Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/215

 great length of stride he had the advantage of the bear in that depth of snow, and speedily overtook him. The latter whirled about once more to meet the attack, but as he did so the snow beneath him, upborne on the spreading tops of a clump of flat juniper bushes, gave way treacherously, and he fell sprawling backwards, clawing wildly, into a little hollow. Before he could recover, the bull was upon him. One great hoof pounded down upon him irresistibly, catching him fair in the defenceless belly and knocking the wind clean out of him. The next stroke smashed his forearm. As he surged and heaved beneath those deadly strokes, in an agonized struggle to regain his feet, the cow arrived. And there in the dreadful smother of snow and branches his life was slashed and trampled out of him. Not until the thing lying in the trodden and crimsoned snow bore no longer any resemblance to a bear did the victorious moose feel their vengeance satiated. Then at length they turned, and slowly, in the reaction from their rage, ploughed their way back to their home yard, avoiding, as they went, the spot where the dead calf lay stiffening in the snow. The moose-birds, chattering approval, fluttered down from the hemlock, and hopped about them, scrutinizing their blood-stained legs with dark, impudent, bright eyes. And the elder calf, a lanky female now approaching the dignity of a two-year-old, who had