ushes which the boy had heard after his
first calling had not been a stray steer. Not by any means. It was the
response of another young wandering moose bull, beating on the
underbrush with his ill-developed, but to himself quite wonderful,
antlers. He, too, was seeking a mate in a region far remote from that
where ruled the tyrannous elder bulls. Silently and swiftly, assured
by the second summons, he had hurried to the tryst; and now, to his
ungovernable rage, what he saw awaiting him in the dusk was no mate at
all, but a rival. Pausing not to consider the odds, he burst from the
covert and rushed furiously to the attack.

The first bull, though somewhat the larger of the two, and by far the
better antlered, was taken at a disadvantage. Before he could whirl
and present his formidable front to the charge, the newcomer caught
him on the flank, knocked him clear off his feet, and sent him
crashing into the fence. The fence went down like stubble; and the
boy, his eyes starting with astonished terror, scurried like a rabbit
for the nearest tree. Climbing into the branches with an agility which
surprised even himself, he promptly recovered from his panic and
turned to watch the fight.

The first bull, saved from serious injury by the defects of his
adversary's antlers, picked himself up from the wreckage of the fence,
and, grunting with anger, plunged back to meet his assailant. The
latter, somewhat puzzled by the fence and its zig-zag twistings, had
drawn a little to one side, and so it happened that when the first
bull rushed at him, the angle of a fence corner intervened. When the
opposing antlers came together, they met harmlessly between the heavy
rails, and got tangled in a way that seemed to daunt their owners'
rage. In the pushing and struggling the top rail was thrown off and
fell smartly across the newcomer's neck. At the same time one of the
stakes flew up and caught the first bull fairly on the sensitive
muzzle. Sneezing violently, he jumped back; and the two stood eyeing
each other with fierce suspicion over the top of the fence.

The boy was trembling with excitement there in his tree, eager for the
fight to go on and eager to see which would win. But in this he was
doomed to disappointment. The end came in a most unlooked-for fashion.
It chanced that the boy's "calling" had deceived others besides the
two young bulls. The old hunter, in his cabin under the hill, had
heard it. He had snatched his rifle fr