Her first impression of the wilderness was that of a far-stretching desert, forgotten and desolate and unpeopled as the fiery stars. Likewise this was Lounsbury's view, as in the case of every tenderfoot who had preceded him, but Lounsbury would likely grow old and perish without discovering his mistake. Clear eyes are needed to read the secrets of the wild: the dark glass through which he gazed at the world had never cleared. Vosper had lived months and years in the North, but he had only hatred in his heart of these waste places and thus received no glory from them. But Virginia soon found out the truth.
"There's an old bull been along here not twenty minutes ago," Bill told her after they reached the hilltop. "The mud hasn't begun to dry in his tracks."
"An old bull?" she repeated. "Do cattle run here——?"
"Good Lord, there isn't a cow this side of the shipping point. I mean a bull moose. And he's a lunker, too. Maybe we'll catch a glimpse of him."
In her time she had talked enough to big-game hunters to have considerable respect for the moose, the largest of all deer tribe, and she thrilled a little at the thought that she was in his own range. She didn't get a sight of the great creature, but she began to pay more attention to the trail. Seeing her interest the guide began to read to her the message in the tracks,—how here a pair of otters had raced along in the dawn, stopping at intervals to slide; how a cow caribou and calf had preceded them at midday; how a coyote had come skulking the previous night. Beside a marsh he showed her the grim evidence of a wilderness tragedy,—the skeleton and feathers of a goose that a stalking wolf had taken by surprise. And once he showed her a great tear in the bark of a tree, nearly as high as she could reach on horseback.
"What is it?" she inquired.
"That's the sign that the lord of the manor has been along. Miss Tremont, did you ever hear of an animal called the grizzly bear?"
"Good heavens! A bear couldn't reach that high——"
"Couldn't? Some of these bears could scoop the man out of the moon!"