et
the marksman was not ready. "By hemp! I could have shot three bears,"
exclaimed Uncle Nathan, "while he was getting that rifle to his face!"

Poor Mr. Bull's Eye was deeply humiliated. "Just the chance I had been
looking for," he said, "and my wits suddenly left me."

As a hunter Uncle Nathan always took the game on its own terms, that of
still-hunting. He even shot foxes in this way, going into the fields in
the fall just at break of day, and watching for them about their mousing
haunts. One morning, by these tactics, he shot a black fox; a fine
specimen, he said, and a wild one, for he stopped and looked and
listened every few yards.

He had killed over two hundred moose, a large number of them at night on
the lakes. His method was to go out in his canoe and conceal himself by
some point or island, and wait till he heard the game. In the fall
the moose comes into the water to eat the large fibrous roots of the
pond-lilies. He splashes along till he finds a suitable spot, when he
begins feeding, sometimes thrusting his bead and neck several feet under
water. The hunter listens, and when the moose lifts his head and the
rills of water run from it, and he hears him "swash" the lily roots
about to get off the mud, it is his time to start. Silently as a shadow
he creeps up on the moose, who by the way, it seems, never expects the
approach of danger from the water side. If the hunter accidentally
makes a noise the moose looks toward the shore for it. There is always a
slight gleam on the water, Uncle Nathan says, even in the darkest night,
and the dusky form of the moose can be distinctly seen upon it. When the
hunter sees this darker shadow he lifts his gun to the sky and gets the
range of its barrels, then lowers it till it covers the mark, and fires.

The largest moose Uncle Nathan ever killed is mounted in the State House
at Augusta. He shot him while hunting in winter on snow-shoes. The moose
was reposing upon the ground, with his head stretched out in front of
him, as one may sometimes see a cow resting. The position was such that
only a quartering shot through the animal's hip could reach its heart.
Studying the problem carefully, and taking his own time, the hunter
fired. The moose sprang into the air, turned, and came with tremendous
strides straight toward him. "I knew he had not seen or scented me,"
said Uncle Nathan, "but, by hemp, I wished myself somewhere else just
then; for I was lying right down in his