All at once a change passed over his mode of pursuit. His pace slackened; his step was more carefully planted, and his eye scanned more closely the surroundings of copse, brake, and thicket. He now motioned the Iroquois to stay in one spot, and whispering me to keep close behind him, and to tread as much as possible in his footsteps, he turned aside at a right angle and bore away deep into the forest, apparently following no track of any kind.
Following closely behind, I noticed that the course was not straight—it bent inwards in a wide circle, so that if continued it must again strike the trail of the moose. It was so; with long drawn steps the Sioux came back again upon his old line at a point some quarter of a mile from where he had quitted it. Arrived near the line of tracks he made a most careful study of the ground, and noted each footprint with great care; then he bent his steps back again in the way he had come, and again bent round so as to make another half circle, this time a considerably shorter one. His course I can but illustrate by the following diagram—
The straight lines representing the original track of the moose, and the curved ones the course which we followed, in lessening half-circles, that ended and began again some few yards short of the trail.
The object of these curious tactics was not at once apparent to me; but I noted two points that threw some light upon them. One was the fact that the circles were always made to the side away from the wind; and the other was, that the Sioux on arriving near the line of trail invariably directed his scrutiny of bush and thicket to the space lying between us and the line, little care being taken to examine the forest directly along the trail to the front.
Three circles had thus been made without any result, and we had once more drawn nigh the line of trail. A few steps, more carefully taken than any that had gone before, brought us to their limit, some few yards short of the line.
To the left front as we looked towards the trail there stood a small clump of broken and tangled wood, lying within twenty paces of the trail. The Sioux looked long and steadfastly, then he advanced half-a-dozen paces to his front, noiseless as the footfall of a hare in a thicket; all at once he stopped. As yet the gun-cloth had not been taken from his gun, but now I noticed that the barrel was uncovered; still the hammer remained upon half-cock. I had not gone forward the last ten paces, for I instinctively realized from the manner of my companion that the final moment of the stalk was at hand.
Without changing his position Red Cloud now beckoned me to his side, with a gesture impressing the utmost caution. Both of us had long since taken off our snowshoes, and our moccasined feet scarcely sounded in the snow. When we were close together Red Cloud said, in a low whisper,—
“Look in the centre of yonder thicket.”
I looked, and saw nothing beyond the maze of tangled branch half-sunken in soft snow. Red Cloud now raised his gun, but it still remained at the half-cock. I looked, and looked again, but could make out nothing. All at once the sharp click of the hammer, drawn to full cock with somewhat unusual strength, and therefore noise, struck the ear; a second later and there rose up in the thicket centre, fifty yards from where he stood, a huge, dusky animal. The Sioux seemed in no hurry, he took matters as coolly as though the moose was working in obedience to his own movements; the moose stared blankly at us, the Sioux looked quietly at the moose. The pause was only for four seconds, but to me it seemed an age. All at once the spell was broken. Quick as lightning the gun was raised to the shoulder, the shot rang out, and the moose bounded like a ball from a cannon, crashing out of the thicket. “Missed,” thought I—no; not a bit of it. Thirty paces were not covered ere the great beast plunged forward in the snow, a struggling mass amid the spotless white.