“Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe.  I had been away on the tramp for a’most a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce of ammunition left.  All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding on some lily-roots in deep water.  Jest at first I was a bit doubtful whether it was a moose or not; for the creature’s head was under, and I could only see his shoulders.  I stopped paddling.  I tried to stop breathing.  Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across, dripping with water, and a’most covered with green roots and stems, which dangled from ’em.

“Good land! ’twas a queer sight.  ‘Herb Heal,’ thinks I, ’now’s your chance!  If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you’ll get two hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!’ And mighty few cents I had jest then.

“I could a’most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of lead left.  But the bull’s back was towards me.  The water filled his ears and nose, so that he couldn’t hear or smell.  And he was having a splendid tuck-in.  It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots.”

“I should think it was!” burst out Cyrus enviously.  “But did you have the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?”

“I did.  I guess I wouldn’t do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very badly off for food.  But I had an old mother living at Greenville that time,”—­here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman’s voice,—­“and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a sound, I was thinking that the price I’d be sure to get from some city swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable.  The creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my axe lifted, ready to strike.  Then up came his head.  Out went his forefeet.  Over spun the canoe.  There was as big a commotion as if a whale was there.

“I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair.  He was mad scared.  He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive.  As his feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back.  With one blow of the axe I split his spine.  Perhaps you’ll think that was awful cruel, but it wasn’t done for the glory of killing.”

“And what became of the head?  Did you sell it?” asked Dol, who was, as usual, the first to break a breathless silence.

There was no reply.  Herb feigned not to hear.

“Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?” questioned the impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.

“I didn’t.  It was stole.”

The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has been touched.  The tone of it was so different from the woodsman’s generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as if he had been struck.