“Sure. That’s the tree we climbed, but where’s the moose?” Bob replied.
They had stopped at the place where they had had the encounter with the moose, but to their surprise, the animal had disappeared. They had already told Rex about it and he had expressed a great desire to see the animal.
“Don’t it beat the Dutch?” Jack said as he glanced about. “How could anyone have taken him away without leaving tracks?”
“That part of it is easy,” Bob replied. “If they did it the next morning, while the snow was frozen hard, their tracks wouldn’t amount to much and that rain would have wiped out all trace of them. It’s who did it that’s got me guessing. You see,” he continued turning to Rex, “I broke the law when I shot that fellow and if the game warden has found him before I have a chance to report and explain the circumstances, it might go hard with me. It’s a pretty serious thing up here to shoot a moose out of season.”
“I suppose so,” Rex agreed. “But I imagine your word would be taken all right.”
“I sure hope so,” Bob said. “But that don’t help explain the mystery.”
“Probably some Indians or half-breeds found the body and carried it off,” Jack suggested.
“Likely enough,” Bob agreed.
“Are there any Indians around here?” Rex asked.
“A few,” Bob replied. “You know there’s a tribe that live over at Oldtown and sometimes they get over as far as Moosehead Lake, but not often.”