“Suppose we let him go. We can keep him till spring, and then he’ll go north; so he won’t do much damage to the game about here. I just hate to think that he’s a prisoner. Since I’ve been here with you, Ben, I feel differently about all such things,” declared Ed.
“That’s exactly the way I feel,” added George, “and I would like to see him freed.”
“Well, boys, that’s my idea, too; so the jury will give old ‘Snow Ball’ a verdict in his favor, and turn him loose with the understanding that he’s to quit the country.”
The owl turned his big yellow eyes on them and gave himself one or two vigorous shakes, as though the matter was of little importance, since he had found so good a home.
“I would like to get some pictures before all the snow falls from the trees,” said Ed.
“All right, son; we’ll put on our webs”—Ben’s name for snowshoes—“and go out for a look around.”
“I wouldn’t wonder but what we might find a moose or a deer mired in one of the heavy drifts. If we do, you’ll get a picture worth having,” declared Ben, when they were traveling easily along on their snowshoes.
They saw few tracks, and the guide said the forest creatures had “lain low” during the storm, and would continue to do so until the snow settled or crusted over. Deer and moose, he explained, remained in their “yards” at such times—places similar to the one where the birches were stripped. In such spots, Ben said, these animals trod down and scraped away the snow to obtain the scant food-supply buried beneath. He told the boys that if the animals were driven from these shelters before the snow was sufficiently solid to support them, especially the moose, they would soon become exhausted by the heavy going and fall easy and helpless prey to whatever foe cared to pursue them.
“That’s the way the timber wolves used to kill off quantities of game. They would hunt up a yard of deer or moose, and dash in quickly and scatter them. Then it was an easy task for them to run down the heavier animals in the deep drifts. When they had overtaken a moose helpless in snow above its shoulders, they closed in and tore it to pieces.”
“Listen!” cried George. “What’s that?”