tened for a moment, like a
great black statue under the moonlight; then he glided away into the
shadows under the bank. The larger bull heard it, threw up his great
head defiantly, and came swinging along the shore, hurling a savage
challenge back on the echoing woods at every stride.

There was an ominous silence up on the ridge where, a moment before, all
was fierce commotion. Simmo was silent too; the uproar had been
appalling, with the sleeping lake below us, and the vast forest, where
silence dwells at home, stretching up and away on every hand to the sky
line. But the spirit of mischief was tingling all over me as I seized
the horn and gave the low appealing grunt that a cow would have uttered
under the same circumstances. Like a shot the answer was hurled back,
and down came the great bull--smash, crack, _r-r-runh!_ till he burst
like a tempest out on the open shore, where the second bull with a
challenging roar leaped to meet him.

Simmo was begging me to shoot, shoot, telling me excitedly that "Ol'
Dev'l," as he called him, would be more dangerous now than ever, if I
let him get away; but I only drove the canoe in closer to the splashing,
grunting uproar among the shadows under the bank.

[Illustration: "A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING HAUNCHES FINISHED THE
WORK"]

There was a terrific duel under way when I swung the canoe alongside a
moment later. The bulls crashed together with a shock to break their
heads. Mud and water flew over them; their great antlers clashed and
rang like metal blades as they pushed and tugged, grunting like demons
in the fierce struggle. But the contest was too one-sided to last long.
The big bull that had almost killed me, but in whom I now found myself
taking an almost savage pride, had smashed down from the mountain in a
frightful rage, and with a power that nothing could resist. With a quick
lunge he locked antlers in the grip he wanted; a twist of his massive
neck and shoulders forced the opposing head aside, and a mighty spring
of his crouching haunches finished the work. The second moose went over
with a plunge like a bolt-struck pine. As he rolled up to his feet again
the savage old bull jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into his
flanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed away into the woods, one
swinging off in giant strides through the crackling underbrush for his
life, the other close behind, charging like a battering-ram into his
enemy's rear, grunting like