Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his shoulder.

"Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the body," said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into Neal's brain.

Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar's rifle cracked once—twice—sending out its messengers of death.

There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to shake the ground under Neal's feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared away, Joe beheld him leaning on his rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.

One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed through the region of the heart.



CHAPTER XIII.

"THE SKIN IS YOURS."

A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the spot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy turned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big one, with an uncommonly fine skin.

Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his rifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth. Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced the gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his first shot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, by the pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his being able, as Joe phrased it, to "take a sure pull on the beast at a paralyzing moment," he had eternally justified his right to the title of sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were not slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like no "greenhorn," but a regular "old sport."

"My cracky! 'twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, which showed up," exclaimed Joe, catching the boy's arm in a friendly grip, with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' not even my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scared before a growler like that,"—touching Bruin's carcass with his foot,—"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and moose. But that was all the fire there was to 'em."

Yet Neal's triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to look on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who can shoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class who prowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger, dreading to lose a chance of "letting blood" from any slim-legged moose or velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It needed Doc's praise to make him feel fully satisfied with his deed.

"It was a crack shot, boy," said the doctor proudly. "And I guess the farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it. Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master."

There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the dead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and dissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp, but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it, and discoursed of the night's adventure until a clear dawn-gleam brightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again across the brulee. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing Bruin's skin and a goodly portion of his meat.

Joe laid the hide at Neal's feet.

"There, boy," he said, "the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the man who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn't mortally hurt at all till your bullet nipped him in the neck."

"But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You'll lose it," faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by the woodsman's generosity.

"Don't you bother about that; let it go," answered Joe, whose business of guiding was profitable enough for him. "'Tain't enough for the skin, anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o' Maine in the last five years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come around our camp."

There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that morning. The guides and Doc—who had got accustomed to the luxury during visits to settlers and lumber-camps—feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before made their "department of the interior" revolt against it.

When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and, as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in addition to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate brulee and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler's cabin, telling Neal that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.

But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.

He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the accommodation the log home afforded.

The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the soul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body which ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and over-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched, quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys until they blenched before her.

This was the little one of whom the doctor had said "that she fretted if he did not come to see her once in a while." And with Doc she was a different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thin tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and received certain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had brought for her in a corner of his knapsack.

For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the clearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or two, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol's expression, "the beastly nuisance of saying good-by."

Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now he must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to graduate from the High School during the following year, and to let him waste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of course would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb's fees for guiding, and dismissed him too.

Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and his English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were to meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of country as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead our trio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could follow a plain trail for the remainder of the way, they had no further need of their guide's services. They promised to visit Eb at his bark hut on their return journey, to bid him a final farewell, and hear one more stave of:—

"Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"

"Good-by, you lucky fellows!" said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he gripped Neal's hand, then Dol's, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour of parting came. "I wish I was going on with you. We've had a stunning good time together, haven't we? And we'll run across each other in these woods some time or other again, I know! You'll never feel satisfied to stay in England, where there's nothing to hunt but hares and foxes, after chasing bears and moose."

"Oh! we'll come out here again, depend upon it," answered Neal. "Drop me a line occasionally, won't you, Roy? Here's our Manchester address."

"I will, if you'll do the same."

"Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!"

"I've got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack, Doc," Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade farewell to the doctor. "I—I'll keep them as long as I live."

Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip of white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the swamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.

"Well, confusion to partings anyhow!" broke in Joe. "Don't like 'em a bit. Hope you'll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you show it to your folks at home, tell 'em Joe Flint said he knew one Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don't you forgit it."

"Good-by," said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the departing three. "Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight as your bodies, and you'll be a trio worth knowing. We'll meet again some day; I'm sure of it."

Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would have no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol. Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.

"Forward, Company Three!" cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping briskly ahead, his comrades following. "Now for a sight of the 'Jabberwock' of the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and all woodsmen!"



CHAPTER XIV.

A LUCKY HUNTER.

Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of Indians, "Company Three," as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of Millinokett Lake.

During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and pointless. Royal's tear-away tongue, his brothers' racket, Joe's racy talk, Uncle Eb's kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc's companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled with him, were missed.

But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to eat their "snack" on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin's rugged sides and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm replaced depression.

"It's no use grizzling because we can't have those fellows with us all the time," remarked Neal philosophically. "'Twas a big piece of luck our running against them at all. And I've a sort of feeling that this won't be the end of it; we'll come across them again some day or other."

