Followers of the Trail

by Zoe Meyer

As night shrouded the dim trails, the moose turned southward through the darkness. In spite of the dense wilderness he advanced rapidly, his huge antlers laid along his back that they might impede his progress as little as possible, his nose thrust upward, sifting the wind. In about an hour he came out upon the shore of a lonely pond among the hills. A faint breeze ruffled the mirror-like surface upon which the delicate white cups of water-lilies seemed to hold a light of their own among the dark green pads.

With a sigh of satisfaction the moose waded in and plunged his muzzle into the clear water, breaking the star reflections into innumerable points of light as the ripples widened over the pond. For some time he fed greedily, moving slowly along the shore. At times his great head was wholly submerged as his long, flexible upper lip sought out the succulent roots and buds; again it was raised, while from the gently moving jaws the water dripped with a musical plash into the pond.

Suddenly the wilderness was startled from its calm by the appearance of a dazzling finger of light which crept across the pond and came to rest upon the dark bulk of the moose at his feeding. The great beast raised his head to stare into the strange, blinding radiance. He could not see the dark form crouched in the boat behind the light, nor the long sinister object leveled upon him. He could only stare, fascinated, an easy mark for the hunter behind the jack-light.

From the forest in the rear of the moose came a faint sound. It was only the crackling of a twig, yet it served to break the spell under which the beast stood, for in the wilderness the snap of a twig is one of the most ominous of sounds. The animal wheeled sharply just as the hunter pulled the trigger. There was the sharp crack of a rifle which woke the echoes and startled the wilderness into an added alertness, while the ball sped across the water, barely missing the form of the moose. Before the disappointed hunter could again pull the trigger the great beast had reached the shore with a bound and was crashing through the forest, over windfalls and through thickets with the speed of an express train. Lesser wilderness folk watched his flight with startled eyes, keeping well out of his path. Even the fierce Canada lynx knew better than to attack that living whirlwind, though his pale eyes gleamed maliciously and his claws dug deep into the bark as the moose passed directly beneath the branch on which the big cat crouched. The fleeing animal did not see him.

That night, far from the pond, the moose made his bed on a wooded knoll, lying, as is the custom of his kind, with his back to the wind. Should danger approach from the rear his keen nose would give him warning, while eyes and ears would protect him from anything approaching against the wind.

With the first light of day he was on his feet, enjoying a breakfast of birch twigs, obtained by breasting down a sapling and holding it beneath his body while he fed upon the tender tips. His meal finished, he backed off, leaving the sapling to spring up again unharmed. His fear of the night before had vanished and once more he was lord of the wilderness, a beast to be admired but let severely alone.

Again he turned southward, stepping daintily, the "bell," or tuft of coarse hair beneath his chin, swinging to his pace. Occasionally a cottontail leaped from his path and paused to stare, big ears alert and nose twitching sensitively; or a red squirrel, that saucy mischief-maker of the woods, chattered derisively at him from the safe side of a spruce trunk. But the moose paid no more heed to them than to the lofty trees which arched above his path.

Gradually the shadows lengthened and again dusk swathed the forest aisles in gray mystery. As the darkness deepened, the moose moved more cautiously, testing each step for crackling twigs. His great head swung much lower than the ridge of his shoulders as he paused occasionally to listen, his gray-brown form melting into the shadows as if he wore a cloak of invisibility.

Thus he came again to the wilderness pond where he had so nearly met fate in the form of the hunter's bullet. The glare was gone and peace once more brooded over the placid water. For a long moment he stood upon the bank, listening and looking; then a vagrant puff of air brought to his nostrils a strange odor. His great muscles tightened, but, as no sound broke the stillness, he moved cautiously in the direction of the scent.

At the edge of a small natural clearing among the trees he paused to reconnoiter. In the center of the clearing glowed the embers of a campfire, the smoke of which had reached him at the pond. A small tongue of flame occasionally leaped up, illuminating a circle of darkness. On the side opposite the moose lay a still, dark form wrapped in a blanket.