water, and feeding on the lily roots. Mr. A. was paralyzed at the sight, for he never attempted to shoot. I held the canoe by putting my paddle down to the bottom, to give him a chance to recover his nerve, and after a while he realized what was expected of him, raised his rifle and fired. The shot did not go any where near the moose, and the animal just raised his head and stood there, looking back over its shoulder. I whispered to Mr. A.: 'You missed. Shoot again.' As it happened, my paddle slipped off into deep water, and we were floating down on the moose and getting a good deal closer than necessary. Mr. A. raised his gun and shot again, and then, as the moose started to walk towards the bank, he got the action limbered up and fired four more shots as quick as he could work the lever. None of them touched the moose, and it moved off into the bushes, without seeming to mind the racket very much. The moose wasn't nearly as rattled as Mr. A. That man was completely prostrated with excitement. Nothing would do but we must go straight back to camp. He said his nerves were too badly broken up to stand anything more of the kind that day.
"Well, sir, we hadn't gone more than three hundred yards on our return trip, when I saw another bull on the bog adjacent to the stream. I paddled Mr. A. within good, easy range, and he tried his luck again, but the bullet struck the water twenty feet to the right. With that he began to swear, and he threw his rifle down on the bottom of the canoe, cussing it and everything else in sight. The moose gave a sudden jump and disappeared in the alders. I reckon the swearing scared it more than the shooting.
MOOSE CALVES LEAVING WATER.
(Mud Pond Region.)
Photographed from Life.
"We hadn't more than a mile to go to reach camp, when Providence, just to tantalize that man, gave him another opportunity. As we came around the last bend, there stood a bull and a cow on the bank, not a great way off. Mr. A. shot twice at the bull, as he stood there, and never touched a hair. ''T ain't no use trying,' he said, 'I can shoot at a paper target all right, but when it comes to game it's a different matter.' If all the hunters who go into Maine could shoot as well in the woods as they can at a mark there wouldn't be a decent head left in the State.
"Now, there is a sample of your city sportsmen. That man fired nine shots at those moose and he never drew blood, and I could have hit the larger majority of them with a brick. Yes, sir; if I'd had a good brick I could have swatted any one of those animals in the short ribs."
COW MOOSE SWIMMING MOOSEHEAD LAKE
Photographed from Life.