t by the dead fires of the Tananas. He
remembered, when a boy, during a time of plenty, when he saw a moose
pulled down by the wolves. Zing-ha lay with him in the snow and
watched--Zing-ha, who later became the craftiest of hunters, and who,
in the end, fell through an air-hole on the Yukon. They found him, a
month afterward, just as he had crawled halfway out and frozen stiff
to the ice.

But the moose. Zing-ha and he had gone out that day to play at hunting
after the manner of their fathers. On the bed of the creek they struck
the fresh track of a moose, and with it the tracks of many wolves. "An
old one," Zing-ha, who was quicker at reading the sign, said--"an old
one who cannot keep up with the herd. The wolves have cut him out from
his brothers, and they will never leave him." And it was so. It was
their way. By day and by night, never resting, snarling on his heels,
snapping at his nose, they would stay by him to the end. How Zing-ha
and he felt the blood-lust quicken! The finish would be a sight to
see!

Eager-footed, they took the trail, and even he, Koskoosh, slow of
sight and an unversed tracker, could have followed it blind, it was
so wide. Hot were they on the heels of the chase, reading the grim
tragedy, fresh-written, at every step. Now they came to where the
moose had made a stand. Thrice the length of a grown man's body, in
every direction, had the snow been stamped about and uptossed. In the
midst were the deep impressions of the splay-hoofed game, and all
about, everywhere, were the lighter footmarks of the wolves. Some,
while their brothers harried the kill, had lain to one side and
rested. The full-stretched impress of their bodies in the snow was as
perfect as though made the moment before. One wolf had been caught
in a wild lunge of the maddened victim and trampled to death. A few
bones, well picked, bore witness.

Again, they ceased the uplift of their snowshoes at a second stand.
Here the great animal had fought desperately. Twice had he been
dragged down, as the snow attested, and twice had he shaken his
assailants clear and gained footing once more. He had done his task
long since, but none the less was life dear to him. Zing-ha said it
was a strange thing, a moose once down to get free again; but this one
certainly had. The shaman would see signs and wonders in this when
they told him.

And yet again, they come to where the moose had made to mount the bank
and gain the timber. But his fo