6 THE MOOSE 



entertained the deepest respect. They all seemed 

 to know so much. To understand just what it 

 was they wanted, and how to get it. And the 

 beavers were the cleverest of all. 



As soon as the calf showed any signs of intelli- 

 gence, his mother told him of the debt all the 

 animals of the world owe the tireless little workers 

 of the beady eyes and sharp-pointed heads. 



" But for the beavers," she said solemnly, " there 

 would be no world at all." 



The moose calf could not hear the story of the 

 Flood too often ; of the darkness and destruction ; 

 of the end and disintegration of all things ; of the 

 beaver, foreseeing as no other of the bush people, 

 getting together in the face of all difficulties a little 

 heap of mud, which he battered, and welded, and 

 cemented into a shape of a world with the deftest 

 of trowel tails, to which roughly-shaped sphere he 

 added mud and yet more mud, until the universe 

 existed again. 



" Did she remember it ?" the calf asked his 

 mother interestedly. 



The moose cow shook her head. The Flood 

 was long, long ago, and merged on those fathom- 

 less spaces known as " Once upon a time," which 



