THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS 205 



rivals to battle. Wood-choppers have been interrupted by the 

 apparition of a huge, palmated head through a thicket. Mis- 

 taking the axe for his rival's defiance, the moose arrives on the 

 scene in a mood of blind rage that sends the chopper up a tree, 

 or back to the shanty for his rifle. 



But the trapper allows these opportunities to pass. He is 

 not ready for his moose until winter compels the abandoning of 

 the canoe. Then the moose herds are yarding up in some sheltered 

 feeding-ground. 



It is not hard for the trapper to find a moose yard. There is 

 the tell-tale cleft footprint in the snow. There are the cast-off 

 antlers after the battles have been fought — the female moose 

 being without horns and entirely dependent on speed and hearing 

 and smell for protection. There is the stripped, overhead twig, 

 where a moose has reared on hind legs and nibbled a branch above. 

 There is the bent or broken sapling which a moose pulled down 

 with his mouth and then held down with his feet while he browsed. 

 This and more sign language of the woods — too fine for the 

 language of man — lead the trapper close on the haunts of a moose 

 herd. But he does not want an ordinary moose. He is keen 

 for the solitary track of a haughty spinster. And he probably 

 comes on the print when he has almost made up his mind to chance 

 a shot at one of the herd below the hill, where he hides. He knows 

 the trail is that of a spinster. It is unusually heavy; and she is 

 always fat. It drags clumsily over the snow ; for she is lazy. 

 And it doesn't travel straight away in a line like that of the roving 

 moose ; for she loiters to feed and dawdle out of pure indolence. 



And now the trapper knows how a hound on a hot scent feels. 

 He may win his prize with the ease of putting out his hand and 

 taking it — sighting his rifle and touching the trigger. Or, by the 

 blunder of a hair's breadth, he may daily track twenty weary 

 miles for a week and come back empty at his cartridge-belt, empty 

 below his cartridge-belt, empty of hand, and full, full of rage at 

 himself, though his words curse the moose. He may win his prize 



