40 THE MOOSE 



Tink! Tonk ! Tink ! Tonk ! 



The bell was the one thing the bull moose envied. 

 The cow's horns were nothing — nothing at all, mere 

 crumpled uselessnesses. Her bush wisdom, too, 

 what was it ? A superficial thing, forced on her 

 by circumstances, a sense of self-preservation any 

 forest alien could acquire. 



But the bell I The bell that drew all after her 1 



Tink I Tonk! Tink! Tonk! 



Then came a hot summer, which saw the greatest 

 bush-fire of the century. Other fires there had 

 been in the moose bull's memory— silly little blazes 

 that flamed up and died out as they started, and 

 more fiercely burning holocausts that laid waste a 

 quarter mile or so of luxuriant country — but never 

 anything approaching this red-tongued demon who 

 gulped up the belts of moose grass round the 

 marshes, the undergrowth and branches of mighty 

 trees, leaving nothing standing but blackened stems 

 and a desolate wilderness. 



With a curious muffled roar like that of a river 

 in spate, the fire in three-sided column swept along. 

 Hither and thither the bush people rushed frenziedly, 

 breaking cover at all points. 



An experienced old moose cow, who counted the 



