SANCTUARY 193 



to his rifle. Noiselessly the man laid his weapon 

 down upon the ground which made his floor. 



" There, old boy, there !" he said soothingly, not 

 attempting to touch his massive guest, as he could 

 so easily have done, for fear of driving him away. 



The moose leant heavily against the walls of his 

 sanctuary, with drooping head, and palmated horns 

 rising like a fence about his scarcely moving ears. 

 A cloud of steam hung about him. Then, as though 

 they could sustain the weighty body no longer, his 

 legs gave way, and the big beast sank to the 

 ground. 



Skirting the prone bulk carefully, the trapper 

 made up the fire again quickly, with the fear of 

 the wolves in his haste. He listened — he could 

 hear nothing. They had passed ; the fire was too 

 much for them. All around was the unbroken 

 silence of the dark and frozen North. There is no 

 silence quite like it. An eagle owl screeched once, 

 and the small, unequal sound seemed but to accen- 

 tuate the awful solemnity of the deathly quiet. 



All night the man kept up the fire, and all night 

 the moose slept, as spent warriors sleep, heavily, 

 dreaming of summer on a bed of snow. Once or 

 twice the trapper crept up close and viewed his 



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