Somewhere in Now I suddenly found myself.

There he was! There was the moose trampling and snorting hard-by, in the
shallows of Ripogenus, trampling out of being the whole nadir of stars,
making the world conscious of its lost silence by the death of silence
in tumult.

I trembled with sudden eagerness. I seized my gun. In another instant
I should have lodged the fatal pellet! when a voice whispered over my
shoulder,--

"I kinder guess yer 've ben asleep an' dreamin', ha'n't yer?"

So I had.

Never a moose came down to cool his clumsy snout in the water and
swallow reflections of stars. Never a moose abandoned dry-browse in the
bitter woods for succulent lily-pads, full in their cells and veins of
water and sunlight. Till long past midnight we paddled and watched and
listened, whisperless. In vain. At last, as we rounded a point, the
level gleam of our dying camp-fire athwart the water reminded us of
passing hours and traveller duties, of rest to-night and toil to-morrow.

My companions, fearless as if there were no bears this side of Ursa
Major, were bivouacked in one of the barns. There I entered skulkingly,
as a gameless hunter may, and hid my untrophied head beneath a mound of
ancient hay, not without the mustiness of its age.

No one clawed us, no one chawed us, that night. A Ripogenus chill awaked
the whole party with early dawn. We sprang from our nests, shook the