THE ODYSSEY OF OLD BILL 83 
The breathing grew louder, the swish more rapid. 
A few minutes later, across the dim surface of the 
lake, Bill saw the great, palmated antlers of a 
bull moose, rising above the ripples, and just 
below them, nose almost in the water, the splen- 
did head. The bull reached bottom with his feet. 
He began to struggle faster. Then he got to 
knee depth, shook himself, and came, like a great, 
black ghost risen from the deep, splashing up to 
the shore. That was how Bill saw his father 
again, and how he learned the meaning of the cow 
moose call, the call that brings the fathers back 
to the herds. 
After that, the bull stayed with them again, as 
the first snow came, and they continued their 
wanderings, still looking for some escape into 
deeper woods where men and roads and other 
strange things did not annoy. So far, guns, how- 
ever, were not in their experience of terrors. But 
now, all suddenly, as they woke one morning and 
set out to browse through a young second growth 
hard wood, they ran full into a party of three men 
whose presence they had not scented because of 
the direction of the strong wind. The bull saw 
