unnin' up to where I stood, and was mighty glad to be out of the
way of them big hoofs and horns that were after him. He was safe now,
and he opened his mouth and let off a good deal of tall barkin' at his
enemy. The moose saw us, and his fury was the greater because he
couldn't get at us. He kept chargin' back and forth under the log we
were perched on, and if there wasn't malice in his eye, I wouldn't
say so.

"When I first saw him, I was standin' with the butt of my rifle on the
log, my hand graspin' the barrel, and as I caught it up suddenly to
load, the string of my powder-horn caught between the muzzle and the
ramrod, broke, and the horn fell to the ground. Here was a fix for a
hunter to be in. My rifle was empty, and every grain of powder I had
in the world was in the horn, fifteen feet below me, on the ground. To
go down after it was a thing I was principled agin undertaking
considerin' the circumstance of that bull moose with his great horns
and the onpleasant temper he seemed to be in. What to do I didn't
know. I hollered and shouted at the kritter, thinkin', maybe, that the
voice of a human might scare him; but it only made him madder, and
every time I hollered he charged under the log more furiously than
before. I threw my huntin' cap at him, but he pitched into it, and if
he didn't trample it into the ground, as if it was a human, you may
shoot me. After a while, he got tired of dashin' back and forth, under
the log, and took a stand two or three rods off, and as he eyed us,
shook his great horns and stamped with his big hoofs, as much as to
say, 'very well, gentlemen, I can wait, don't hurry yourselves, take
your time; but I shall stay here as long as you stay up there. And
when you do come down, we'll take a turn that won't be pleasant to
some of us.' Crop and I took the hint and sat still, thinkin' maybe
he'd get over his pet and move off; but he did'nt lean that way at
all. He seemed to've made up his mind to stay there as long as we
stayed on the log, be the same more or less. We'd sat there maybe an
hour, when I happened to think of a trollin' line and some fishhooks I
had in my pocket, and it came across me that possibly I might fish up
my powder horn. So tyin' half a dozen hooks to the end of my line, I
laid down on the log to angle for my powder-horn. When I laid down,
the old bull made a pass under the log, as if he expected me down
there, and charged back again, as if he was disappointed in not