"And at all events we'll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as we go back," said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.

"Well, needless to say, I'd have been glad of their company for the rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us, it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We're a big party already for moose-calling or stalking—three of us, with Herb;" this from Cyrus.

"Now, fellows, don't you think we'd better get a move on us?" added the leader. "We've half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let's keep a stiff upper lip, and the journey will soon be over."

It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round. Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew them nearer to him.

They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left, while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour's tramping brought them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.

Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.

The irregular shores of the lake were broken by "logons," narrow little bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.

"Millinokett Lake," said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft, liquid sound. "It's an Indian name, boys; it signifies 'Lake of Islands.' Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their names is unequalled. I don't know exactly how many of those islets there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?"

After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and spruces, the lively green of the latter making the former look black in contrast.

"Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!" boomed Neal and Dol together.

"It's our camp, sure enough," answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm. "At least the first cabin will be ours. I don't know whether there are any hunters in the other one just now."

The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he expected to slide into the lap of luxury.

In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts, and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the great stone fireplace only two feet distant.

The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns, while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty. There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk. There was no Herb Heal.

"Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?" Garst exclaimed. "He's been here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he's only prowling about in the woods near. I'll give him a 'Coo-hoo!'"



He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.

Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.

The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.

"Well, fellows!" said the leader, with manifest chagrin, "we'll only have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke an engagement yet. He's as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I'm mighty hungry. Who'll go and fetch some water from the lake while I turn cook?"

Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin. He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and showed himself to be a genius with the pan.

The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have "done credit to many a Boston woman's afternoon tea-table"—so young Garst said.

Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety and anxious.

"I hope the fellow hasn't come to grief somewhere in the woods," he said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. "But Herb has had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we'd better build up our fire, make things snug for the night, and turn in."

Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty minutes' time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.

"Hello! So you've got here at last, have you?"

The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up, feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.

The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.

This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat was pushed back from his forehead, a guide's leathern wallet was slung round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold together, had a rent on one shoulder.

His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk, with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing the face of the lake.

The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid flare which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his presence.

"Herb Heal, man, is it you?" shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman's arm. "I'm delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you wouldn't disappoint us! I didn't fasten the cabin-door, for I thought you might possibly get back to camp during the night."

"Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?" was Herb's greeting. "I had a'most given up looking for you. But I'm powerful glad you've got here at last."

The hunter's voice had still the quick snap and force which made it startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.

"These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar," said Cyrus, introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet. "Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy—isn't that so, Herb?"

"I reckon it is;" answered the young hunter, laughing. "But no woodsman could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I've been Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle."

He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.

"Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?" he asked. "Well, I guess you've come to the right place for sport. I'm sorry I wasn't on hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must have thought me. But I guess I'll show you a sight to-morrow that'll wipe out all scores."

There was such triumph in the hunter's eye that the voices of the trio blended into one as they breathlessly asked,—

"What sight is it?"

"A dead king o' the woods, boys," answered Herb Heal, his voice vibrating. "A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I had no fresh meat left, and I didn't want to have a bare larder when you fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn't seem to be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me. I was to leeward of him, so he couldn't get my scent. A man's gun doesn't take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped him with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn't get him back to camp till morning. He's not full-grown; but he's a fine fellow for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I'd give the biggest guide's fees I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear him striking the trees with 'em as he tore along. He was a buster.

"But you'll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat for the first time in your lives, I guess."

Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.

The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for a painter,—the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss one point of his story.

Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose, with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters. Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.

"I'm sorry to keep you awake, boys," said Herb Heal, making for the fire, after he had finished his story; "but I haven't had a bite since morning, and I'm that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I'll get something to eat, and then we'll turn in. We'll have mighty hard work to-morrow, getting the moose to camp."

Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground; the other was split, and into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.

The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the fir-boughs,—the camper's couch which levels all. There flashed upon the fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that "in the woods manhood is the only passport." He thought that, measured by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and unconquerable as the forest wind.



CHAPTER XV.

A FALLEN KING.

The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the fragrant boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his dreams he imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening to the ring of the antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving snorts and deep grunts of the noble game as it tore through the forest to its death.

The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they awoke, and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,—a dead monarch. They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.

Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and dressed shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the cabin. But their guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire going well, and was preparing breakfast before six o'clock. The campers tucked away a substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The first glories of the young sun fell on their way as they started across the clearing and away through the woods beyond, towards the distant pond where the hunter had got his moose.

Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon, they found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun again would wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in his side. The slim legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet could no more strike a ripping blow which would end a man's hunting forever. The antlers which had made the forest ring were powerless horn.

"Do you know, boys," said Herb, as he stooped and touched them, fingering each prong, "I've hunted moose in fall and winter since I was first introduced to a rifle. I've still-hunted 'em, called 'em, and followed 'em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering mean about killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his antics in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with my Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me, with a way wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like as not he'd never seen a human being before, and a moose's eyes ain't good for much as danger-signals. It's only when he hears or smells mischief that he gets mad scared.



"Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the trigger, and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him he reared up, making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung round as if to bolt; but the second went straight through his heart, and he fell where you see him now. I made sure that he was past kicking, and crept close to his head, thinking he was dead. He wasn't quite gone, though; for he saw me, and laid back his ears, the last pitiful sign a moose makes when a hunter gets the better of him. I tell you it made me feel bad—just for a minute. I've got my moose for this season, and I'm sort o' glad that the law won't let me kill another unless it's a life-saving matter."

"How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?" asked Cyrus, stroking the creature's shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.

"Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I've shot moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to his shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip to tip. He was a monster—a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I got him too! I'll tell you all about it some other time."

"Oh! you must," answered Garst. "You'll have to give us no end of moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want to learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they go home."

"Why, for evermore!" gasped Herb, in broad amazement. "Are you Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine woods? My word! You're a gamy pair of kids. We'll have to try to accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate—a live one."

Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the "gamy kids" were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they were the luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land, with its camps and trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old playground that they would never stop singing its praises until a swarm of boys from English soil had tasted the novel pleasures which they enjoyed.

"Now, then, gentlemen!" said the guide, "I haven't much idea that we'll be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin and dress him here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?"

The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which hunters call the "moose-bird" screamed its shrill "What cheer? What cheer?" with ceaseless persistence.

"Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!" said the guide, answering it back. "It's good cheer this time. We'll have a feast of moose-meat to-night, and there'll be pickings for you."

He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird, whose cry is startlingly like the hunters' translation of it, haunts the spot where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal off the creature after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb declared that it had often followed him for hours while he was stealthily tracking a moose, to be in at the death. And now it kept up the din of its unceasing question until he had finished his disagreeable work.

As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking "What cheer?" over its meal.

"Say, boys," said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load, never blenching, "if you want to get a pair o' moose-antlers, now's your time. I ain't a-going to sell these, but I'll give 'em outright to the first fellow who can learn to call a moose successfully while he's hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman Cyrus Garst is. He'll go prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting 'em get off without spilling a drop of blood, while he's watching the length of their steps. I b'lieve he'd be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here's your chance for a trophy, boys. I guess 'twill be your only one."

"Hurrah! I'm in for this game!" cried Neal.

"I too," said Cyrus.

"I'm in for it with a vengeance!" whooped Dol. "Though I'm blessed if I've a notion what 'calling a moose' means."

"How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o' time you've been alive?" asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.

"Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I'm a duffer," answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.

"Good for you, young England!" laughed Cyrus.

Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused criticism.

"Britisher or no Britisher, I'll allow you're a little man," he muttered. "Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we're not far from camp now."

A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a novel but not an altogether delightful experience.

However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on fully compensated them for acting as butcher's boys. When the taste as well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.

Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost, mingling with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth delightful.

When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been eaten, together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated himself on the middle of the bench, which he called "the deacon's seat," and luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had performed every duty connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as those of a delicate-fingered woman.

"Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day's outing. City life can offer nothing to touch it," said Cyrus, as he spread his blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.

Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide, on whose weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy expectation.

"Now, Herb," said Garst, "we want to think of nothing but moose for the remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us everything you know about the animal."

Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his pipe reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils, while he prepared to answer.

"Well," he said at last, slowly, "it seems to me that a moose is a troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It's plaguy hard for a hunter to get the better of him, and if it's only knowledge you're after, he'll dodge you like a will-o'-the-wisp till you get pretty mixed in your notions about his habits. I guess these English fellows know already that he's the largest animal of the deer tribe, or any other tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be found on any spot of this here earth. I hain't had a chance to chase lions an' tigers; but I've shot grizzlies over in Canada,—and that's scarey work, you better b'lieve!—and I tell you there's no sport that'll bring out the grit and ingenuity that's in a man like moose-hunting. Now, boys, ask me any questions you like, an' I'll try to answer 'em."

