delicate, the atmosphere was of a
transparency and brilliancy almost vitreous. One felt as if the whole
scene might shatter and vanish at the shock of any sudden sound. Then
a sound came--but it was not sudden; and the mystic landscape did not
dissolve. It was a sound of heavy, measured, muffled footfalls
crushing the crisp snow. There was a bending and swishing of bare
branches, a rattling as of twigs upon horn or ivory--and a huge bull
moose strode into view. With his splendid antlers laid far back he
lifted his great, dilating nostrils, stared down the long, white
lanelike open toward the rising sun, and sniffed the air inquiringly.
Then he turned to browse on the aromatic twigs of the birch saplings.

The great moose was a lord of his kind. His long, thick, glistening
hair was almost black over the upper portions of his body, changing
abruptly to a tawny ochre on the belly, and the inner and lower parts
of the legs. The maned and hump-like ridge of his mighty
fore-shoulders stood a good six feet three from the ground; and the
spread of his polished, palmated antlers, so massive as to look a
burden for even so colossal a head and neck as his, was well beyond
five feet. The ridge of his back sloped down to hind-quarters
disproportionately small, finished off with a little, meagrely tufted
tail that on any beast less regal in mien and stature would have
looked ridiculous. The majesty of a bull moose, however, is too secure
to be marred by the incongruous pettiness of his tail. From the lower
part of his neck, where the great muscles ran into the spacious,
corded chest, hung a curious tuft of long and very coarse black hair,
called among woodsmen the "bell." As he turned to his browsing, his
black form stood out sharply against the background of the firs. Far
down the silent, glittering slope, a good mile distant, a tall, gray
figure on snow-shoes appeared for a second in the open, caught sight
of the pasturing moose, and vanished hurriedly into the birch
thickets.

[Illustration: "STARED DOWN THE LONG, WHITE LANELIKE OPEN."]

Having cropped a few mouthfuls here and there from branches within
easy reach, the great bull set himself to make a more systematic
breakfast. Selecting a tall young birch with a bushy top, he leaned
his chest against it until he bore it to the ground. Then, straddling
it and working his way along toward the top, he held it firmly while
he browsed at ease upon the juiciest and most savoury of