Adrian did so, but with a poor grace. He would now far rather have turned the canoe about toward camp, yet railed at himself for his sudden cowardice. He shrank from looking on the dead moose as only an hour before he had longed to do so. They were soon at the spot where the animal had disappeared, and, pushing the boat upon the reedy shore, Pierre plunged forward through the marsh. Adrian did not follow, till a triumphant shout reached him. Then he felt in his pocket and, finding a pencil with a bit of paper, made his own way more slowly to the side of his comrade, who, wildly excited, was examining and measuring his quarry. On a broad-leaved rush he had marked off a hand’s width, and from this unit calculated that: “He’s eight feet four from hoof to shoulder, and that betters the King by six inches. See! His horns spread nigh six feet. If he stood straight and held them up, he’d be fifteen feet or nothing! They spread more’n six feet, and, I tell you, he’s a beauty!” “Yes. He’s all of that. But of what use is his beauty now?” “Humph! Didn’t know you was a girl!” Adrian did not answer. He was rapidly and skillfully sketching the prostrate animal, and studying it minutely. From his memory of it alive and the drawing, he hoped to paint a tolerably lifelike portrait of the animal; and a fresh inspiration came to him. To those projected woodland pictures he would add glimpses of its wild denizens, and in such a way that the hearts of the beholders should be moved to pity, not to slaughter. But, already, that sharpened knife of Pierre’s was at work, defacing, mutilating. “Why do that, man?” “Why not? What ails you? What’d we hunt for?” “We don’t need him for food. You cannot possibly carry those horns any distance on our trip, and you’re not apt to come back just this same way. Let him lie. You’ve done him all the harm you should. Come on. Is this like him?” and Adrian showed his drawing. “Oh! It’s like enough. If you don’t relish my job, clear out. I can skin him alone.” Adrian waited no second bidding, but strolled away to a distance and tried to think of other things than the butchering in progress. But at last Pierre whistled, and he had to go back or else be left in the wilderness to fare alone as best he might. It was a ghastly sight. The great skin, splashed and wet with its owner’s blood, the dismembered antlers, the slashed-off nose,--which such as Pierre considered a precious tid-bit,--the naked carcass, and the butcher’s own uninviting state. “I declare, I can never get into the same boat with you and all that horror. Do leave it here. Do wash yourself,--there’s plenty of water,--and let’s be gone.” Pierre did not notice the appeal. Though the lust of killing had died out of his eyes, the lust of greed remained. Already he was estimating the value of the hide, cured or uncured, and the price those antlers would bring could he once get them to the proper market.