some lie more horizontally than others; so that when the term a "choice head" is used it means that nature has given the bull all the beauty of antlers in profusion.

With far greater agility and cunning than any other animal of its weight, the moose is a formidable opponent when attacked. Some narrow escapes have been made by hunters using the old cap gun, but now with the breech-loader the speed that guarantees security is given.

I have seen a great curiosity in the form of the horns of two moose inextricably interlocked. The story these horns tell is that a duel to the death had taken place in a forest glade between a bull moose of eight hundred pounds weight and a younger one of perhaps four hundred pounds. The larger had an antler spread of three feet eight inches, the smaller, that of three feet. In the shock of the conflict, the horns of the younger had fitted snugly into the many branches of the other set of antlers, and the heads were as solidly and as perfectly fastened together as if bolted with iron.

COW MOOSE, WITH CALVES, SWIMMING MUD POND.
(West Branch Waters.)

That the fight had been long and stubborn the horns showed. Where they had come together they had been rubbed and worn to the depth of half an inch.

The younger had died first, whether from exhaustion, or a broken neck, or starvation, is not apparent, but the condition of the flesh when found showed that he had lost the fight; and the victor did not long survive. Fastened to his dead competitor he could not feed with this weight of four hundred pounds attached to him, and must have succumbed to starvation. A similar case is reported, and is thus described:—

"No mortal eye witnessed what must have been a prolonged and fearful contest; but when their bodies were found in the lake the story of what had taken place was easily understood. The ground for some distance from the lake was torn and trampled where the ferocious animals had charged upon each other, and when the bodies were examined the antlers were found to be so firmly interlocked that it was impossible to separate them. In order to secure one good pair the finder sawed the other pair away, it not occurring to him at the time that the interlocked antlers would be of considerably more value than many pairs in the ordinary condition. In this instance it was evident that the stronger had gone to his death because of his strength. One of the two was much stronger than the other, and under ordinary circumstances this would have secured him the victory. As it was, the advantage was fatal. In rushing at each other, the antlers of the two locked together, and it was then that the larger moose thought he had the smaller one at his mercy. So he had, as far as the ability to push him about and force him back was concerned, but when the larger animal forced the smaller into the lake, both were indeed in a common peril and shared a common fate."

Moose are not secured in a day. In fact, the greater majority of sportsmen require several trips to the woods to assure them success. There are exceptions to this rule, however.

I recall the case of a sportsman who went into the wilderness for a two-weeks stay with his wife, and brought down a moose the first day out. He had no thought of getting one when he started, but it being his wife's birthday, he indulged in a dream and told her that she would be presented with a pair of moose antlers by him for a birthday present. This naturally pleased her ladyship, and her liege lord took his gun, his guide and canoe, and started out to try to fulfil his promise.

SPIKE-HORN BULL SWIMMING MUD POND.
(West Branch Waters.)
Photographed from Life.

When the canoe emerged from the stream into the pond the hunter and guide were surprised enough to see, at the edge, in shallow water, a large bull moose. The animal was up to his back feeding on the lily roots, splashing his great head about, and having no fear, in his lonely retreat, of being interrupted by hunters. The wind, being in the right direction, gave the men an advantage, as the moose could not scent them. The guide approached cautiously, never taking his paddle from the water as he propelled the light craft along.

Suddenly the moose heard something, perhaps the gentle splash of water against the canoe, that made him look around. For a second he gazed silently at the two men sitting in the little craft, now scarcely a hundred yards away. Then he swung his great body slowly around (as there was soft mud on the pond bottom, and he could not make way swiftly in it) and started for the bank. The hunter held his fire, fingering his gun-lock nervously, until the moose had reached firm ground. It would not have done to shoot him in the mire, for, the water being shallow, half a dozen men could not have extracted the body; but with the first step the great beast (with mud and water dripping from his body) took upon the shore, a bullet pierced him in the neck. Then there was a succession of shots, and little jets of blood spurted out on the dark brown coat of the forest giant, who by this time was making rapid way along the rocky shore of the pond. A dense cedar swamp lay inland from the shore, and into it the wounded moose did not dare to plunge. He must retreat under fire, like a general with the enemy on one side and a river on the other.

At last he disappeared in a thicket. The hunters had gone ashore and were after him, coming up just as he sank to earth. A bullet behind the ear discharged his debt to nature.

That night a noble head adorned the camp of the hunter, who had unexpectedly made good a promise his wife never expected him to fulfil.

Contrast this experience with another I have in mind, and the two sides of moose hunting will be illustrated. For three seasons a good hunter from a Massachusetts town had gone into Maine to get a moose, and three times he had returned home empty handed. He scorned to shoot deer. He hardly would have brought down a bear had one presented himself to be shot. He wanted moose. It was a hard country for hunting, a place of boulders and blowdowns and stumps,—a desolate waste. He saw moose tracks, and he was there to follow them, which he did long and wearily, for a day, and at night he slept in an abandoned camp. Again on the next day he followed them, seeing them sometimes on the soft, green moss, again at the side of a stream, or in some boggy place. At times they were lost on a rocky slope, or in a region of hard ground. There was no snow to aid the hunter, and the tracking of moose in such a country without it called for the best traits of the seasoned sportsman,—patience and endurance.