50 THE MOOSE 



Just for a moment the bear's round-pupilled, 

 amiable eyes, belying an unusually aggressive ap- 

 pearance, caused by the curious puckering of a 

 badly healed facial battle scar, rested on the 

 intruders. Then, with lofty indifference, as though 

 to show what he really could accomplish if he tried 

 hard, he bit the tree energetically again, touching 

 a height this time of quite eight and half feet from 

 the ground. 



Desisting from his tree-blazing operations, the 

 bear came down to his feet heavily, and browsed, 

 like a great ox, on the herbage about him, eating 

 downwards, not up, like the moose cow. His late 

 summer coat was long in parts, patchy and short 

 in others, an inferior covering for so grand a beast. 

 Moving slowly after the grass, he passed into the 

 shadows, grumbling to himself. 



A week of wonderful happenings followed, of 

 introductions to hitherto only heard of beasts and 

 things, to habits which later became part of life 

 itself. 



At the first sign of dawn they fed until the sun 

 got up, the little one trying to imitate as best he 

 could the cow's clever manipulation of overhead 

 branches which she straddled dexterously with her 



