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 stillness is suddenly
broken by a frightful roar: _M-wah-úh! M-waah-úh! M-w-wã-a-ã-ã-a!_ The
echoes rouse themselves swiftly, and rush away confused and broken, to