-still following his leaders, remembering his first lesson to the
end.

Sometimes I have wondered whether this also were taught in the caribou
school; whether once in his life Megaleep were led to the spot and
made to pass through it, so that he should feel its meaning and
remember. That is not likely; for the one thing which an animal cannot
understand is death. And there were no signs of living caribou
anywhere near the place that I discovered; though down at the other
end of the lake their tracks were everywhere.

There are other questions, which one can only ask without answering.
Is this silent gathering merely a tribute to the old law of the herd,
or does Megaleep, with his last strength, still think to cheat his old
enemy, and go away where the wolf that followed him all his life shall
not find him? How was his resting place first selected, and what
leaders searched out the ground? What sound or sign, what murmur of
wind in the pines, or lap of ripples on the shore, or song of the
veery at twilight made them pause and say, _Here is the place_? How
does he know, he whose thoughts are all of life, and who never looked
on death, where the great silent herd is that no caribou ever sees but
once? And what strange instinct guides Megaleep to the spot where all
his wanderings end at last?

II. KILLOOLEET, LITTLE SWEET-VOICE.

[Illustration: Killooleet]

The day was cold, the woods were wet, and the weather was beastly
altogether when Killooleet first came and sang on my ridgepole. The
fishing was poor down in the big lake, and there were signs of
civilization here and there, in the shape of settlers' cabins, which
we did not like; so we had pushed up river, Simmo and I, thirty miles
in the rain, to a favorite camping ground on a smaller lake, where we
had the wilderness all to ourselves.

The rain was still falling, and the lake white-capped, and the forest
all misty and wind-blown when we ran our canoes ashore by the old
cedar that marked our landing place. First we built a big fire to
dry some boughs to sleep upon; then we built our houses, Simmo a
bark _commoosie_, and I a little tent; and I was inside, getting
dry clothes out of a rubber bag, when I heard a white-throated
sparrow calling cheerily his Indian name, _O hear, sweet
Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet!_ And the sound was so sunny, so good
to hear in the steady drip of rain on the roof, that I went out to see
the little fellow who had bid us