Squaw Pond.

His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
of fun during his trips, declaring that he has "the pull over fellows
who go into the woods for killing," seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy
the escape of a game animal if he can only catch a sight of it, and
perceive how its pluck or cunning enables it to baffle pursuing man.
There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman of the best type. Perhaps
they are right.

Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority,
this student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not
been able to obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the
_ignis fatuus_ of hunters,--the mighty moose.

Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding
its light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse
and swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon
the bank, near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters dared
not breathe. It was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts a
heavy fine for the killing of a moose; and even the guide had no desire
to send his bullets through the law, though he might have riddled the
game without compunction.

For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond's brink, magnified
in the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then