122 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



his rivals to battle. Wood-choppers have been inter 

 rupted by the apparition of a huge, palmated head 

 through a thicket. Mistaking 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 en 

 tirely 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 



