indeed slow, and also perfectly noiseless. It seemed to take an age to
make a semicircle of a couple of hundred paces. Again we came upon the
tracks of the moose. The signs were now fresher than ever. Retracing
our own tracks for a little way we started on another circle, but this
time, a smaller one, for we were now very near the moose. Silent ages
passed, then we heard the swishing of a pulled branch as it flew back
into place; a few steps nearer we progressed; then we heard the
munching sound of a large animal's jaws. Oo-koo-hoo rose slightly from
his stooped position, peered through the branches of a dense spruce
thicket, crouched again, turned aside for perhaps twenty paces . . .
looked up again . . . raised his gun and saying in a gentle voice: "My
brother, I need . . ." he fired.

Instantly there was a great commotion beyond the thicket, one sound
running off among the trees, while the other, the greater sound, first
made a brittle crash, then a ponderous thud as of a large object
falling among the dead under-branches.

The hunter now straightened up and with his teeth pulled the plug from
his powder horn, poured a charge into his gun, spat a bullet from his
mouth into the barrel, struck the butt violently upon the palm of his
left hand, then slipping a cap upon the nipple, moved cautiously
forward as he whispered: "Its neck must be broken." Soon we saw what
had happened. One moose was lying dead, the ball had struck it in the
neck; it was a three-year-old cow--the one Oo-koo-hoo had
selected--while the other, a bull, had left nothing but its tracks.

Presently The Owl re-loaded his gun with greater care, then we returned
for our snowshoes and to recover our toboggan before we started to skin
the carcass. On the way Oo-koo-hoo talked of moose hunting, and I