ve
breaths, until they blended in a long steady roar, and the train was
sweeping northward at forty miles an hour. The clouds had broken; the
night had grown colder; the gibbous moon gleamed over the vast and
solitary landscape. It was a different thing to Hemenway, riding in the
cab of the locomotive, from an ordinary journey in the passenger-car or
an unconscious ride in the sleeper. Here he was on the crest of motion,
at the fore-front of speed, and the quivering engine with the long
train behind it seemed like a living creature leaping along the track.
It responded to the labour of the fireman and the touch of the engineer
almost as if it could think and feel. Its pace quickened without a jar;
its great eye pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft of
blazing yellow; the rails sang before it and trembled behind it; it was
an obedient and joyful monster, conquering distance and devouring
darkness.

On the wide level barrens beyond the Tete-a-Gouche River the locomotive
reached its best speed, purring like a huge cat and running smoothly.
McLeod leaned back on his bench with a satisfied air.

"She's doin' fine, the nicht," said he. "Ah'm thinkin', whiles, o' yer
auld Seelverhorrns. Whaur is he noo? Awa' up on Hogan's Pond,
gallantin' around i' the licht o' the mune wi' a lady moose, an' the
gladness juist bubblin' in his hairt. Ye're no sorry that he's leevin'
yet, are ye, Dud?"

"Well," answered Hemenway slowly, between the puffs of his pipe, "I
can't say I'm sorry that he's alive and happy, though I'm not glad that
I lost him. But he did his best, the old rogue; he played a good game,
and he deserved to win. Where he is now nobody can tell. He was
travelling like a streak of lightning when I last saw him. By this time
he may be----"

"What's yon?" cried McLeod, springing up. Far ahead, in the narrow apex
of the converging rails, stood a black form, motionless, mysterious.
McLeod grasped the whistle-cord. The black form loomed higher in the
moonlight and was clearly silhouetted against the horizon--a big moose
standing across the track. They could see his grotesque head, his
shadowy horns, his high, sloping shoulders. The engineer pulled the
cord. The whistle shrieked loud and long.

The moose turned and faced the sound. The glare of the headlight
fascinated, challenged, angered him. There he stood defiant, front feet
planted wide apart, head lowered, gazing steadily at the unknown enemy
that was rus