“As the moose felt the knife in his neck he drew back, and threw up his head with violence, intending to trample his adversary with his terrible hoofs; but the neck of the moose has tremendous power, and as the hunter clung to his hold with desperate tenacity, knowing that his last chance depended on it, he was thrown high into the air. He came in contact violently with a beech-tree branch.
“One thinks quickly in such emergencies as these; or rather an instinct, drowsy at other times, wakes up and saves us the need of thought. Story flung both arms around the branch, and with a great sigh of thankfulness, and possibly an inward utterance of the same, swung himself out of harm’s way.
“When his opponent failed to fall, the moose was astonished. He turned round and round, and tore up the snow, and bellowed hoarsely in his rage. The thing was inexplicable.
“At last he looked upward, and saw the hunter in the branches. His indignation waxed fiercer than ever, and he made desperate efforts to pull down the branches by seizing and breaking off their tips.
“How the huntsman chuckled and derided him!
“After a time the mad brute grew more calm. Then, to Story’s supreme disgust, he lay down under the tree to starve his prisoner out. The hunter had no gun. The weather was severe. There was nothing to eat. There was no way of stealing off unobserved. To crown all, the wretched man recalled a number of incidents showing the implacable persistence of the wounded bulls of this species.
“For perhaps an hour the hunter waited, vainly hoping that this particular moose would prove less obstinate than his kind, or would get homesick for the rest of the herd, or would die of his inward wound.
“But nothing seemed farther from the animal’s intention than any one of these things. It was growing dark, and the shivering captive began to realize that he would have to spend the night in his tree.
“He tucked his knife back safely in its sheath, and undertook to warm himself a little.
“His snow-shoes he had taken off long before, and had tied them to a limb, knowing that if they should fall to the ground the moose would at once make mince-meat of them. Then he proceeded to climb about the tree with the utmost energy and agility, while the moose, who had risen promptly to his feet, looked on with the most obvious amazement.