244 THE MOOSE 



knew that quite well. He might live awhile and 

 suffer on, but the sun had set. The vagabond 

 existence he loved, free as the wind and the weather, 

 the perfection of his grace, the infinite strength in 

 his limbs, gone — all gone. 



He had seen moose come and go, and other 

 forest creatures rise and fall, there, where the last 

 purples of the pea-vine spread its arras, and the 

 hermit thrush fluted its autumn song. He could 

 imagine nothing better than a life such as he had 

 led for eleven years, and because he loved it, and 

 asked no more than leave to live it, he must lay 

 it down. 



He passed over the game trails threading to the 

 river weariedly, trying to obtain sufficient food to 

 keep the fire of life alight, but the effort to reach 

 the topmost leaves — the lower ones had gone long 

 since — was too much for him. He could straddle 

 the bushes no more; his haunch was all but 

 paralyzed. What tall bushes he had encompassed 

 once 1 And now the most stunted alders of them 

 all flaunted their tops before his eyes victoriously. 



At night as he lay in the unfathomed spaces he 

 realized that something was always near him, 

 a ghostly presence he could not see. It came 



