Neither of us stirred a finger. It was still as the grave for a second. There was another great crack, and then a huge rustling and breaking together, unguarded and continued. My eyes were glued on the thick screen of alders, and the alders parted, and out from them stepped the most magnificent brute I ever saw alive—a huge moose with spreading antlers that seemed ten feet across. As big as a horse he was, and looked bigger because he stood higher and because of the antlers. Gee! what a picture that made. He waded grandly into the water, making a terrific rumpus of splashing, and then, as I sighted down the barrel, I felt Josef’s finger light on my arm.
“Il va marcher—he’s going to walk up the shore. Wait till he turns.”
The alders parted, and out from them stepped the most magnificent brute I ever saw alive.
It was plain that he wanted me to have a broadside shot, and, while it wasn’t flattering, yet I didn’t care to take chances on this moose myself. I lowered the rifle. The beast put down that gorgeous head and tore up a lily and tossed it on the water, and then bit off a piece of the root and munched it. It was hard to wait while his lordship lunched; I was so afraid I’d lose him I nearly exploded. But in a minute he turned and began to wade again arrogantly and deliberately up-stream—it was plain he felt himself cock of the walk and the monarch of the forest all right. Then Josef’s finger touched me again, and he grunted—I think he was beyond words. I lifted the rifle and held on the back of the beast’s head and pulled the trigger. The stillness sure was smashed to pieces by the roar of that rifle-shot. I reloaded instantly, but Josef yelled:
“Vous l’avez, M’sieur Bob—you’ve got him.”
It was so, you know. Of course it was a fluke, but I hit him in the back of the head where I’d held, and he dropped like a log. Well, for about five minutes things were mixed. Josef and I talked to each other and listened to ourselves, and both of us were mad to get across that pond to where the big moose lay, still and enormous—but we hadn’t any boat. We didn’t dare start to walk around it, for fear the moose might not be quite dead and might get up and make off while we were in the woods. So we stood and waited, ready to plunk him if he stirred.
“Where the dickens in Canada are we, anyway?” I burst at Josef in English—but he understood.
“It is a place not too far from camp, M’sieur Bob,” he answered quietly. “If but we might have a canoe, à c’t heure. Mais v’là”—he broke off.
And, please the pigs, I lifted my eyes and there was a canoe paddling down the inlet, and in the canoe sat old Shacky and Zoëtique.