“Oh, he is; ———— him!” Then he flung himself down on the sand. Something in his tone and manner warned his friends not to talk, and they eyed him curiously. His face was white as death and drawn with an expression of utter exhaustion, and marked with grimy lines, showing where rivulets of sweat had trickled downward. As they looked, his eyes closed; he was going to sleep as he lay.
Quietly the veteran busied himself getting food ready, and presently roused the slumberer.
“Here, old chap, have a nip and eat a bite. Why, you're dead beat. Where on earth have you been?”
A strangely hollow voice answered:
“To the back lakes.”
His listeners whistled a combined long-drawn “whew” of amazement, for right well they knew the leagues of toilsome travel this statement implied.
“See anything?”
“Wounded the old bull badly, and trailed him from the lakes to within five miles of here. That cur sleeping yonder sold us; but you hear me!” he exclaimed with sudden fierce energy, “I'll get that moose if I have to stay in the woods forever!”
The three looked at him in admiring silence, for they guessed that, in spite of his terrible day's work, he intended starting again at daylight. In a few moments he finished his meal and staggered to the tent, and fell asleep as soon as he touched his blanket.
When the party turned out next morning the canoe was gone, though the sun was not yet clear, of the hills. After breakfast they started in quest of grouse, working through the woods in the direction of the beaver meadows, and finding plenty of birds. About ten o'clock they heard the distant report of a rifle, followed in a few minutes by a second, and the veteran exclaimed, “That's him, for an even hundred, and he's got his moose, or something strange has happened.”