anished and once more he was lord of the wilderness, a
beast to be admired but let severely alone.

Again he turned southward, stepping daintily, the "bell," or tuft of
coarse hair beneath his chin, swinging to his pace. Occasionally a
cottontail leaped from his path and paused to stare, big ears alert and
nose twitching sensitively; or a red squirrel, that saucy mischief-maker
of the woods, chattered derisively at him from the safe side of a spruce
trunk. But the moose paid no more heed to them than to the lofty trees
which arched above his path.

Gradually the shadows lengthened and again dusk swathed the forest
aisles in gray mystery. As the darkness deepened, the moose moved more
cautiously, testing each step for crackling twigs. His great head swung
much lower than the ridge of his shoulders as he paused occasionally to
listen, his gray-brown form melting into the shadows as if he wore a
cloak of invisibility.

Thus he came again to the wilderness pond where he had so nearly met
fate in the form of the hunter's bullet. The glare was gone and peace
once more brooded over the placid water. For a long moment he stood upon
the bank, listening and looking; then a vagrant puff of air brought to
his nostrils a strange odor. His great muscles tightened, but, as no
sound broke the stillness, he moved cautiously in the direction of the
scent.

At the edge of a small natural clearing among the trees he paused to
reconnoiter. In the center of the clearing glowed the embers of a
campfire, the smoke of which had reached him at the pond. A small tongue
of flame occasionally leaped up, illuminating a circle of darkness. On
the side opposite the moose lay a still, dark form wrapped in a blanket.

For some time the animal stood, the pupils of his eyes contracting or
expanding as the glow of the embers waxed or waned. Then a brand in the
campfire burned through and broke with a snap, sending up a shower of
sparks. Whether the sound reminded him of the rifle report of the
previous night or whether the man-smell at that moment startled him, is
uncertain. At any rate his eyes suddenly grew red with anger and, with a
roar, he charged straight toward the sleeping form beside the fire.

Immediately the hunter awoke to action. In order to free himself of the
entangling blanket he rolled over, a fortunate move which accomplished a
double purpose in that it took him just out of reach of the charging
animal. Before the moose could stay h