at night," said another. "Like a rifle-shot, or a man shouting
hoarsely," said a third; and so on till like a menagerie at feeding
time was my idea of it.

One night as I sat with my friend at the door of our bark tent, eating
our belated supper in tired silence, while the rush of the salmon
pool near and the sigh of the night wind in the spruces were lulling
us to sleep as we ate, a sound suddenly filled the forest, and was
gone. Strangely enough, we pronounced the word _moose_ together,
though neither of us had ever heard the sound before. 'Like a gun in a
fog' would describe the sound to me better than anything else, though
after hearing it many times the simile is not at all accurate. This
first indefinite sound is heard early in the season. Later it is
prolonged and more definite, and often repeated as I have given it.

The answer of the bull varies but little. It is a short, hoarse,
grunting roar, frightfully ugly when close at hand, and leaving no
doubt as to the mood he is in. Sometimes when a bull is shy, and the
hunter thinks he is near and listening, though no sound gives any idea
of his whereabouts, he follows the bellow of the cow by the short roar
of the bull, at the same time snapping the sticks under his feet, and
thrashing the bushes with a club. Then, if the bull answers, look out.
Jealous, and fighting mad, he hurls himself out of his concealment and
rushes straight in to meet his rival. Once aroused in this way he
heeds no danger, and the eye must be clear and the muscles steady to
stop him surely ere he reaches the thicket where the hunter is
concealed. Moonlight is poor stuff to shoot by at best, and an
enraged bull moose is a very big and a very ugly customer. It is a
poor thicket, therefore, that does not have at least one good tree
with conveniently low branches. As a rule, however, you may trust your