worthy of the African jungle!"

"St!" admonished Jabe. "He's a-comin'. An' mad, too! Thinks that
racket was another bull, gittin' ahead of 'im. Don't ye _breathe_ now,
no more!" And raising the long bark, he called through it again, this
time more softly, more enticingly, but always with that indescribable
wildness, shyness and roughness rasping strangely through the note.
The hurried approach of the bull could be followed clearly around the
head of the lake. It stopped, and Jabe called again. In a minute or
two there came a brief, explosive, grunting reply--this time from a
point much nearer. The great bull had stopped his crashing progress
and was slipping his vast, impetuous bulk through the underbrush as
noiselessly as a weasel. The stillness was so perfect after that one
echoing response that the Famous Hunter turned a look of interrogation
upon Jabe's shadowy face. The latter breathed almost inaudibly: "He's
a-comin'. He's nigh here!" And the hunter clutched his rifle with that
fine, final thrill of unparalleled anticipation.

The moon was now well up, clear of the treetops and the discolouring
mists, hanging round and honey-yellow over the hump of the ridge. The
magic of the night deepened swiftly. The sandspit and the little
water-meadow stood forth unshadowed in the spectral glare. Far out in
the shine of the lake a fish jumped, splashing sharply. Then a twig
snapped in the dense growth beyond the water-meadow. Jabe furtively
lifted the bark, and mumbled in it caressingly. The next moment--so
suddenly and silently that it seemed as if he had taken instant shape
in the moonlight--appeared a gigantic moose, standing in the meadow,
his head held high, his nostrils sniffing arrogant inquiry. The
broadly-palmated antlers crowning his mighty head were of a spread and
symmetry such as Jabe had never even imagined.

Almost imperceptibly the Hunter raised his rifle--a slender shadow
moving in paler shadows. The great bull, gazing about expectantly for
the mate who had called, stood superb and indomitable, ghost-gray in
the moonlight, a mark no tyro could miss. A cherry branch intervened,
obscuring the foresight of the Hunter's rifle. The Hunter shifted his
position furtively. His crooked finger was just about to tighten on
the trigger. At this moment, when the very night hung stiller as if
with a sense of crisis, the giant bull turned, exposing his left flank
to the full glare of the moonlight. Something gleamed silv