That day in camp there was a sudden excitement. Three of the Indians had driven a cow moose, a yearling, and a bull into a small cover. It was a splendid chance for the girl. I can see her eyes glowing with the fires of excitement now, as she caught up her rifle and hurried with her father and brother and the Indians to the refuge-place of the family of moose. She was placed at the head of an open space, and the moose were driven out. First came the yearling calf, then the mother, and after them came the old bull. The girl’s lovely face, as I looked at it, was flushed. It seemed as though I might hear the excited beating of her heart as she waited, quivering with the desire to kill. She fired first at the calf, and then at the mother--and from that moment all that was big and beautiful and noble in life seemed to leave her own body and enter that of the old bull moose. For the first shot had struck the calf, laming it so that it could run but slowly, with the mother urging it on from behind. Not once in the moments that followed did the mother run ahead of her calf. And then I beheld a thing that I believe to be as noble as anything that man has ever done in all the ages. Believe, if you will, that the magnificent old bull had no reason. Believe, if you cannot sacrifice your egoism, that he did not think. Do not give him the credit of possessing a heart or a soul or feelings, if that sacrifice of egoism hurts you. But consider what happened. The old bull ran alongside the cow, alongside the calf, and then, by reason or instinct, he _knew_ what had happened. He did not forge ahead. He did not race for safety, but deliberately he dropped behind, turned himself broadside, and stopped, _making of his own splendid body a barrier in the path of the bullets_. I heard the girl’s rifle cracking. Twice I saw the bull flinch, and I knew that he was struck. Then I heard her cry out, almost frantically, that her last shot was gone. In the same instant, her brother ran up from the cover and thrust his own rifle into her hands. “Give it to him, sis!” he cried. “Give it to him!” The big bull had turned. He staggered a bit as he ran, but in a hundred feet he had overtaken the cow and the calf. The calf was going still more slowly, and in my desire to see the cow and the bull break away, I shouted.