point, all unconscious of danger, with a rippling wake that sent
silver reflections glinting across the lake's deep blue. Far overhead
soared an eagle, breeze-borne in wide circles, looking down on his
own wide domain, unheeding the man's intrusion. Nearer, a red squirrel
barked down his resentment from a giant spruce trunk. Down on my left
a heavy splash and a wild, free tumult of quacking told where the black
ducks were coming in, as they had done, undisturbed, for generations.
Behind me a long roll echoed through the woods--some young cock
partridge, whom the warm sun had beguiled into drumming his spring
love-call. From the mountain side a cow moose rolled back a startling
answer. Close at hand, yet seeming miles away, a chipmunk was chunking
sleepily in the sunshine, while a nest of young wood mice were calling
their mother in the grass at my feet. And every wild sound did but
deepen the vast, wondrous silence of the wilderness.

"After all, what place has the roar of a rifle or the smell of
sulphurous powder in the midst of all this blessed peace?" I asked half
sadly. As if in answer, the kingfisher dropped with his musical plash,
and swept back with exultant rattle to his watchtower.--"Go on with your
clatter and your fishing. The wilderness and the solitary place shall
still be glad, for you and Mooween, and the trout pools would be lonely
without you. But I wish you knew that your life lay a moment ago in the
bend of my finger, and that some one, besides the bear, appreciates your
brave warning."

Then I went back to the point to measure the tracks, and to estimate how
big the bear was, and to console myself with the thought of how I would
certainly have had him, if something had not interfered--which is the
philosophy of all hunters since Esau.

It was a few days later that the chance came of repaying Koskomenos with
coals of fire. The lake surface was still warm; no storms nor frosts had
cooled it. The big trout had risen from the deep places, but were not
yet quickened enough to take my flies; so, trout hungry, I had gone
trolling for them with a minnow. I had taken two good fish, and was
moving slowly by the mouth of the bay, Simmo at the paddle, when a
suspicious movement on the shore attracted my attention. I passed the
line to Simmo, the better to use my glasses, and was scanning the alders
sharply, when a cry of wonder came from the Indian. "O bah cosh, see!
das second time I catchum, Koskomenos." An