nce only possible at the age of twenty-five
hours, began to help herself to a dinner of fresh milk. The tall
stranger turned her great dark head far around, sniffed doubtfully for
a few seconds, and fell to licking the presumptuous one's back
assiduously."

"I know," said the Child proudly. "It was a moose."

"I'd have been ashamed of you," said Uncle Andy, "if you hadn't known
that at once from my description. Of course, it was a cow moose. But
where the calf's great piece of luck came in was in the fact that the
moose had lost her calf, just the day before, through its falling into
the river and being swept away by the rapids. Her heart, heavy with
grief and loneliness, her udder aching with the pressure of its milk,
she had been drawn up to see what manner of baby it was that dared to
cry its misery so openly here in the dangerous forest.

"And when the calf adopted her so confidently, after a brief
shyness--the shyness of all wild things toward the creatures who have
come under man's care--she returned the compliment of adopting the calf.

"After a little, when the calf had satisfied its appetite, she led it
away through the trees. It followed readily enough for a while--for
perhaps half a mile. Then it got tired, and stopped with its legs
sprawled apart, and bawled after her appealingly. At first she seemed
surprised at its tiring so soon. But with a resigned air she stopped.
The calf at once lay down and resolutely went to sleep. Its wild
mother, puzzled but patient, stood over it protectingly, licking its
silky coat (so much softer than her own little one's had been), and
smelling it all over as if unable to get used to the peculiar scent.
When it woke up she led it on again, this time for perhaps a good mile
before it began to protest against such incomprehensible activity. And
so, by easy stages and with many stops, she led the little alien on,
deep into her secret woods, and brought it, about sunset, to the shore
of a tiny secluded lake.

"That same evening the farmer, looking for his strayed cow, came upon
the dead body on the slope above the stream. He saw the marks of the
fight and the tracks of the bear, and understood the story in part.
But he took it for granted that the bear, after killing the mother, had
completed the job by carrying off the calf. The tracks of the moose he
paid no attention to, never dreaming that they concerned him in the
least. But the bear he followed, vowing ven