10 THE MOOSE 



neck was too short to allow him to try and crop the 

 short grass which upholstered every solitude in 

 scanty covering of green. He was afraid, too — 

 afraid of the silence, of the unutterable loneliness, 

 and hid away in the dim covert overhung with 

 alders where he was born. Once, as he heard a 

 beaver's tail hit the water with a resounding smack, 

 the forsaken little one cried to himself in a curious 

 choking bleat, which raised a controversy among 

 the ducks as to which of their number was calling. 



" It is Pishnekuh, the black goose, coming here 

 to nest," they said. '' He is late this year." 



And they looked up into the clouds to try and 

 locate the familiar wedge-like form. The sky was 

 empty, save for the circling flight of two golden 

 eagles, wheeling slowly round and round against a 

 darkening sky. There was something very ruthless 

 in their purposeful flight, something wildly lonely 

 and grand and aloof. Deep down in a rocky canon 

 was the allurement of a fallen white sheep — banquet 

 to be ! Yet there was no hurry, such as the 

 Vulturidee display. 



The hermit thrushes called out the calf, as they 

 shrilled with a hundred flutes the song of another 

 spring. So many together made a really big 



