overtake him. With confident
vigour he breasted the incline, his mighty muscles working as never
before under the black hair of shoulder and flank. But he did not know
that every splendid stride was measured by a scarlet sign on the snow.

For a few minutes the moose rushed on through the morning woods, up
and up between the tall trunks of the firs, half-forgetting his alarm
in the triumph of his speed. Then it began to seem to him that the
slope of the hill had grown steeper than of old; gradually, and
half-unconsciously, he changed his course, and ran parallel with the
ridge; and with this change the scarlet signs upon his trail grew
scanter. But in a few minutes more he began to feel that the snow was
deeper than it had been--deeper, and more clinging. It weighted his
hoofs and fetlocks as it had never done before, and his pace
slackened. He began to be troubled by the thick foam welling into his
nostrils and obstructing his breath. As he blew it forth impatiently
it made red flecks and spatters on the snow. He had no pain, no
realization that anything had gone wrong with him. But his eyes took
on suddenly a harassed, anxious look, and he felt himself growing
tired. He must rest a little before continuing his flight.

The idea of resting while his enemies were still so near and hot upon
the trail, would, at any other time, have been rejected as absurd; but
now the brain of the black moose was growing a little confused. Often
before this he had run till he felt tired, and then lain down to rest.
He had never felt tired till he knew that he had run a great distance.
Now, from his dimming intelligence the sense of time had slipped away.
He had been running, and he felt tired. Therefore, he must have run a
long distance, and his slow enemies must have been left far behind. He
could safely rest. His old craft, however, did not quite fail him at
this point. Before yielding to the impulse which urged him to lie
down, he doubled and ran back, parallel to his trail and some fifty
paces from it, for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Staggering
at every other stride, and fretfully blowing the stained froth from
his nostrils, he crouched behind a thicket of hemlock seedlings, and
watched the track by which his foes must come.

For a little while he kept his watch alertly, antlers laid back, ears
attentive, eyes wide and bright. Then, so slowly that he did not seem
aware of it himself, his massive head drooped forward t