward Francois, and the voyageur simply said:

"Bull moose--him very much mad, charge camp like that!"

"Well, I should think he must have been," Frank Shaw declared. "Why, if
we'd had a little more warning we might have met him with a volley of
hot lead that'd have laid him out dead. Now that Francois says so, I do
believe he looked pretty much on the order of a monstrous moose bull. I
certainly saw his horns, and they were full grown, because the rutting
season is long since past."

"But what makes a moose get his mad up?" Jack asked. "We didn't do a
single thing to rile him, that I know of, but were sitting here as easy
as you please, when all at once he charges through the camp. Why, say,
he nearly carried off some of our property, when he knocked down that
tent. Look at the rip his horns made in the tanned canvas, would you?
Some more sewing for Teddy here, to mend the rip."

"Francois, do bull moose often act in that way?" asked Teddy, still
gripping the repeating rifle, as though not fully convinced that their
would be no repetition of the savage onslaught.

The guide shook his head.

"Know only few times when it happen, and then there be reason. He carry
off on horns what makes him rush our camp. I saw the same with my own
eyes. Bull moose much like farm bull, and hate ze red color ver' mooch."

At hearing this several of the boys gave a shout.

"There, see what you get, Jimmy, for keeping that silly red sweater
around. The old bull saw it hanging there in the light of our fire, and
it made him so furious, as it has us lots of times, that he lowered his
head and just charged us."

"But he took it away with him, as sure as you live, fellows!" gasped
Jimmy, as a sense of his deep affliction came over him. "My dear sweater
that I loved so much."

"Bully for the moose!" cried Jack.

"He'd done us all a mighty good turn, even if he never meant to," added
Frank, "now we've seen the last of that terrible old garment, and
Jimmy'll just _have_ to get out the nice new one he's been carrying in
his bag."

"Just think of the old fool, would you, a-tearin' around the woods with
that red flag hanging from his horns," Jimmy wailed. "Don't I hope it
keeps him wild right along, so that he'll smash into a tree, and break
his blessed neck! But I'm glad he didn't take a notion to carry me off
along with my sweater, and that's no lie!"

The little excitement soon died away. Not much d