"You said something to-day about moose 'crunching twigs,'" began Neal eagerly. "Why, I always had a hazy idea that they fed on moss altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their broad antlers."

"Land o' liberty!" ejaculated the woodsman. "Where on earth do you city men pick up your notions about forest creatures—that's what I'd like to know? A moose can't get its horns to the ground without dropping on its knees; and it can't nibble grass from the ground neither without sprawling out its long legs,—which for an animal of its size are as thin as pipe-stems,—and tumbling in a heap. So I don't credit that yarn about their digging up the moss, even when there's no other food to be had; though I can't say for sure it's not true. In summer moose feed about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads. They're at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men say that they came first from the sea.

"In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out, they eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches and poplars. They're powerful fond of moose-wood—that's what you call mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us."

"Well, Dol, I feel that you're twitching all over with some question," said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the younger boy who lay next to him. "What is it, Chick? Out with it!"

"I want to hear about moose-calling," so spoke Dol in heart-eager tones.

The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.

"Oh; that's it; is it?" he said. "You're stuck on winning those antlers; ain't you, Dol? Well, calling is the 'moose-hunter's secret,' and it's a secret that he don't want to give away to every one. When a man is a good caller he's kind o' jealous about keeping the trick to himself. But I'll tell you how it's done, anyhow, and give you a lesson sometime. Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a birch-bark trumpet, and give that call in England, you'd make nearly as much fuss as Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only 'twould be a onesided game, for there'd be no moose to answer."

The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed cheeks, where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a duller, hardier hue. On Neal's upper lip a fine, fair growth had sprouted, which looked white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus, he had never brought a razor into the woods since that memorable trip when the bear had overhauled his knapsack; so the Bostonian's chin was covered with a thick black stubble.

Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his hirsute adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently bandied. Their minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the guide's next words.

"P'raps you folks don't know," went on the woodsman, "that there are four ways o' hunting moose. The first and fairest is still-hunting 'em in the woods, which means following their signs, and getting a shot in any way you can, if you can. But that's a stiff 'if' to a hunter. Nine times out o' ten a moose will baffle him and get off unhurt, even when a man has tracked him for days, camping on his trail o' nights. The snapping of a twig not the size of my little finger, or one tramping step, and the moose'll take warning. He'll light out o' the way as silently as a red man in moccasins, and the hunter won't even know he's gone.

"The second way is night-hunting, going after 'em in a canoe with a jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you've tried that, so you'll know what it's like—skeery kind o' work."

Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:—

"The third method is a dog's trick. It's following 'em on snowshoes over deep snow. I've tried that once, and I'm blamed if I'll ever try it again. It's butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong enough for a man to run on, but it can't support the heavy moose. The creature'll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe."

Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord they raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game animal, without giving it a single chance for its life. When their indignation had subsided, the hunter went on to describe the fourth and last method of entrapping moose—the calling in which Dol was so interested.

"P'raps you won't think this is fair hunting either," he said; "for it's a trick, and I'll allow that there's times when it seems a pretty mean game. Anyhow, I'd rather kill one moose by still-hunting than six by calling. But if you want to try work that'll make your blood race through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you as cold as if your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I guess you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not, I'll try and explain it to' em.

"Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the bull-moose, as we call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake of forest creatures, loses some of his big caution, an' goes roaming through the woods, looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling him. The hunter makes a horn out o' birch-bark, somewheres about eighteen inches long, through which he mimics the call of the cow-moose, to coax the bull within reach of his rifle-shots."

"What is the call like?" asked Neal, his heart thumping while he remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his experience of sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.

"Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o' doom, and not give you any idea of it without you heard it," answered Herb Heal, the dare-all moose-hunter. "The noise begins sort o' gently, like the lowing of a tame cow. It seems, if you're listening to it, to come rolling—rolling—along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air above you, when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound that ain't a sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.

"The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends with a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, 'Come now, or stay away altogether!'"

"Joe Flint was right, then!" exclaimed Neal, in high excitement. "That's the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the night when we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized."

"P'raps it was," answered Herb, "though the woods near Squaw Pond ain't much good for moose now. They're too full of hunters. Still, you might have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man who had come across the tracks of a bull imitating her."

"But if the bull has such sharp ears, can't he tell the real call from the sham one?" asked Dol.

"Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever caller, he'll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward noise that isn't in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust, and earthquakes wouldn't stop him. And though he sneaks away so silently when he hears anything suspicious, yet when he smells danger he'll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much noise as a demented fire-brigade."

"Good gracious!" ejaculated Neal and Dol together.

"Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?" asked the former.

"I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he's in danger or finds himself tricked. And he'll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally. When they're real mad, they don't stop for a few wounds. They prod each other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of 'em is stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and don't try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn't stop him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire down on him then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with his forefeet, and one thing is sure—you'll never kick again. Are you tired of moose-talk yet?"

"Not by a jugful!" answered Cyrus, laughing. "But tell us, Herb, how are we to proceed to get a sight of this 'Jabberwock' alive?"

"If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one up," answered the guide. "There's a pretty good calling-place near the south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might get an answer there. We'll try it, anyhow, if you're willing."

"Willing! I should say we are!" answered Garst. "You're our captain now, Herb, and it's a case of 'Follow my leader!' Take us anywhere you like, through jungles or mud-swamps. We won't kick at hardships if we can only get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the present, except for that one moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a phantom."

"Are you going to be satisfied with a look?" The guide's eyes narrowed into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed quizzically down upon Cyrus. "If the moose comes within reach of our shots, ain't anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off again scot-free? I've got my moose for this season, and I darsn't send my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can't do the shooting."

"My friends can please themselves," said the Bostonian, glancing at the English lads. "For my own part I'll be better pleased if Mr. Moose manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough; I don't want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a county, after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp off to die alone in its native haunts. The sight cured me of bloodthirst."

"I guess 'twould be enough to cure any man," responded Herb. "And we don't want meat, so this time we won't shoot our moose after we've tricked him. Good land! I wouldn't like any fellow to imitate the call of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through me. Come, boys, it's pretty late; let's fix our fire, and turn in."



CHAPTER XVI.

MOOSE-CALLING.

Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the forthcoming sport of the evening—moose-calling.

Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his "good calling-place" being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest extremity of the lake.

During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of poplars and birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving Cyrus lounging by the camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting work of preparing his birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent trumpet through which he would sigh, groan, grunt, and roar, imitating each varying mood of the cow-moose. To her call he had often listened as he lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths of the forest, learning to interpret the language of every woodland creature.

Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree, Herb carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in length and six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a horn as a child would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets, tying it with the twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering end of the trumpet, which would be applied to the caller's lips, measured about one inch across; its mouth measured five.

Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it dry, saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused all appeals from the boys to give them a few illustrations of moose-calling there and then, with a lesson in the art, declaring that it would spoil the night's sport, and that they must first hear the call amid proper surroundings. From time to time he impressed upon them that they were going to engage in an expedition which required absolute silence and clever stratagem to make it successful. He vowed to wreak a woodsman's vengeance on any fellow who balked it by shaking the boat, or by moving body or rifle so as to make a noise.

A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon waned, it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.

"Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?" asked Cyrus anxiously, taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before the start.

"Fine," answered Herb with satisfaction. "Guess we'll get an answer sure, if there's a moose within hearing. There ain't a puff of wind to carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves up in all the clothing you've got, boys; the cold, while we're waiting, may be more than you bargain for."

The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six o'clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands. Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which, being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound, so that not a ray of light at present escaped.

"Moose won't stand to watch a jack as deer do," he said. "Twill only scare 'em off. They're a heap too cute to be taken in by an onnatural big star floating over the water. But 'taint the lucky side of the moon for us. She'll rise late, and her light'll be so feeble that it wouldn't show us an elephant clearly if he was under our noses. So if I succeed in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water, I'll open the jack, and flash our light on him. He'll bolt the next minute as quick as greased lightning on skates; but if you only get a short sight of him, I promise that 'twill be one you'll remember."

"And if he should take a notion to come for us?" said Cyrus.

"He won't, if we don't fire. The boat will be lying among the black shadows, snug in by the bank, and he'll see nothing but the dazzling light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys, and mum's the word!"

This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips of any one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the south end of the lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled them. By and by he ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his mouth, knocked out its ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look at his companions, murmuring, "Don't want no tobacco incense floating around!"

At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered with evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening sky, came a faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving a blunt axe against a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have awakened a hope of anything unusual in the minds of the inexperienced; but, combined with the guide's aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made Cyrus and his comrades sit suddenly erect, listening as if ears were the only organs they possessed.

