The afternoon's tragedy, and my
share in it, as it affected the innocence, destroyed the pleasure of my
adventure. It is true, I came as near as is possible to come to being a
hunter and miss it, myself; and as it is, I think that I could spend a
year in the woods, fishing and hunting, just enough to sustain myself,
with satisfaction. This would be next to living like a philosopher on the
fruits of the earth which you had raised, which also attracts me. But this
hunting of the moose merely for the satisfaction of killing him,--not even
for the sake of his hide,--without making any extraordinary exertion or
running any risk yourself, is too much like going out by night to some
wood-side pasture and shooting your neighbor's horses. These are God's own
horses, poor, timid creatures, that will run fast enough as soon as they
smell you, though they _are_ nine feet high. Joe told us of some hunters
who a year or two before had shot down several oxen by night, somewhere in
the Maine woods, mistaking them for moose. And so might any of the
hunters; and what is the difference in the sport, but the name? In the
former case, having killed one of God's and _your own_ oxen, you strip off
its hide,--because that is the common trophy, and, moreover, you have
heard that it may be sold for moccasins,--cut a steak from its haunches,
and leave the huge carcass to smell to heaven for you.
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