_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that we're
out chiefly for killing; we're willing to let his mooseship keep a whole
skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
cantankerous and charges us."

"If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
it's as likely as not," chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.

"Well, it there's a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
that man is Herb Heal," said the doctor. "And his adventures go ahead of
those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you how he
swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his fingers
and teeth to the creature's long hair, then got astraddle of its back,
and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How's that! It was
the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn't spoil his yarns. He
must tell them himself.

"A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!" went on the speaker, with
enthusiasm. "I ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned near the foot
of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a half-breed Indian,
whom woodsmen called 'Cross-eyed Chris,' a willing, plucky, honest
fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let him once taste
spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog's trick to
Herb,--stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid pair of moose
antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped out of the
State. Herb swore he'd shoot him. But I don't think he has ever come
across him since. And if he should, he wouldn't stick to his threat.
He's not built that way."