e that one we shot a while ago!" echoed Bumpus,
showing great excitement. "Just my luck. Why, if he'd heard that I had a
new gun, and was waiting to see what it could do, he couldn't have been
kinder. Just knocked at our door; and when nobody answered him he went
away again, and by jinks! carried the door and the rest of the house
with him. However in the wide world do you suppose that happened, Eli? I
guess you ought to know, because you're acquainted with the queer ways
of these woods' critters."

"Never knew such a thing before in all my experience in woods," asserted
the older guide, shaking his head. "Fire was out, wind blowing wrong way
for moose to smell human critters; and he must a thought he heard
'nother bull on the edge o' ther water, wantin' to fight him. Anyhow he
jest natchrally tore right through that tent. It got fast to his horns,
and he's been an' kerried it off."

"Oh! what tough luck. If I'd only been on the watch I'd have the honor
of shooting the first moose that took to wearin' clothes human way,"
groaned Bumpus.

"D'ye suppose, then, he's keepin' our bally tent; and won't we ever set
eyes on the same again?" asked Giraffe, holding his chilled hands out
toward the fire that in Davy's charge had been revived again until it
sent out a genial warmth.

"Soon know," remarked Jim, who had a personal interest in the matter,
seeing that the purloined canvas belonged to him; though of course he
knew that his employers would stand for any loss he incurred while
working in their service.

He took the lantern, and started away. Thad had managed to get some of
his clothes on by this time, and he hurried after the shorter guide, who
seemed to know exactly in which direction to pursue his investigations.

"I can see something ahead there," Thad remarked, presently.

"That's the tent, all right," remarked Jim. "I only hopes as how she
ain't too bad cut up now. 'Twas nearly new, and good, and stout; so I
guess the ole chap he had some trouble gettin' loose from the same."

They found the tent where it had caught on a sprout, and torn free from
the branching antlers of the moose, commonly called his horns.

"Not so bad after all," remarked Jim, when he had examined the extent of
the damage made by the tent's being so forcibly carried off. "I kin
patch it up easy, when I gits a chance in the boat, to-morry. Guess as
haow we gut off right smart, all things considerin', Thad."

And the young scoutmaster wa