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But that great wind out of the north, thrilling in his nostrils, got into his heart and made him forget what he had come for. Out across the alien gloom he stared, across the huddled, unknown masses of the dark, till he thought he saw the bald summit of Old Saugamauk rising out of its forests, till he thought he heard the wind roar in the spruce tops, the dead branches clash and crack.
If the great bull was the terror they made him out to be, then he had driven all the other bulls from his range, and there was nothing to be hunted but his royal self. "Well," decreed the far-seeing old guide, "we'll let him be for a bit, till his youngsters begin to grow up like him. Then there'll be no heads in all the rest of New Brunswick like them that comes from Old Saugamauk."
It was heard of on the Upsalquitch, the Nipisiguit, the Dungarvan, the Little Sou'west, but never, by some strange chance, in the country around Old Saugamauk. Visiting sportsmen hunted, spent money, dreamed dreams, followed great trails and brought down splendid heads, all over the Province; but no stranger with a rifle was allowed to see the proud antlers of the monarch of Saugamauk.
But when the matter, in all its authenticated details, came to the ears of Uncle Adam, dean of the guides of that region, he said "No" with an emphasis that left no room for argument. There should be no hunting around the slopes of Saugamauk for several seasons.
Alas for the right of possession when it runs counter to the right of might! The two young bulls were at home and in the right, and their courage was sound. But when that black whirlwind from the fastnesses of Old Saugamauk fell upon them, it seemed that they had no more rights at all. Side by side they confronted the onrushing doom.
The right of the splendid moose to be called the Monarch of Saugamauk was settled beyond all question one moonlight night when the surly old bear who lived in a crevasse far up under the stony crest of the mountain came down and attempted to dispute it. The wild kindreds, as a rule, are most averse to unnecessary quarrels.
While his vast lungs sobbed and gasped to recover the vital air, other nooses whipped about his legs; and before he could recover himself even enough to struggle, he was once more trussed up as he had been by Uncle Adam amid the snows of Saugamauk. In this ignominious position, his heart bursting with shame and impotence, he was left lying while his two battered victims were lassoed and led away.
The idea of taking the King of Saugamauk alive seemed amusing to the guides, and to Crimmins particularly. But Uncle Adam, whose colossal frame and giant strength seemed to put him peculiarly in sympathy with the great moose bull, declared that it could and should be done, for he would do it.
From the cold spring lakes and sombre deeps of spruce forest, over which the bald granite peak of Old Saugamauk kept endless guard, came reports of a moose of more than royal stature, whose antlers beggared all records for symmetry and spread.
At first it was thought that there would be great hunting around Old Saugamauk, till those tremendous antlers should fall a prize to some huntsman not only lucky but rich. For no one who could not pay right handsomely for the chance might hope to be guided to the range where such an unequalled trophy was to be won.
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