while as still as if no living
thing breathed within the borders--the hunter found himself at the head
of the sand spit. Keeping within the deep shadow, he examined the ground
carefully, but could detect no trail, except that of the cow which had
been calling. Puzzled, and nettled to find his woodcraft at fault, he
continued his furtive progress toward the foot of the lake.

He had gone not more than two or three hundred yards when, just as he
was about to step out upon a little lighted glade, that subtle and
unnamed sixth sense which the men of the woods sometimes develop warned
him that something alive and hostile was hidden in the thicket just
ahead. He stiffened in his tracks and waited, eyes and nostrils intently
alert.

He was so close to the edge of the thicket that his own concealment was
very imperfect. In the thicket, just across the lighted space, nothing
stirred; but he was sure that something was there. For fully five
minutes he waited. Then, just to see what would happen, he gave, very
softly and alluringly, the call of the cow moose.

What happened was something no previous experience had taught him to
expect. No moose responded to the supposed voice of its mate; but a huge
black bear fairly bounced into the open, and came at him in terrific
leaps, evidently purposing to catch the cow before she could get started
running. Annoyed, because he was not hunting bear and did not want to
scare the game he was seeking, the woodsman stepped out into the full
light as he raised his rifle.

But he did not have to shoot. If he was not hunting bear, neither was
the bear hunting man. At this unlooked-for apparition of a man with a
voice like a cow moose, the bear almost stopped in mid-jump, as if
struck by an explosive bullet. Fairly falling over in his desperate
haste to stop himself, he clawed the turf wildly, wheeled about, and
scuttled off into the woods like a frightened woodchuck. The hunter
smiled grimly, and went on. He knew now what had startled the cow
moose.

[Illustration: "SCUTTLED OFF INTO THE WOODS LIKE A FRIGHTENED
WOODCHUCK."]

For nearly half an hour the great white moon seemed to possess the world
alone. At the foot of the lake the hunter had to appear in the shining
open for a second or two, while crossing the shallow but wide brook
which formed the outlet. But he drifted across from stone to stone like
a shadow, marked, as he knew well enough, by vigilant eyes, but not, he
trusted, by the