STEPPING-STONES 27 



bear got himself mixed up in an unsought deadly 

 quarrel with a bull moose— a perfect mammoth. 

 Apukwa, retailing the story long afterwards to the 

 bush people, said that the span of his horns filled 

 the valley from mountain to mountain, which was 

 stretching things a little, but true in the main. 

 The moose was a big one. 



Bruin was lying beside an alder tangle, and the 

 moose accidentally bounded right on to the pros- 

 trate bulk, who got up, growling furiously, his 

 great head outlined against the undergrowth be- 

 hind him, and carried so low that the arches of his 

 shoulders appeared to equalize the extraordinary 

 width of his skull and the depth from nose to ear. 



Rising on hind-feet, snorting and gasping in little 

 spurts of sound, the bear seemed to expect the 

 impact he met. Whether the big moose wished 

 to give battle, or had it forced by fear upon him, 

 Apukwa never knew. All she realized was the 

 patent fact that her protector, the invincible one, 

 lay dead from the effects of a carefully placed 

 thrust from a razor hoof. 



Once more the wolf was thrown on a cold world 

 to fight for herself. Quickly adjusting herself to 

 circumstances — for she was nothing if not adapt- 



