Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/33

 a branch at a safe height, spitting and growling harshly, the hair on his long, lashing tail standing out like a bottle-brush. For perhaps five minutes the giant bull raged below; then again from the edge of the shining water came that long call, hoarse but desirous. The furious bull forgot his rage; the stiff mane standing up along his neck relaxed; and he went crashing off through the undergrowth, ardent to respond to that alluring summons.

About a week later—and Mishi had travelled far since his interview with the moose—on a golden afternoon of Indian summer, he came out upon a rough country road, rutted with wheel-marks and pitted with the prints of horses' hoofs. He ached for companionship. He wanted to be made much of. He lay down at full length in the middle of the road, and sniffed at the tracks, and dreamed.

A sound of light footfalls, accompanied by a tiny rattling noise, aroused him. Two children—a long-legged, sandy-haired little girl in a short red frock, white apron and pink sunbonnet, and a stumpy little boy in blue-grey homespun and an old yellow straw hat—came loitering down the road, swinging a tin dinner-pail between them. Mishi was overjoyed. His dreaming had come true. That little girl looked very like his chief playmate on the ranch. He bounced to his feet