On Keeping Still 



push would send it and me into deep water. I 

 mention these details simply to show where my 

 thoughts were. 



As I watched the play in the hushed twilight, 

 suddenly came the feeling that something was 

 watching me. The bull had started around the 

 bay in my direction; possibly his eyes had picked 

 me out but no, he was in plain sight, and the 

 feeling is always associated with something unseen. 

 Without changing position I looked carefully all 

 about, searching the lake and especially the woods, 

 which were already in deep shadow. Finding no 

 bird or beast, no motion, nothing alarming, I 

 turned to question the bull, who had halted to 

 sound his ridiculous trumpet. He was perhaps 

 fifty or sixty yards away. He had not yet seen 

 me; I had no fear of him, no anxiety whatever; 

 yet again came the feeling, this time insistent, 

 compelling, as if some one had touched me and 

 said, "Get away!" I did so promptly, jumping to 

 my feet; and out of a fir thicket behind me charged 

 another bull that I had not dreamed of calling. 



By his size, his antlers, his fierce grunting, I 

 recognized this brute on the instant. I had met 

 him before, once on a trail, once on the lake shore, 

 and had given him all the room he wanted. He 

 was a grizzled old bull, morose and ugly, that 

 seemed to have lost his native fear of man from 



[i99l 



