h a ball through his heart, dead instantly.
Sandy came down from his little tree, and touched the huge dark form
and mighty antlers with admiring awe.

In the meantime, the noise of the firing had thrown the cow and calf
into a panic. Since the woods behind them were suddenly filled with
such thunders, they could not flee in that direction. But far below
them, down the brown slopes and past the gray cabins, they saw the
river gleaming among its alder thickets. There was the shelter they
craved; and down the fields they ran, with long, shambling, awkward
strides that took them over the ground at a tremendous pace. At the
foot of the field they blundered into the lane leading down to
Sandy's cabin.

Now, as luck would have it, Sandy had that summer decided to build
himself a frame house to supplant the old log cabin. As a preliminary,
he had dug a spacious cellar, just at the foot of the lane. It was
deep as well as wide, being intended for the storage of many potatoes.
And, in order to prevent any of the cattle from falling into it, he
had surrounded it with a low fence which chanced to be screened along
the upper side with a rank growth of burdock and other barnyard
weeds.

When the moose cow reached this fence, she hardly noticed it. She was
used to striding over obstacles. Just now her heart was mad with
panic, and her eyes full of the gleam of the river she was seeking.
She cleared the fence without an effort--and went crashing to the
bottom of the cellar. Not three paces behind her came the calf.

By this time, of course, all the little settlement was out, and the
flight of the cow and calf down the field had been followed with eager
eyes. Everyone ran at once to the cellar. The unfortunate cow was seen
to have injured herself so terribly by the plunge that, without
waiting for the owner of the cellar to return, the young farmer from
the third cabin jumped down and ended her suffering with a butcher
knife. The calf, however, was unhurt. He stood staring stupidly at his
dead mother and showed no fear of the people that came up to stroke
and admire him. He seemed so absolutely docile that when Sandy and
Lije came proudly down the hill to tell of their achievement, Sandy
declared that the youngster should be kept and made a pet of.

"Seems to me," he said to Lije, "that seein' as the moose had been so
long away, we hain't treated them jest right when they come back. I
feel like we'd ought to make it up to the lit