198 THE MOOSE 



high in the air, with the luminous morning light 

 shining fiill on his head, and outhning every 

 graceful contour of his massive body. Then, of a 

 sudden, knowledge of some unseen presence broke 

 on his clouded brain ; the breeze carried the dread 

 human scent to the sniffing nostrils. A visible 

 tremor shook the big beast, and, gathering himself 

 together, he turned in a flurried circle. 



Crash I The huge horns struck the log projec- 

 tions at the corner of the shack. The left-hand 

 sweep of leaf-like formation tottered, and it fell 

 to the snow like a broken-winged eagle. The time 

 for the shedding had come, and the blows sustained 

 during the mad rush through the forest the night 

 before had hastened Nature's time-table by hours 

 only. 



The moose shook his head violently ; it felt 

 ill-balanced, reminding him of a winter in which 

 he had spent a week half-horned, when no thrashing 

 of the trees would rid him of his odd adornment. 



Soundlessly the right horn slipped down his 

 shoulder, and lay dark against the whiteness 

 around. Then, like a grey wraith, the big moose 

 vanished in the shadows of the forest, and was 

 gone. 



