The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch any taint in the air which might warn him of danger.  But in the dead calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him.  The second call upset his prudence.  Then he heard that splash and dribble in the water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose into the lake for a cool drink.

A snort!  A bellowing challenge quite indescribable!  On he came again with a thundering rush!

Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs.  Branches snapped.  Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.

A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in the bank.  Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature made, one whisper was hissed by Herb’s tongue into the ears of his comrades.  It was:—­

“Gee whittaker! he’s a big one!  Listen to them shovels against the trees!”

A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards from where the boat lay in shadow.

This was a supreme moment for our travellers.  Leaning forward, fearful lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.

For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath.  Then Herb bent forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.

Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it affected each of them differently.

Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside him,—­he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he had made about to-night.

Cyrus’s eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster before him, from hoof to horn.

Neal sat as if paralyzed.

Dol—­well, Dol lost his head a bit.  A deep, throaty gulp, which was a weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him.  There was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second would have become a shout, had not Herb’s masterful left hand gripped him.  Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no longer control.