led before lying down
again for the night, with their eyes guarding their front while their
scent guarded their rear.

At last we came upon still fresher signs that told that the moose might
be within a hundred paces or less. At a signal from the old hunter I
imitated him by slipping off my snowshoes, and standing them upon end
in the snow, and Oo-koo-hoo leading the way, began to circle to our
right as a gentle wind was coming on our left. Now our progress was
indeed slow, and also perfectly noiseless. It seemed to take an age to
make a semicircle of a couple of hundred paces. Again we came upon the
tracks of the moose. The signs were now fresher than ever. Retracing
our own tracks for a little way we started on another circle, but this
time, a smaller one, for we were now very near the moose. Silent ages
passed, then we heard the swishing of a pulled branch as it flew back
into place; a few steps nearer we progressed; then we heard the
munching sound of a large animal's jaws. Oo-koo-hoo rose slightly from
his stooped position, peered through the branches of a dense spruce
thicket, crouched again, turned aside for perhaps twenty paces . . .
looked up again . . . raised his gun and saying in a gentle voice: "My
brother, I need . . ." he fired.

Instantly there was a great commotion beyond the thicket, one sound
running off among the trees, while the other, the greater sound, first
made a brittle crash, then a ponderous thud as of a large object
falling among the dead under-branches.

The hunter now straightened up and with his teeth pulled the plug from
his powder horn, poured a charge into his gun, spat a bullet from his
mouth into the barrel, struck the butt violently upon the palm of his
left hand, then slipping a cap upon the nipple, moved cautiously
forward as he whispered: "Its neck must be broken." Soon we saw what
had happened. One moose was lying dead, the ball had struck it in the
neck; it was a three-year-old cow--the one Oo-koo-hoo had
selected--while the other, a bull, had left nothing but its tracks.

Presently The Owl re-loaded his gun with greater care, then we returned
for our snowshoes and to recover our toboggan before we started to skin
the carcass. On the way Oo-koo-hoo talked of moose hunting, and I
questioned him as to why he had turned aside for the last time, just
before he fired, and he answered:

"My son, I did it so that in case I should miss, the report of my gun
would come