e mother. There was an unvoiced
command to silence that no human sense could understand. The mother put
her great head down to earth--"Smell of that; mark that, and remember,"
she was saying in her own way; and the calf put his little head down
beside hers, and I heard him sniff-sniffing the leaves. Then the mother
swung her head savagely, bunted the little fellow out of his tracks, and
drove him hurriedly ahead of her away from the place--"Get out, hurry,
danger!" was what she was saying now, and emphasizing her teaching with
an occasional bunt from behind that lifted the calf over the hard
places. So they went up the hill, the calf wondering and curious, yet
ever reminded by the hard head at his flank that obedience was his
business just now, the mother turning occasionally to sniff and listen,
till they vanished silently among the dark spruces.

For a week or more I haunted the spot; but though I saw the pair
occasionally, in the woods or on the shore, I learned no more of
Umquenawis' secrets. The moose schools are kept in far-away, shady
dingles beyond reach of inquisitive eyes. Then, one morning at daylight
as my canoe shot round a grassy point, there were the mother and her
calf standing knee-deep among the lily pads. With a yell I drove the
canoe straight at the little one.

Now it takes a young moose or caribou a long time to learn that when
sudden danger threatens he is to follow, not his own frightened head,
but his mother's guiding tail. To young fawns this is practically the
first thing taught by the mothers; but caribou are naturally stupid, or
trustful, or burningly inquisitive, according to their several
dispositions; and moose, with their great strength, are naturally
fearless; so that this needful lesson is slowly learned. If you surprise
a mother moose or caribou with her young at close quarters and rush at
them instantly, with a whoop or two to scatter their wits, the chances
are that the mother will bolt into the brush, where safety lies, and the
calf into the lake or along the shore, where the going is easiest.

Several times I have caught young moose and caribou in this way, either
swimming or stogged in the mud, and after turning them back to shore
have watched the mother's cautious return and her treatment of the lost
one. Once I paddled up beside a young bull moose, half grown, and
grasping the coarse hair on his back had him tow me a hundred yards, to
the next point, while I studied his expre