The answer comes. It comes in man's own good time. It comes in the crack of a rifle, and the moose jolts round with a spasmodic jerk. In a moment a movement amongst the surrounding tree-trunks captures its gaze. There is a pause, breathless, silent. Savage wrath leaps anew, and down sweeps the great head till the spread of antlers is couched like a forest of lance points. The huge body is hurled in a headlong charge.
It is an act of supreme courage as splendid as it is hopeless. The elusive foe applies a wit, a skill undreamed of in the beast mind. He is gone in a flash, and the wounded creature stands amazed, furious, baulked, while vicious hoofs churn the soil, and a deep-throated roar awakens again the echoes of the forest.
But there is desperation added to defiance in the challenge now. There is uncertainty, too. The heaving flanks are dripping with a crimson tide. The creature is sorely wounded. For all its pride and courage, its sufferings admit of no denial. The foe has scored. He has scored heavily.
The climax is approaching. The final challenge is taken up at last as the king beast would have it.
The man reappears. In a moment he is standing out amidst the tree-trunks, slim, erect, a puny figure in a world of giants. He is not so cowardly after all. He stands there calmly, with eyes alert, watchful, measuring, ready to gamble his wit and skill against whatever odds may chance.
The moose only sees. It has no thought. Only its rage. No calculation but its immense strength. Savagery, courage, alone inspire its warfare. So it is that fierce satisfaction rings in its greeting of the vision.
It is a moment pregnant with possibility. The doomed creature summons its last ounce of physical might. Down drops the head till the hot blast of nostrils flings up the mouldering soil of the ages. The great split hoofs stamp a furious tattoo. They claw at the loose earth. Then, like a flash, an avalanche of rage is flung into the combat.
The time has come. The man has played his game to the desired end. The creature's fury has no terror for him. With his rifle pressed to his shoulder, and eye glancing over the sights, he waits calmly, and full of simple confidence. Twenty yards! Fifteen! With the low, sweeping antlers, and the rush of hoofs that could disembowel at a single blow, it is a desperate test of nerve. Slowly, gently, a finger compresses itself about the trigger.
But something happens. The moose flounders in its rush. It is the ungainly roll of a rudderless ship. It stumbles. A second, and its mad rush ends. With a curious gasping sigh it plunges to the earth.
And the man? With his undischarged weapon lowered from his shoulder, and the sharp crack of some stranger's rifle ringing in his ears, he stares about him in utter and complete bewilderment.