Part 10 (1/2)

The animal was full-grown, powerful, and with wide and heavy antlers. He had been wounded in one of the forelegs, but was still able to stand.

Now he stood under the spruce, on three legs, gazing up at Chet speculatively.

”Like to smash me, wouldn't you?” murmured the youth. ”Well, I guess not--not if I know it!”

Chet wished with all his heart that he had his gun. But the weapon was out of sight under the snow, and the moose was standing over the spot.

What to do next, the lad did not know. The moose did not show any inclination to leave. He breathed heavily, as if his wound hurt him, but Chet was certain that there was still a good deal of fight in the creature.

”Perhaps he'll keep me here all night,” thought the boy, dismally.

Presently an idea came to him to call for help. Andy might hear him, and come up with his gun.

”That shelter is a long way off, but it won't do any harm to try it,”

Chet reasoned, and expanding his chest, he let out a yell at the top of his lung power. He repeated the cry several times, and then listened with strained ears. No answer came back but the gentle sighing of the rising wind, as it swept through the woods.

”Huddled inside the shelter, I suppose, to keep warm,” Chet murmured, dismally. ”I might yell my head off and it wouldn't do a bit of good.

I'll have to try something else.”

What that something else was to be was not clear. He moved from one branch to another to investigate, then a thought struck him, and he resolved to act upon it.

With caution, so as not to attract the attention of the moose, he climbed far out on a branch of the spruce, and thus gained a grip on the wide-spreading limb of another tree. He swung himself to this, and crawling along and past the trunk of the second tree, moved to the end of a branch on the opposite side.

He was now a good twenty-five feet from where the moose was standing.

Would it be wise to drop down in the snow and make a dash for liberty?

”If he catches me, he'll kill me--he's so ugly from that wound,” Chet told himself. ”If it wasn't so awful cold, I'd stay here till morning.”

Cautiously he lowered himself toward the snow below. He was on the point of dropping when he heard the moose move. The animal came on the rush, and in drawing up into the tree again, Chet had one foot sc.r.a.ped by the moose's antlers.

”No escape that way,” he told himself, and lost no time in pulling himself still higher into the tree.

Thus far he had managed to keep warm, but now, as he sat down to rest, and to study the situation, he became colder and colder. Occasionally the wind drove in some of the snow, to add to his discomfort.

Presently Chet thought of another idea, and wondered why it had not occurred to him before. He knew that all wild animals dread fire. He resolved to make himself a torch, and try that on the moose.

Making sure that he had his matches, he got out his jackknife and cut off the driest branch that he could find. Then, holding it with care, he struck a match, s.h.i.+elding it from the wind as best he could, and lit the end of the branch. At first it did not ignite very well, but he ”nursed”

the tiny flame, and soon it blazed up into quite a torch.

”Now we'll see how you like this,” Chet muttered, and started to climb to the lower branch once more.

With eyes that still blazed, the moose had watched the flaring up of the light. At first he was all curiosity, but as the flame grew larger he gave a snort of fear. Far back in the past he had felt the effects of a forest fire, and now he thought he saw another such conflagration starting up. As Chet swung down he turned and limped off, moving faster at every step.

”Hurrah! that did the trick!” cried the boy, in deep satisfaction, and then, as he saw the moose plowing off through the deepening snow, he jumped to the ground and rushed off to where he had dropped his gun.

Perhaps he could lay the beast low after all.

As luck would have it, Chet did not have to look long for the firearm.

The moose had kicked the snow from part of the barrel, and the glare of the torch lit upon this. In a trice the youth had the gun in his hand.

The moose was disappearing in the snow and darkness, but taking hasty aim, he fired.