Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/44

 In a few gigantic strides the black mother reached the spot, with such a rush that she could barely check herself at the brink of the raw red steep. The bank at this point was fully thirty feet high, and practically perpendicular. Bawling piteously, her eyes almost starting from her head, she searched the flood. At first she could see nothing but the bushes and saplings as they swept along in the torrent. Then she caught glimpses of a small, dark form appearing and disappearing among them, feebly kicking, rolled over and over by the conflict of the tortured surges. A few moments more, and calf and wreckage together, with a sickening lunge, went over the abyss.

Crashing through the bushes, and bleating harshly as she went, the frantic mother raced along the bank till she reached a spot just over the falls. Here she paused, and stood staring down into the thunder and the tumult.

For a Jong time the moose cow stood there motionless and silent, her dark, uncouth form sharply outlined against the pallid sky. At last she roused herself, and moved off slowly among the pointed ranks of the fir-trees. In addition to the pain of her loss, she was tormented by the ache of her udder yearning insistently for the warm mouth which it had nursed.

Too restless to feed, she pushed her way far