THE WANDERER 99 



for awhile a moose might be, but not inextricably 

 deep ; and the incentive of an exile's memory is 

 very potent. 



He crossed as deftly as he knew how, keeping 

 his eyes on the forest giants tossing out their arms 

 in beckoning welcome, seeing, long before he 

 reached them, the still green deeps, banked with 

 bracken and devil's cup, the boles of the birch 

 shining like bars of silver through the gloom, and 

 the thread of the river, up which the salmon were 

 running once more. 



With that unexpected generosity peculiar to 

 Nature, the rarest and most beautiful of wild 

 silhouettes was vouchsafed the wanderer. Mishe- 

 Mokwa, the small black bear, was fishing for his 

 supper ; not with the purposeful deliberation of his 

 big brown cousin so busily wading in the river, 

 going with the current, after salmon, but on a 

 simpler design of his own. He lay extended on 

 a log lying out into a spreading backwater, and all 

 the moose could see was the rearward of him, and 

 the odd-looking upturned soles, with their spear- 

 like, slightly-curving claws. 



Mishe-Mokwa was catching small fish in dozens 

 with his open paw. Thrusting his forearm dee 



