their legs and lungs would allow them.

They saw lying almost at the head of the _coulee_, which here
had shallowed up perceptibly, a great, long-legged, dark body,
with enormous head, tremendously long nose, and widely palmated
antlers--the latter in the velvet, but already of extreme size.

For a time they could hardly talk for fatigue and excitement, but
presently each could see how the hunt had happened to terminate in
this way. The moose, smelling or hearing Moise when he got on the wind
below, at the edge of the cover, had undertaken to make its escape
quietly under the cover of the steep _coulee_ down which it had come.
With the silence which this gigantic animal sometimes can compass, it
had sneaked like a rabbit quite past Rob and almost to the head of the
_coulee_. A little bit later and it might have gained the summit and
have been lost in the poplar forest beyond. Jesse, however, had
happened to see it as it emerged, and had opened fire, with the result
which now was obvious. His last bullet had struck the moose through
the heart as it ran and killed it almost instantly.

"Well, Jess," said Rob, "I take off my hat to you! That moose must
have passed within a hundred yards of me and I never knew it, and from
where you killed him he must have been three hundred yards at least."

"Those boy she'll be good shot," said Moise, approvingly, slapping
Jesse warmly on the shoulder. "Plenty meat now on the boat, _hein_?"

"When I shot him," said Jesse, simply, "he just fell all over the
hill."

"I was just going to shoot," said John, "but I couldn't see very well
from where I was, and before I could run into reach Jesse had done
the business."

"Well," said Moise, "one thing, she'll been lucky. We'll make those
deck-hand come an' carry in this meat--me, I'm too proud to carry some
more meat, what?"

He laughed now as he began to skin out and quarter the meat in his
usual rapid and efficient fashion.

They had finished this part of their work, and were turning down the
hill to return to the steamer when they were saluted by the heavy
whistle of the boat, which echoed in great volume back and forth
between the steep banks of the river, which here lay at the bottom of
a trough-like valley, the stream itself several hundred yards in
width.

"Don't hurry," said Moise; "she'll wait till we come, an' she'll like
plenty moose meat on his boat."

All of which came out as Moise had predicted, for when they told
C