certainly is," said John. "Yes, Jesse is the big chief to-night."

"We only went a little way, too," said Jesse, "just up over the ridge
there, I don't suppose more than half a mile. It must have been about
noon when we started, and Moise didn't think we were going to see
anything, and neither did we. So we sat down, and in an hour or so I
was shooting at a mark to see how my rifle would do. All at once we
saw this fellow--it wasn't a very big one, with little bits of
horns--come out and stand around looking to see what the noise was
about. So I just took a rest over a log, and I plugged him!"

Jesse stood up straight, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat,
a very proud young boy indeed.

Moise, strolling around, was grinning happily when at last he met the
unsuccessful hunters.

"Those Jesse boy, she'll been good shot," said he. "I s'pose, Alex,
you'll not make much hunter out of yourself, _hein_?"

"Well," said Alex, "we let some mighty good cow venison get away from
us, all right."

"Never mind," said Moise, consolingly, "we'll got fat young caribou
now plenty for two--three days, maybe so."

Rob went up to Jesse and shook him by the hand. "Good boy, Jess!" said
he. "I'm glad you got him instead of myself. But why didn't you tell
us when we came into camp?"

"Moise said good hunters didn't do that," ventured John, who joined
the conversation. "How about that, Alex?"

"Well," said the older hunter, "you must remember that white men are
different from Injuns. People who live as Injuns do get to be rather
quiet. Now, suppose an Injun hunter has gone out after a moose, and
has been gone maybe two or three days. He'll probably not hunt until
everything is gone in the lodge, and maybe neither he nor his family
is going to eat much until he gets a moose. Well, by and by he comes
home some evening, and throws aside the skin door of the lodge, and
goes in and sits down. His wife helps him off with his moccasins and
hands him a dry pair, and makes up the fire. He sits and smokes. No
one asks him whether he has killed or not, and he doesn't say whether
he has killed, although they all may be very hungry. Now, his wife
doesn't know whether to get ready to cook or not, but she doesn't ask
her man. He sits there awhile; but, of course, he likes his family and
doesn't want them to be hungry. So after a while, very dignified,
he'll make some excuse so that his wife can tell what the result of
the hunt has been. May