Part 8

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o,” he called to his mate loudly and commandingly, and with his heavy antlers held proud and high he shambled triumphantly away. Blazing a wide, clear trail as he traveled through the thick bush, he led his timorous mate afar in the direction of new feeding grounds where beech and moose-wood bark were green and plentiful, and the forest pools full of water.

The call of the moose once heard, is seldom forgotten. It begins with a series of hoarse grunts or groans and winds up with a roar which booms and echoes through the most secret places of the forest, striking terror to the timid. Monsall, the King, was huge and ungainly. His great, powerful body would easily weigh over a thousand pounds, and his now towering antlers, when grown, would measure fully five or six feet from tip to tip. His coarse coat of brownish hair was now shabby, but he wore a fine, bristling mane of black hair, and a flowing beard of the same depended from his chin, which served to make his huge head appear twice its length. Fierce and bold was the King, keen in his likes and dislikes, but usually rather gentle with his mate in his fierce way, and he would do battle for her until he fell rather than own up beaten.

The pair went crashing onward, making their way toward the distant waterways and marshes. Long before you heard the crashing of the underbrush you knew, if you were experienced in wood-lore, that moose were on the trail, because the moose when it travels has a way of striking its hoofs together with a sharp, clicking sound like the striking of castanets, and the sharp sound heralds their coming. But for all the moose is himself noisy, he is perhaps the very keenest one in the forest to detect the approach of an intruder, for he readily takes alarm at the mere cracking of a twig.

Seeking a deep pool where lily-pads had already begun to spread upon the water, the pair took to the pool and plunged their great, velvety muzzles deep down into its muddy depths, dragging forth great mouthfuls of the water plants and their roots, and browsing contentedly together for hours. After the scant fare of the abandoned “yard” how good the luscious, succulent fare tasted to them.

Thus for weeks Monsall and his mate journeyed, until one day the cow moose deliberately deserted him, and hunt as he might, so cleverly had she concealed herself, he could not find her. She did not leave the hidden, mossy covert for days, for any length of time, and when she did, it was simply because, nearly wild from the stings of the black fly, which now swarmed in the woods, she sought water where she might stand to rid herself of her tormentors.

She hoped to find some near-by pool, but in vain; all the shallow, near at hand waterways were dried out, and she traveled long before she found a deep pool. She was very nervous and anxious to get back to the secret covert, for she had left behind her a baby moose. Wise was the cow to hide the little one from its fierce parent, Monsall. For so fiercely selfish or jealous does the male moose become, that sometimes for sheer ugliness he will trample out the life of a very young moose.

When the mother moose came to the pool at last, she gave a long grunt or sigh of relief and sank deep down beneath the grateful water, leaving just the tip of her muzzle and furry ears above the surface. The black flies, which had stung her until she was nearly mad, left her burning flesh and arose in a scum upon the water. So relieved and full of content was the mother moose that she almost forgot about the little furry fellow whom she had left back there in the secret covert. And so it chanced that a lumberman and his boy, who had been following a forest trail, came upon the covert and found the little moose. Lonely, and no doubt wanting its mother, it had stolen out into the forest upon its long awkward legs, and stood exactly on the trail when the man spied it.

Thus it happened that when the mother moose came shambling hastily back to her baby, uttering little rumbling calls deep down inside, just to let it know she was on the way back to it, she found the secret covert quite empty. For weeks she crashed wildly through the forest, calling it vainly; only her own lonely bellow echoed back to her straining ears, while afar off, in quite another direction, in the distant lumber camp the boy was learning to love the little moose, and had built it a rough shelter and yard not far from the lumbermen’s shacks, lest it stray away, and he lose his pet.

In early autumn the mother finally gave up her fruitless search for the calf. Soon the herding time would be at hand, snows would fly, and then each family would seek the “yard” once more, and herd there through the winter. Overcome now with sudden loneliness--for already the hills were red with autumn tints; very soon after, up in the North Country, the first snow flies--the mother moose began to long for companionship, and so she began to haunt the old moose trails once more, and often send out her long-drawn, pleading call for her lost mate.

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o-o” she bellowed, racing through the dark aisles of the tall spruces, whose far-away tops seemed to touch the blue sky.

One day, when she had almost given up her search, a loud, booming challenge, an answer to her call, came from a long distance away. Even then Monsall, the old King, was on his way to her and she was glad.

Now when the King Moose hears the pleading call of his lost mate, and makes up his mind that he will join her, should anything interfere with his plans, or hinder him in his travels to her, he is instantly on the war-path, and a most dangerous, terrifying foe for any one to meet. So when the old King Moose had raised his great antlered head, and after listening patiently, thought he had located the call of his mate, he was soon on his way to join her. Again came to him her welcoming call, oh, miles across the country, through forest and over mountain; but in spite of the long distance, Monsall had recognized her call, and he was coming.

Just as he had drawn in his breath to send out a mighty answering call, even before the echoes of his mate’s cry had fairly died out from afar off, in quite another direction, came the unmistakable answer of a rival moose. Instantly the old King was angry and alert. What rival was trying to call his mate away from him? Whirling indignantly about in his tracks, his great antlers thrown well back upon his black, bristling mane, Monsall charged madly off in the direction of the rival call.

Time after time his mate wailed forth her call to him, and each time a reply came from the rival moose. The great lumbering hulk of the King tore wildly through the forest, felling saplings, and racing over giant tree trunks with no effort whatever, so wild with jealousy and full of rage was he, and at every new call of the strange moose his anger increased. His small eyes gleamed redly, and his heavy breath rushed like steam from an engine through his great distended nostrils, while his heavy jaws crashed together like the fall of a woodman’s axe, as he ran blindly on.

