THE WANDERER 93 



remains were those of no Aleut, Indian, or member 

 of the countless other tribes, but of a white man 

 fallen by the way, a lonely trapper overtaken by the 

 cold of the winter solitudes wherein he hunted. 

 The forest had been his sepulchre these many 

 months. Something more tangible scared the 

 moose a moment later — the former shelter, one 

 of many dotted about the district, of the long-dead 

 trapper, a tiny shack of pine-logs laboriously put 

 together. It stood in its lonely clearing looking so 

 out of place — man's handiwork — in a region in 

 which every element of wild nature reigned 

 supreme. 



It alarmed Moosewa terribly, with its likeness to 

 the " homes " of the trading-post. Almost he could 

 think himself a prisoner once more, almost could 

 he hear, instead of the music of the river and the 

 song of the wind through the trees, the unforget- 

 table sounds of a human settlement awaking to the 

 work of day. 



Some meat-hunting Indians finished it I They 

 almost got him as he crossed a morass bare of trees, 

 where nothing but bog-myrtle and tundra grew. 



The sudden snapping of a trig gave him warning 1 

 Seldom does a wild animal break a twig when 



