Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/60

 moose calves, long-legged, long-headed and ungainly like herself. While she was licking them and murmuring soft mother sounds to them, a huge black bear, still gaunt and hungry from his winter hardships, came prowling past the thicket. He heard those mother sounds and understood them. Pausing for a second or two to locate them accurately, he crept up close to the fringing branches, gathered his mighty muscles for the spring, and crashed in, counting on instant kill. But a massive drooping bough which he had not marked in the gloom, diverted slightly that deadly rush, and the blow of his pile-driving paw, which should have broken the mother's back, merely slashed her lean rump as she wheeled nimbly to face the attack and fell on the uplifted head of one of the calves, crushing out its hardly started life.

In the next fraction of a moment there was another crash, and Red Bull, with a grunt of rage, came charging into the battle. His armed front struck the bear full in the ribs, jarring the breath from his lungs with a gasping cough, and almost bowling him over.

But Red Bull did not understand his dreadful adversary's method of fighting. Instead of springing back, and fencing for a chance to repeat that mighty buffet, he kept at close quarters, pushing and goring in blind fury. The bear, twisting about, caught him a sweeping stroke on the side