es had laid on from behind, till he
reared and fell back upon them, crushing two deep into the snow. It
was plain the kill was at hand, for their brothers had left them
untouched. Two more stands were hurried past, brief in time-length and
very close together. The trail was red now, and the clean stride of
the great beast had grown short and slovenly. Then they heard the
first sounds of the battle--not the full-throated chorus of the chase,
but the short, snappy bark which spoke of close quarters and teeth to
flesh. Crawling up the wind, Zing-ha bellied it through the snow, and
with him crept he, Koskoosh, who was to be chief of the tribesmen in
the years to come. Together they shoved aside the under branches of a
young spruce and peered forth. It was the end they saw.

The picture, like all of youth's impressions, was still strong with
him, and his dim eyes watched the end played out as vividly as in
that far-off time. Koskoosh marvelled at this, for in the days which
followed, when he was a leader of men and a head of councillors, he
had done great deeds and made his name a curse in the mouths of the
Pellys, to say naught of the strange white man he had killed, knife to
knife, in open fight.

For long he pondered on the days of his youth, till the fire died down
and the frost bit deeper. He replenished it with two sticks this time,
and gauged his grip on life by what remained. If Sit-cum-to-ha had
only remembered her grandfather, and gathered a larger armful, his
hours would have been longer. It would have been easy. But she was
ever a careless child, and honored not her ancestors from the time the
Beaver, son of the son of Zing-ha, first cast eyes upon her. Well,
what mattered it? Had he not done likewise in his own quick youth? For
a while he listened to the silence. Perhaps the heart of his son might
soften, and he would come back with the dogs to take his old father on
with the tribe to where the caribou ran thick and the fat hung heavy
upon them.

He strained his ears, his restless brain for the moment stilled. Not a
stir, nothing. He alone took breath in the midst of the great silence.
It was very lonely. Hark! What was that? A chill passed over his body.
The familiar, long-drawn howl broke the void, and it was close at
hand. Then on his darkened eyes was projected the vision of the
moose--the old bull moose--the torn flanks and bloody sides, the
riddled mane, and the great branching horns, down low and tossi