Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay | Page 4

a record of wonderful things accomplished.
The scouts having started on the subject of their mission continued to discuss it from various angles. In this way they often hit upon suggestions, because one remark would bring out another until some fellow chanced to open up a new field of conjecture.
They were deep in the matter, and all taking a hand in the discussion, when Francois, the dark-faced voyageur, suddenly started to his knees with a cry of warning. At the same time the boys became aware of the fact that a strange rushing and pounding noise was rapidly bearing down upon the little camp on the river bank.
Jimmy happened to be sitting cross-legged like a Turk, a favorite attitude of his, and becoming excited he could not get up as rapidly as his chums.
In consequence of this he seemed to be in the way of some huge body that rushed the camp, scattering the fire, and rending the branches of the tree under which the exploring party had settled for the night.
It was all over in a few seconds. The camp was in an uproar, one of the tents down flat, the fire in danger of communicating to the brush, and Jimmy squealing on his back, where the sudden rush of the mysterious monster had thrown him.
CHAPTER II.
A WILD CHARGE.
"Help! Help!" Jimmy was shouting, kicking wildly as he roared. "Keep off me, you wild elephant! Somebody shoot him, quick, before he steps on me!"
"Here, stop that kicking, if you want to be helped up, do you hear, Jimmy!" exclaimed Frank, who had hastened to the assistance of the comrade in distress. "Are you much hurt; and did the beast trample on you any?"
Jimmy began to feel of his legs and arms, and upon discovering himself apparently as sound as a dollar, grinned sheepishly. Meanwhile the two guides had hastened, with the help of Ned and Jack, to gather the fire together again. Teddy had snatched up the nearest rifle and was down on one knee, peering out through the semi-darkness as though anticipating a return rush on the part of the unknown monster that had created such confusion in the camp.
"No great damage done, after all, seems like, if Jimmy says he's all right," remarked Ned, now beginning to let a broad smile creep over his face, for seeing Jimmy doubled up and had been a ludicrous spectacle not soon to be forgotten.
"But what in creation was it that put the kibosh all over me like that?" demanded the one who had been knocked over by the mad rush of the invader.
Ned glanced toward Francois, and the voyageur simply said:
"Bull moose--him very much mad, charge camp like that!"
"Well, I should think he must have been," Frank Shaw declared. "Why, if we'd had a little more warning we might have met him with a volley of hot lead that'd have laid him out dead. Now that Francois says so, I do believe he looked pretty much on the order of a monstrous moose bull. I certainly saw his horns, and they were full grown, because the rutting season is long since past."
"But what makes a moose get his mad up?" Jack asked. "We didn't do a single thing to rile him, that I know of, but were sitting here as easy as you please, when all at once he charges through the camp. Why, say, he nearly carried off some of our property, when he knocked down that tent. Look at the rip his horns made in the tanned canvas, would you? Some more sewing for Teddy here, to mend the rip."
"Francois, do bull moose often act in that way?" asked Teddy, still gripping the repeating rifle, as though not fully convinced that their would be no repetition of the savage onslaught.
The guide shook his head.
"Know only few times when it happen, and then there be reason. He carry off on horns what makes him rush our camp. I saw the same with my own eyes. Bull moose much like farm bull, and hate ze red color ver' mooch."
At hearing this several of the boys gave a shout.
"There, see what you get, Jimmy, for keeping that silly red sweater around. The old bull saw it hanging there in the light of our fire, and it made him so furious, as it has us lots of times, that he lowered his head and just charged us."
"But he took it away with him, as sure as you live, fellows!" gasped Jimmy, as a sense of his deep affliction came over him. "My dear sweater that I loved so much."
"Bully for the moose!" cried Jack.
"He'd done us all a mighty good turn, even if he never meant to," added Frank, "now we've seen the last of that terrible old garment, and Jimmy'll just have to