bowed in the smothering clutch of snow and ice, shut in by impenetrable
gloom.

A huge white owl flitted out of this rim of blackness, then back again,
and its first quavering hoot came softly, as though the mystic hour of
silence had not yet passed for the night-folk. The snow of the day had
ceased, hardly a breath of air stirred the ice-coated twigs of the
trees. Yet it was bitter cold--so cold that a man, remaining motionless,
would have frozen to death within an hour.

Suddenly there was a break in the silence, a weird, thrilling sound,
like a great sigh, but not human--a sound to make one's blood run faster
and fingers twitch on rifle-stock. It came from the gloom of the
tamaracks. After it there fell a deeper silence than before, and the
owl, like a noiseless snowflake, drifted out over the frozen lake. After
a few moments it came again, more faintly than before. One versed in
woodcraft would have slunk deeper into the rim of blackness, and
listened, and wondered, and watched; for in the sound he would have
recognized the wild, half-conquered note of a wounded beast's suffering
and agony.

Slowly, with all the caution born of that day's experience, a huge bull
moose walked out into the glow of the moon. His magnificent head,
drooping under the weight of massive antlers, was turned inquisitively
across the lake to the north. His nostrils were distended, his eyes
glaring, and he left behind a trail of blood. Half a mile away he caught
the edge of the spruce forest. There something told him he would find
safety. A hunter would have known that he was wounded unto death as he
dragged himself out into the foot-deep snow of the lake.