With that he walked in a wide circle around the trees to see what the animal looked like from the front.
At sight of Frank the bull moose tried to raise his body, but could not, and the eye closed. From the other eye a stream of blood was flowing. His aim had been true.
The cows, huddled together some distance away, looked at the scene as if they expected their great protector to rise and fight again. But his fighting days were over. A younger hunter than he had ever attacked had brought him down. The King had bowed his head at last in defeat.
“How are we going to get him back to camp?” asked Lanky. “We’ve got to take him, you know.”
“The sled! Sure!” yelled Jack Eastwick.
A cry of joy went up from all the boys at this suggestion. They had built just the means of transportation for getting this big fellow out of the woods.
Slowly the struggle for life was giving up. Frank’s bullet must have gone to the brain. The body showed convulsive movements for a while, and then slowly, very slowly, first one leg, then the other reached out, and the entire body sank to the ground.
The King was no more.
Frank suggested that four of the boys go back immediately for the sled, which was still over at the cabin, fully two hours away, while the others remained to take care of the body, fearing that some animal might get it.
Their protector did not rise. These man-enemies stayed around. Quietly the cows edged away from the scene, and when the boys turned, thinking of them, to see what had happened to them, they were far down the alley of trees, disappearing in a break in the hills behind the grove.