r crying strange notes. Besides all this, the quail I had
seen had been hatched far from home, under a strange mother. So I had
little hope of success.

But as the call grew louder and louder, a liquid yodel came like an
electric shock from a clump of bushes on the left. There he was,
looking, listening. Another call, and he came running toward me.
Others appeared from every direction, and soon a score of quail were
running about, just inside the screen, with soft gurglings like a
hidden brook, doubly delightful to an ear that had longed to hear
them.

City, gardens, beasts, strangers,--all vanished in an instant. I was a
boy in the fields again. The rough New England hillside grew tender
and beautiful in sunset light; the hollows were rich in autumn glory.
The pasture brook sang on its way to the river; a robin called from a
crimson maple; and all around was the dear low, thrilling whistle, and
the patter of welcome feet on leaves, as Bob White came running again
to meet his countryman.

IX. MOOSE CALLING.

[Illustration]

Midnight in the wilderness. The belated moon wheels slowly above the
eastern ridge, where for a few minutes past a mighty pine and hundreds
of pointed spruce tops have been standing out in inky blackness
against the gray and brightening background. The silver light steals
swiftly down the evergreen tops, sending long black shadows creeping
before it, and falls glistening and shimmering across the sleeping
waters of a forest lake. No ripple breaks its polished surface; no
plash of musquash or leaping trout sends its vibrations up into the
still, frosty air; no sound of beast or bird awakens the echoes of the
silent forest. Nature seems dying, her life frozen out of her by the
chill of the October night; and no voice tells of her suffering.

A moment ago the little lake lay all black and uniform, like a great
well among the hills, with only glimmering star-points to reveal its
surface. Now, down in a bay below a grassy point, where the dark
shadows of the eastern shore reach almost across, a dark object is
lying silent and motionless on the lake. Its side seems gray and
uncertain above the water; at either end is a dark mass, that in the
increasing light takes the form of human head and shoulders. A bark
canoe with two occupants is before us; but so still, so lifeless
apparently, that till now we thought it part of the shore beyond.

There is a movement in the stern; the profound still