They saw lying almost at the head of the _coulée_, which here had shallowed up perceptibly, a great, long-legged, dark body, with enormous head, tremendously long nose, and widely palmated antlers--the latter in the velvet, but already of extreme size.
For a time they could hardly talk for fatigue and excitement, but presently each could see how the hunt had happened to terminate in this way. The moose, smelling or hearing Moise when he got on the wind below, at the edge of the cover, had undertaken to make its escape quietly under the cover of the steep _coulée_ down which it had come. With the silence which this gigantic animal sometimes can compass, it had sneaked like a rabbit quite past Rob and almost to the head of the _coulée_. A little bit later and it might have gained the summit and have been lost in the poplar forest beyond. Jesse, however, had happened to see it as it emerged, and had opened fire, with the result which now was obvious. His last bullet had struck the moose through the heart as it ran and killed it almost instantly.
"Well, Jess," said Rob, "I take off my hat to you! That moose must have passed within a hundred yards of me and I never knew it, and from where you killed him he must have been three hundred yards at least."
"Those boy she'll be good shot," said Moise, approvingly, slapping Jesse warmly on the shoulder. "Plenty meat now on the boat, _hein_?"
"When I shot him," said Jesse, simply, "he just fell all over the hill."
"I was just going to shoot," said John, "but I couldn't see very well from where I was, and before I could run into reach Jesse had done the business."
"Well," said Moise, "one thing, she'll been lucky. We'll make those deck-hand come an' carry in this meat--me, I'm too proud to carry some more meat, what?"
He laughed now as he began to skin out and quarter the meat in his usual rapid and efficient fashion.
They had finished this part of their work, and were turning down the hill to return to the steamer when they were saluted by the heavy whistle of the boat, which echoed in great volume back and forth between the steep banks of the river, which here lay at the bottom of a trough-like valley, the stream itself several hundred yards in width.