The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence almost absolute, Herb's oars moving with the softest swish imaginable, as the boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen for a calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black that they seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with overhanging bushes, having a background of evergreens. These last, in the fast-gathering darkness, looked like a sable array of mourners in whose ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the spectres being slim white-birch trees.

The opposite bank presented a similar scene.

It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second time in his life the weird sound of the moose-hunter's call. He was a strong, well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the sensation as if needles were pricking him all over, which he had felt once before in these wilds, while his heart seemed to be performing athletic sports in his body.

Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were "all shivers and goose-flesh" as the call rose upon the night air.

After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal noiselessly turned his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark horn which lay beside him. He breathed into it anxiously once or twice, then paused, drew in all the air which his big lungs could contain, put the trumpet again to his lips with its mouth pointing downward, and began his summons.

The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a break. During its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders first to the left, then to the right, and slowly raised the horn above his head, the rolling, plaintive sounds with which he commenced gathering power and pitch with the ascending motion. As the birch trumpet pointed straight upward, they seemed to sweep aloft in a surging crescendo, and boom among the tree-tops.

Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered the horn until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat, having in its movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The call sank with it, and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.

Two seconds' pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys' hearts, so loud that they threatened to burst the stillness.

Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled, quavered, and sank, full of lonely longing.

A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting roar, which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in thunder-like echoes among them.

Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick breath was an expectation.

An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though the responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away chopping noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood. This came nearer—nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp bark.

Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts, a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake, in answer to the call of his imaginary mate.

To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to such questions as:—

"Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does he suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?—Has he gone?"

For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more trampling, grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three sank to zero. Their breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment before had played like wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly as if it was freezing. Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered through them from neck to foot.

So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the water, and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For lack of motion hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows, snug in by the bank, no man could see the face of his fellow, though the trio would have given a fortune to read their guide's. Not a word was spoken. Once, when a deep breath of impatience escaped him, Neal heard the folds of his coat rub each other, and clenched his teeth to stop an exclamation at the sound, which he had never noticed before.

Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard in the woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and put it to his mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor long this time, ending with a quick, short roar.

As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly withdrew it, letting drops dribble from his fingers.

The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for the bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success took their breath away.

The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch any taint in the air which might warn him of danger. But in the dead calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him. The second call upset his prudence. Then he heard that splash and dribble in the water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose into the lake for a cool drink.

A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again with a thundering rush!

Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped. Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.

A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature made, one whisper was hissed by Herb's tongue into the ears of his comrades. It was:—

"Gee whittaker! he's a big one! Listen to them shovels against the trees!"

A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards from where the boat lay in shadow.

This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.

For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.

Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it affected each of them differently.

Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside him,—he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he had made about to-night.

Cyrus's eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster before him, from hoof to horn.

Neal sat as if paralyzed.

Dol—well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him. There was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second would have become a shout, had not Herb's masterful left hand gripped him. Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no longer control.

The moose was a big one, "about as big as they grow," as the guide afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth. He must have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was taller than the tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane bristled. His antlers were thrown back. His great nose, with its dilated nostrils, looked as if it were drinking in every scent of the night world. His eyes had a green glare in them, as for ten seconds he gazed at the strange light which had suddenly burst into view, its silver radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat beneath.

At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step forward as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his Winchester in readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment's notice. But the moose evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural, terrible phenomenon. He shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a flaming heaven.

With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which had deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest, tearing away more rapidly than he came.

"He's off now, and Heaven knows when he'll stop!" said Herb, breaking the weird spell of silence. "Not till he reaches some lair where nary a creature could follow him. Well, boys, you've seen the grandest game on this continent, the king o' the woods. What do you think of him?"

All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of cramped bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.

"He was a monster!"

"He was a behemoth!"

"Oh! but you're a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a fetching call?"

"I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn't been sitting in the boat with you!"

When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering the compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,—

"Didn't you think we'd lost him, boys, when he stopped short in the middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?"

"We just did," answered Cyrus. "That was the longest half-hour I ever put in. What made him do it?"

"I guess he was kind o' criticising my music," said the guide, laughing. "Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn't natural, and the old boy wasn't satisfied with his sweetheart's voice. He was sniffing the air, and waiting to hear more. But 'twasn't more 'n twenty minutes before I gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man must be in good training to get the better of a moose's ears and nose."

