After dinner Stacy went to sleep while his companions were relating the story of their experiences to the Professor, and the guide was telling him what a clever woodsman Master Tad was.
Stacy was awakened by the voices of his companions. With a growl of disgust at being disturbed, he scrambled to his feet and started sleepily out into the forest, hoping to find a snug place in which to lie down and finish his nap. The boy was almost asleep as he blindly made his way from camp, but without attracting the attention of the others. Getting a little way from camp he leaned heavily against a tree. One solitary snore escaped his lips. Stacy pulled himself together, opening his eyes slightly, then closing them again. Somehow he had a faint idea that he had seen something that was not a part of the forest, something that had made him start with disagreeable expectation.
Before Him Stood a Huge Animal
Being brave, however, Chunky forced himself to open his eyes.
"Wow!" he gasped.
Before him, some five rods away, stood a huge animal, of aspect so terrifying that young Brown couldn't, for the moment, even guess to which class of lower animals it belonged. It was huge, this solid apparition, with a long, beak-shaped nose. From its head branched upward a pair of enormous antlers with many branches. The ends of these antlers looked as though they might be as sharp as needles. When the animal pawed the ground and snorted Stacy shivered again, yet seemed unable to run.
It was a giant bull moose, a savage enough fellow even when confronted by an armed, cool and experienced hunter.
Again it snorted, its beak-like jaw lowering toward the ground.
"It's going to nibble at the grass—I must be slipping away," thought the terrified fat boy. Next he discovered that the animal's gaze was fastened upon him.