edley of squeals,
bellowings, and crashes in the brush. This time Jonathan had caught up
the axe, and approaching the furious melee of whirling hoofs and
gnashing teeth from one side, attempted to get in a blow. In their
wild movements the enraged animals nearly ran over him, but he struck
and stumbled.

The blow missed the moose's head, but fell on the animal's foreleg,
just below the knee, and broke the bone. The moose reared, and
wheeling on its hind legs, plunged down the gully, falling partly into
the river, much as Nat had done.

A dozen times it now struggled to get up, almost succeeding, but fell
back each time. With the ardour of battle still glowing in him,
Jonathan rushed forward with the axe, and finally managed to deal the
moose a deathblow; with a knife they then bled it, and stood by,
triumphant.

"We've muttoned him! We've muttoned him!" Nat shouted. "But I never
had such a fight as that before."

The horse, as it proved, was not seriously injured, but they were
obliged to cut away the alder brush in the gully to get the animal
back up the bluff, and were occupied for fully an hour doing so.

The body of the moose was a huge one; it must have weighed fully
fourteen hundred pounds. The boys could no more have moved it than
they could move a mountain. Moreover, it was now beginning to snow
fine and fast.

Jonathan had a fairly good knife, however, and by using the axe they
succeeded in rudely butchering the carcass and dismembering it. Even
then the quarters were so heavy that their full strength was required
to drag them up the bluff and load them into the wagon. The head, with
its broad, branching antlers, was all that they could lift to the top
of their now bulky load.

The task had taken till past four o'clock of that stormy November
afternoon. Twilight was upon them, the wintry twilight of a snowstorm,
before they made start; and it was long past midnight when they
finally plodded home.

There were corncake and moose venison for Thanksgiving dinner.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD
SHOULD KNOW***

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