"I'm going to get the better of them before I leave these woods!" cried Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense excitement. "I'll learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe in doing it."

"Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!" jeered Cyrus, with a teasing laugh, which Neal echoed.

But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded "the kid of the camp" with favor, suddenly became his champion.

"Don't let 'em down you, Dol," he said. "I hate to hear a youngster, or a man, 'talk fire,' as the Injuns say, which means brag, if he's a coward or a chump; but I guess you ain't either. Here we are at camp, boys! I tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after you've been out moose-calling!"

Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that they were letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of silence, which had been a positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing hubbub the boat was hauled up and moored, and the party reached their log shelter.



CHAPTER XVII.

HERB'S YARNS.

The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near Millinokett Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting the trick of calling. Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making the sounds which he had made on the preceding night, with and without the horn, and patiently explaining the varied language of grunts, groans, sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose indulges.

Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his youngest pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol's own talent for mimicry came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of "the moose-hunter's secret," and give a natural call.

The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and animals; many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his carols and howls. And his proficiency in this line was a good foundation on which to work.

"You'll get there, boy," said Herb, surveying him with approval, as he stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips. "Make believe that there's a moose on the opposite shore of the lake now, and give the whole call, from start to finish."

Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen the guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until it had described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he groaned, sighed, rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of expression, which caused his brother and his friend to shriek with laughter.

"You'll get there, Kid," repeated the woodsman, with a great triumphant guffaw. "You'll be able to give a fetching call sooner than either of the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or you'll be having the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose's forefeet."

For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar's hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was mastering, which would be a means of communication between him and the behemoth of the woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about the clearing, keeping aloof from his brother and friend, practising unceasingly, sometimes under Herb's supervision, sometimes alone. He learned to imitate every sound which the guide made, working in touching quavers and inflections that must tug at the heart-strings of any listening moose. He learned to give the call, squatting Indian fashion, in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of bushes. He learned to copy, not the cow's summons alone, but the bull's short challenge too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in imitation of a moose polishing its antlers for battle.

And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his education as complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment, picked up in the wilds, than of all triumphs over problems and 'ologies at his English school. He had not been a laggard in study, either.

But the finishing of Dol's education had one bad result. If there happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests, he evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a good thing, had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder solitudes. Though the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons every night at various calling-places, he could not again succeed in getting an answer.

At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was held around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his party were really bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned their faces homeward, they had better rise early the following morning, shoulder their knapsacks, and set out to do a few days' hunting amid the dense woods near the base of Katahdin.

"I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that region," said the guide meditatively; "and I got him in a queer way. I b'lieve I promised to tell you that yarn."

"Of course you did!"

"Let's have it!"

"Go ahead, Herb! Don't shorten it!"

Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:—

"It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping in them woods we were speaking of—I and another fellow. We had two home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on Togue Ponds, the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun went down on a Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of these home-camps; though during the week we were mostly apart. For we had several lines of traps, which covered big distances in various directions; and on Monday morning I used to start one way, and my chum another, to visit these. Generally it took us five or six days to make the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we'd sleep with a blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,—a few spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to shorten our trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.

"Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for a'most a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce of ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding on some lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit doubtful whether it was a moose or not; for the creature's head was under, and I could only see his shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried to stop breathing. Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across, dripping with water, and a'most covered with green roots and stems, which dangled from 'em.

"Good land! 'twas a queer sight. 'Herb Heal,' thinks I, 'now's your chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you'll get two hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!' And mighty few cents I had jest then.

"I could a'most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of lead left. But the bull's back was towards me. The water filled his ears and nose, so that he couldn't hear or smell. And he was having a splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots."

"I should think it was!" burst out Cyrus enviously. "But did you have the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?"

"I did. I guess I wouldn't do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that time,"—here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman's voice,—"and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a sound, I was thinking that the price I'd be sure to get from some city swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable. The creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my axe lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his forefeet. Over spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a whale was there.

"I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He was mad scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive. As his feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With one blow of the axe I split his spine. Perhaps you'll think that was awful cruel, but it wasn't done for the glory of killing."

"And what became of the head? Did you sell it?" asked Dol, who was, as usual, the first to break a breathless silence.

There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.

"Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?" questioned the impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.

"I didn't. It was stole."

The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has been touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman's generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as if he had been struck.

"Who stole it?" he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he spoke aloud.

Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy's mouth, to stifle further questions.

