208 THE MOOSE 



the wilderness thawed out, and the foxes and the 

 wolves, unheeding of the market value of their 

 coats, wore them into disastrous bare patches. No 

 other beasts did so much sitting down and gazing 

 about, not even the lynx, whose glossy coat required 

 constant attention. 



The ducks came back and nested as of yore in 

 the marshlands ; the swallows, too, and the loons, 

 without whom spring would not have been spring 

 at all. 



Lying in a deep brake of decaying bracken, the 

 big bull, in his wanderings through the forest, came 

 across a tiny moose calf, aged about a day. It 

 reminded him of his long-gone self, and his eyes 

 dwelt curiously on the little creature. Though so 

 youthful, it understood the art of mimicry, or its 

 mother understood it for it. Placed where it 

 was, the colours blended so perfectly, so entirely 

 harmoniously, that any calf, however active, must 

 be safe from human detection. Only the forest 

 dwellers would take the tiny one for anything but 

 a broken tree-stump. 



When Moosewa would pass on, his new friend 

 would none of it ; and, untucking his long legs 

 gravely, he prepared to set out for the Great 



