“So much more glory for you,” he said, “and I'll look after these other gentlemen and give them a day's fishing.” But his manner was shifty, and Moeran mistrusted him.
In due time he reached the little channel leading to the beaver meadow, and, as the sun lifted clear of the distant hills, he began working his way to the pond. He hardly expected to find the moose there then, but he had made up his mind to steal into the high grass and hide and watch all day, if necessary, and, at all events, study the thing out thoroughly. As the sun rose higher a brisk breeze sprang up, but as it came from the woods toward his station he did not mind, although it would have been fatal to his chance, probably, had it come from any other point of the compass. Presently his nose detected a strong, sickening odor of carrion, which, in time, as the breeze gained force, became almost overpowering, and he started to investigate. Paddling straight up-wind he came at last to a small pool, and the trouble was explained. The half-decomposed body of a full-grown cow moose lay in the pool and Moeran muttered savagely his opinion of all such butchery when he saw that not even the feet had been taken for trophies. Then he poled his canoe to the edge of the meadow and scouted carefully entirely round the open, seeking for any possible sign of the remainder of the quartet. To his utter disgust he found the remains of another moose, one of the younger animals, lying just within the borders of the cover, and, as in the other case, the butcher had not troubled himself to take away any portion of his victim. Moeran understood, of course, that the guide had played him false, and if that worthy had been present he might have seriously regretted his wrong-doing, for he it was who had guided a learned and honorable (?) American judge to the sanctuary of the moose a month previously, and, for a consideration of twenty-five dollars, enabled his patron to gratify his taste for the shambles.
Moeran's careful search discovered no fresh sign, and he made up his mind that the two survivors, the old bull and the yearling, had fled the scene and had probably sought another expanse of beaver meadow and ponds the guide had mentioned as being about ten miles from Trout Lake. Moeran knew that some sort of a trail led thither, and he resolved to find it and follow it to the end and endeavor to locate the moose.
Of the ensuing long, hard day's work it will be unnecessary to speak in detail.
At nine o'clock that night his three friends sat near their roaring camp-fire on the lake shore, wondering at his protracted absence. The guide had turned in an hour previous, but the three were anxious, so they sat and smoked, and discussed the question, piling great drift-logs on their fire till it roared and cracked in fierce exultation and leaped high in air to guide the wanderer home. Its long, crimson reflection stretched like a pathway of flame far over the black waters of the lake, and the three sat and waited, now glancing along this glowing path, anon conversing in subdued tones. The lake was as still and dark as a lake of pitch, and some way the three felt ill at ease, as though some evil impended. At last the veteran of the trio broke a longer silence than usual:
“Boys, I don't like this. It's ten o'clock and he should have been back long ago. I hope to Heaven——”
A touch on his arm from the man at his right caused him to glance quickly lakeward.
Forty feet from them, drifting noiselessly into the firelight, was the Peterboro, with Moeran kneeling as usual and sending the light craft forward in some mysterious manner which required no perceptible movement of the arms nor lifting of the paddle. It was a fine exhibition of his skill to thus approach unheard three anxious, listening men on such a night, for he had heard their voices good two miles away. His appearance was so sudden, so ghostlike, that for a few seconds the party stared in mute surprise at the forms of man and craft standing out in sharp relief against the blackness of the night; then a whoop of delight welcomed him.
He came ashore, swiftly picked up the canoe and turned it bottom upward on the sand for the night, carried his rifle into camp, then approached the fire and looked sharply round.
“The guide's asleep.”