"Keep still!" he whispered.

But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the "deacon's seat," leaned forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.

"Who stole it?" he echoed. "Why, the other fellow—my chum; the man whom I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the first time I saw him, when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. He stole it, Kid, and a'most everything I owned with it."



With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which showed the guide's face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on them; fierce flashes of light played through them.

Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench, stamped across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the darkness outside.

The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew themselves bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the camp-door, murmuring disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a remembrance of some story which Doctor Phil had told about a thieving partner who once robbed Herb Heal.

"You've stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol," said Cyrus. "I wish to goodness you hadn't been so smart with your questions."

But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their midst, with a smile on his lips.

"It's best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one," he said, looking down reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. "I guess you all think I'm an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the lonely life of a trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you were leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few furs and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find that your partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I reckon 'twould take you a plaguy long time to get over it."

"I'm pretty sure it would, old man," said Cyrus.

"And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing that moose-head," continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the "deacon's seat." "The hound took 'em all. Every woodsman in Maine was riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him; but he gave 'em the slip. Now, boys, I've got to feeling pretty chummy with you. Cyrus is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you Britishers. I don't want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night for nothing. I'll tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it."

The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.

"All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I've worked at a'most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was a 'barker' in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A 'barker' is a man who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the snow. Well, it's pretty hard labor, is lumbering. But our camp always got Sunday for rest.

"Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon, when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the stripped trees like as if 'twould tumble 'em all down, and end our work for us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped over something which was a'most covered over in a heavy drift. 'Great Scott!' says I, 'it's a man!' And 'twas too. He was near dead. I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn't walk. So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He didn't weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more'n a kid and awful lean. But 'twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half blinding and burying you. I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and pitched in head foremost.

"For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a Penobscot Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke English fust-rate. Chris Kemp he said was his name. And from the start the lumbermen nicknamed him 'Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were black as blackberries, had a queer squint in 'em.

"Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me. We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to share all we got; and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath. A fine way he kept it too!

"Now, if I'm too long-winded, boys, say so; and I'll hurry up."

"No, no! Tell us everything."

"Spin it out as long as you can."

"We don't mind listening half the night. Go ahead!"

At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went ahead as he was bidden.

"We made camp together—him and me. We had two home-camps where I told you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken, which we stored in one of 'em. We got along together swimmingly for a bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess he took it from his mother's people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There's mud in every man, I s'pose; and there's nothing like liquor for bringing it to the surface. A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted fellow to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn't get a chance to see the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn't there to make a fight against his swallowing it.

"It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue Ponds,—where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,—a day or two sooner'n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night. He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn't know much about Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it afterwards, and that he was kind o' scared when the boy—for he wasn't much more—swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the woods, howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He refused to buy 'em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller and ferreted out his story,—I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell 'em or trade 'em at some settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch canoes,—one of 'em was missing too,—and a river being near, the thing could be easy managed.

"I'll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only being you had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I'd shoot the hound if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs."

"I suppose he left the State," said Cyrus.

"I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he'd come back to our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn't a coward, and we had been fast chums."

"And he didn't?"

"Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting and guiding. I haven't been anear the old camps for ages."

"Perhaps you will come across him again some day," suggested Dol, with unusual timidity.

"P'raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there were two creatures inside o' me fighting tooth and claw. One is all for hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o' pitiful, and says, 'Mebbe 'twasn't out-an'-out his fault.' Which of them two'll get the best of it, if ever I'm face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno."

Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze, then looked the woodsman fair in the eyes.

"I know, Herb," he said; "the spirit of mercy will conquer."

"Glad you think so!" answered Herb. "But I ain't so sure. Sho! boys, I've kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We must go to roost quick, or you'll never be fit to light out for Katahdin to-morrow."



CHAPTER XVIII.

TO LONELIER WILDS.

Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a short night's sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He whistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was, controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions, while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it was sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply of flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons to subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. For he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager to start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.

He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but as dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow flicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.

"It'll be a good day to start out, I guess," he muttered. "Let's see, what time is it?"

The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them; for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour so long as they shone. Watch he had none.

While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to croon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which certainly weren't woodsman's English.

"N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven, Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan."

"What on earth is that outlandish thing you're singing, Herb?" roared Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. "Give us that stave again—do!"

The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming, and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.

"So you're waking up, are ye?" he said. "Tain't time to be stirring yet; I ought to be kicked for making such a row."