Hours he ran; he would find and settle with this stranger who still sent his hateful bellow from afar, this rival who dared signal his own mate. His great antlers were now so terribly strong that he feared no other moose in the forest. Gradually he drew nearer the rival’s hiding-place, or haunts; for the bellow was nearer and nearer. It was night when the King Moose reached the end of the trail, which led him into the lumber camps; but he had no fear of man now, so keen was he after revenge, and to lock antlers with his rival; only, somehow, that rival’s bellow did not sound as loud or as challenging as his own. Surely his foe would be an easy one to rout.

The lumbermen had long ago gone to sleep in their shacks; they retire early, for their work begins at sunrise, and so the camp-fires smoldered, and it seemed like a deserted village, as Monsall halted right outside the slash or clearing, and stood stock-still to get his bearings, trying to gain sight of his rival. But no proud, antlered form rushed forth to do battle with Monsall. All was still; even the boy had been asleep for hours. He had given his pet moose its supper inside the yard, where he always fed it, had stroked and fondled its long furry ears, and the little moose had rubbed its clumsy, velvety muzzle affectionately over the boy’s body, and allowed him to fit a rough sort of harness over its body; for the boy was planning to train the young moose to carry him upon its back. The creature had now become so tame that it readily followed the boy all about camp, and was a great pet.

So wrapped in sleep was the camp they paid no attention whatever to the strange noises and calls of the young moose through the night. In fact they had become quite accustomed to his rather queer attempts to bellow, so were not disturbed by the sound. For hours the young moose had been restless, sending out call after call from his yard, each call becoming more sustained and carrying wider as the young moose gained experience with his new gift.

So, while the fires burned low and red, into the camp came a great, shambling, hulking black figure; it left the fringe of protecting spruce bush somewhat warily; its great nostrils puffed across the smoldering fires, and sent the floating ashes whirling. Then it began to circle about the camp, drawing steadily nearer and nearer the moose pen.

“Ugh-ugh, waugh, oo,” called the young moose, not very loudly or clearly, and as the sound came to Monsall he stood a second, then charged with raised antlers for the yard. Again the call, and this time the old King strained his great ears, perhaps catching a familiar note in the little moose call. Somehow it seemed to him not to be the loud, insolent bellow which he had followed and longed to do battle with its owner the moment he met. Then a strange thing occurred; instead of replying in his usual savage roar when he met an enemy, Monsall dropped his antlers gently and gave a gentle, unexpected low, which rumbled kindly, deep down inside his giant hulk, and meant only peace and reassurance to the little moose.

Then, through the darkness a great antlered head lifted itself over the high board enclosure where the young moose stood, timidly waiting he knew not what. Two velvety muzzles met over the barrier, the old King found and recognized one of his kindred; his own stray calf.

The lumbermen still slept on, and so they failed to hear the disturbance in camp and the crash which followed when the sharp, impatient hoofs of the King Moose tore down the board prison which separated him from his lost one, and gave it freedom--the freedom of the woods.

The old King and the little furry moose stood hesitatingly close to the dying camp-fires, Monsall to get his lost bearings, the little one waiting. Just then from far off came another long, pleading call, the mother moose calling again for her mate. Then the old moose lifted his antlers proudly, and a great and mighty challenge echoed through the camp and rang its way far over the pine trees to his mate. The great shambling figure of Monsall the moose took the trail once more, while close behind, right through the way which the old King blazed for him, followed the little one; they had heard and were following the call of the moose back into the forest.

VIII

THE LAST WOLF OF THE PACK

Gray Coat, leader of the great Timber Wolf Pack, originally came from the wilds of Northern Canada, where the dense forests form safe shelter and cover for deer, bear, the red fox, and all the wild kindred who seek the silent places of the woods, far away from man. But one year lumbermen entered the forest with their whirring saws, and felling the tall pines, let in light into the dark places and uncovered their trails. The wolf pack was tracked and gradually thinned out and scattered, and Gray Coat, the big, brave leader of the pack, one day realized that he was just one solitary, lonely old wolf roaming the forests alone.

Gray Coat always seemed to lead a charmed sort of life, for no matter how skilfully traps were laid for him he never ventured into one of them, no matter how pressing his hunger might be. Often, nowadays, he would starve for days because he hated the whine of the lumbermen’s saws, and they had frightened away the young deer, so that no longer did they come in early morning and at dew-fall to water at the old pool. Already ferns grew rank and untrodden over the old deer trails, and although Gray Coat watched and prowled about their old haunts, he never caught sight of even one red coat or flashing white tail.

At last the sides of Gray Coat began to show hollowly, gaunt and thin, and his coat became rough and shabby, a starved, baffled look gleamed in his sullen, green eyes, and his long, usually fleet legs were weak from fasting and often played him strange tricks; for sometimes when he chased a cottontail, because he had become reduced to such small fare, instead of the coveted tidbit, his lean, cruel jaws clicked together upon emptiness; he had somehow just missed the rabbit. Then Gray Coat instinctively knew that something strange and unusual had happened to him.

One night, too weak and lonely and disheartened to even start off trailing game, he sat solitary and unhappy just in the edge of a pine slash and lifting up his voice he howled and howled at the moon which looked coldly down upon his misery. It is during the winter that the wolves herd together, traveling in packs, but in spring they separate and mate. But although Gray Coat longed for companionship, there seemed to be no mate for him, for all his kindred had been hunted away from the old haunts. Had Gray Coat only been human, he would have wept bitterly; as he was only a wolf, he just sat all hunched up together, his lean snout low between his haunches, only lifting up his head to send his long howl through the woods.