The little trickle of water in which the moose stood at the beach below came down out of a steep coulée, which at the point where they stood ran between deep banks, rapidly shallowing farther up the main slope. Fortunately the wind was right for an approach. Moise left John at a rock which showed on an open place pretty well up the hill, and stationed Jesse a little closer to the coulée. Moise and Rob scrambled across the steep slopes of the ravine, and hurried on as fast as they could go, to try to get below the moose in case it should attempt to take the water. Thus they had four rifles distributed at points able to cover the course of the moose should it attempt to escape up the bank, and close enough to hear it if it passed beneath in the forest growth.
Rob and Moise paused only long enough partly to get their breath before Moise motioned to Rob to remain where he was, while he himself hastened to the right and down toward the beach.
For some time the half-breed hunter remained at the edge of the cover, listening intently. Apparently he heard no sound, and neither he nor Rob could detect any ripple on the water showing that the moose was going to undertake escape by swimming. Thus for a time, for what indeed seemed several minutes, all the hunters continued in their inaction, unable to determine upon a better course than simply to wait to see what might happen.
What did happen was something rather singular and unexpected. Suddenly Rob heard a rifle-shot at the left, and turning, saw the smoke of Jesse’s rifle, followed by a second and then a third report. He saw Jesse then spring to his feet and run up to the slope, shouting excitedly as he went and waving his cap. Evidently the hunt was over in very unexpected fashion. Moise, Rob, and John also ran up as fast as their legs and lungs would allow them.
They saw lying almost at the head of the coulée, which here had shallowed up perceptibly, a great, long-legged, dark body, with enormous head, tremendously long nose, and widely palmated antlers—the latter in the velvet, but already of extreme size.
For a time they could hardly talk for fatigue and excitement, but presently each could see how the hunt had happened to terminate in this way. The moose, smelling or hearing Moise when he got on the wind below, at the edge of the cover, had undertaken to make its escape quietly under the cover of the steep coulée down which it had come. With the silence which this gigantic animal sometimes can compass, it had sneaked like a rabbit quite past Rob and almost to the head of the coulée. A little bit later and it might have gained the summit and have been lost in the poplar forest beyond. Jesse, however, had happened to see it as it emerged, and had opened fire, with the result which now was obvious. His last bullet had struck the moose through the heart as it ran and killed it almost instantly.
“Well, Jess,” said Rob, “I take off my hat to you! That moose must have passed within a hundred yards of me and I never knew it, and from where you killed him he must have been three hundred yards at least.”
“Those boy she’ll be good shot,” said Moise, approvingly, slapping Jesse warmly on the shoulder. “Plenty meat now on the boat, hein?”
“When I shot him,” said Jesse, simply, “he just fell all over the hill.”