136 THE MOOSE 



cloudless, only the jagged peaks of the mountains 

 rising from distant horizons were swathed about 

 their summits with white vapour. Stars shone 

 with a brilliancy unknown to us, and in the ethereal 

 moonlight the charm of the frozen world was, to all 

 but nocturnal hunters, one of dreams and silence, a 

 time of peace in which the daily burden of keeping 

 life going had fallen from weary shoulders. 



The cold snaps, during which the temperature 

 sometimes dropped to 60° and 70° below zero, 

 seldom lasted for more than a fortnight at a time, 

 and when, at the end of March, a soft Chinook 

 wind sprang up and blew warm and balmy through 

 the forest, it sent the temperature, which had been 

 30° below all the month, above zero, and on one 

 sunny day, filched from summer, above freezing- 

 point, the young moose thought spring was surely 

 at hand. 



Such unwonted conditions merely heralded a 

 shower of rain, which, followed by another exces- 

 sively cold snap, turned the surface of the yards to 

 sheets of ice, over which the moose, ill-shod for 

 such ventures, slid and struggled and fell their way 

 round the far-flung browsing-grounds. 



It was the black she-bear whose winter home 



