Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/49

 colour and stranger scent caused all the shy, furtive creatures to avoid him. But soon they realized that he was as harmless as any ordinary moose calf. Then he saw, all at once, that the solitude was in reality full of life. The tawny deer-mice, intent on their foraging or their play, scurried freely all about him, only taking care to avoid his clumsy hoofs. The weasels glided up and snarled at him insolently with their narrow, bloodthirsty muzzles in the air. The big, bulging-eyed rabbits gamboled about him, glad of the protection afforded them by the presence of his mighty foster mother. And once in a while a crafty red fox, prowling past in search of a quarry, would halt and sit up on his ruddy brush of a tail to stare at him in wonder and interrogation, amazed that a moose cow should give birth to so curious a calf. The calf, full of childish pugnacity, would invariably run and butt at the bushytailed stranger. And that superior and self-assured animal, recognizing his childishness, would slip away with an indulgent sniff.

After the cold, late spring, summer came upon the wilderness world with a rush, and all the browns and rosy greys and ochre yellows and dusk purples were submerged in floods of ardent green. As the heat grew and the flies became troublesome, the calf learned from his foster mother the trick of wading out into the lake till only his head