158 THE MOOSE 



with the keen air. A tropical aheii, belonging to 

 the sun and the radiant South, lily bells, and the 

 stems of roses, it had thought to come in summer, 

 but winter reigned still. Helpless and battered, 

 the wind whirled it into rain-soaked grasses, and 

 beat it, gleaming like a star, into the darkness of 

 an ever-frozen earth. 



There the mink found it, with its message of 

 summer and the South, which he could not read. 

 A dead humming-bird 1 It meant one thing only 

 to him. Minks are the least imaginative of all the 

 bush people. 



At least, so the rest of the wilderness folk say. 



