126 THE MOOSE 



successful where others failed his sleek condition 

 showed. Where the fox miscalculated, Lucivee 

 saw his way clearly ; where the strong wolfs leap 

 fell short by a foot or so, Lucivee encompassed the 

 distance and over ; where the gluttonous wolverine, 

 with all his vaunted wisdom, bungled, Lucivee killed 

 every time. If he missed on rare occasion, he 

 accepted his bad luck like a philosopher in silence ; 

 and taking the comforting unction to his crafty 

 soul that all things come to him who lies in wait, 

 returned to his look-out. 



And as exceptionally heavy falls of snow filled 

 the forest, penetrating even under the biggest 

 trees, and the nights cloaked a dead and frozen 

 world, the lynx took on a ferocity which made him 

 as formidable as a wolf. 



Nothing, surely, but the hunger madness could 

 have made Lucivee attack that powerful muste- 

 line. Carcajou, the wolverine, who has forgotten, 

 and never missed, more than the lynx ever 

 knew! 



The wolverine had hunted the moonlit pine- 

 woods fruitlessly. Hunger drove him at last up 

 a few feet of a rough-barked tree, where, in a 

 cavernous hole between two branches, he hoped 



