unting
and pushing, he was thrust clear over the bank and sent rolling down
into the river. All next day he sulked, but when night came he
returned to the bluff, his eyes red with rage. He found the moose
before him, but not alone. A tall, dingy-coloured, antlerless cow was
there, fondling her mate's neck and ears with her long, flexible
muzzle. This sight gave the young bull a new and uncomprehended fury,
under the impulse of which he would have attacked an elephant. But the
moose, thus interrupted in his wooing, was far more dangerous than he
had been the night before. Like a whirlwind of devastation he rushed
to meet the intruder; and the young bull was hopelessly overmatched.
Within five minutes he was gored, beaten down, pounded from the field,
and driven bellowing through the bushes. For several weeks he hardly
showed himself in the open meadows, but lurked all day in the
thickets, nursing his wounds and his humiliation.

The next winter set in early and severe, driving the drowsy bears into
their winter quarters and their long, snow-comforted sleep before they
had time to get hungry and dangerous. The lynxes, no longer mystified
by the voice of the bell, came prowling about the lair beneath the
hemlock, but the sullen front and angry, lonely eyes of the black bull
held them in awe. Not even in the worst of the cold, when they had
taken to hunting together in a loosely organized pack, did they dare
to trouble the bull. When spring came, it found him a big, burly
three-year-old, his temper beginning to sour with an unhappiness which
he did not understand; and by the time the bears came hungry from
their winter sleep he was quite too formidable to be meddled with.
Stung by humiliating memories, he attacked with fury every bear he
saw; and they soon learned to give him a wide berth.

As the summer wore along, his loneliness grew more bitter and
distracting. He would spend sometimes a full hour upon the bluff, when
the yellow day was fading into dusk, bellowing his calls across the
stillness, and waiting for he knew not what reply. He was now a huge
and daunting figure. When, at last, came round again the full October
moon, and the spirit of mating went abroad on the crisp air, he grew
more restless than ever. Then, one night, on a clear white stretch of
sand some distance down the shore, he saw a cow-moose standing close
by the water. He was much interested, and half unconsciously began to
move in her direction. Wh