YOUTHFUL EXPERIENCES 47 



At last ! His hoofs struck ground, and levering 

 himself up the alder-grown bank, the calf stood 

 dripping and triumphant. 



A world of green forest aisles opened up, deep, 

 mysterious, and inviting, with the fitful slanting 

 sunlight falling athwart the eerie spaces. Here and 

 there through the shadows the silver riband of the 

 river gleamed. From somewhere above the arch 

 of the trees came the half-laughing cry of a kestrel, 

 and down the dark avenues the wind murmured 

 and rustled through the plumed heads of the tall 

 moose grass growing at the margin of the stream. 



They moved off along the river bank, down a 

 sunken bear trail, where generations of bears had 

 wandered up and down in quest of the salmon, 

 which teem at spawning time in most Alaskan 

 rivers. Even now skeletons of last year's fish lay 

 thickly strewn about the banks, or in eddies of 

 deep pools, into which the melting snow had cast 

 them. 



The calf watched his mother with admiration. 

 Sometimes she walked carelessly, heedless of the 

 noise she made ; but when she willed it, the coarse 

 undergrowth, springing up in patches, held buoyant 

 beneath the weight of her unwieldy form, instead 



