“And when the calf adopted her so confidently, after a brief shyness—­the shyness of all wild things toward the creatures who have come under man’s care—­she returned the compliment of adopting the calf.

“After a little, when the calf had satisfied its appetite, she led it away through the trees.  It followed readily enough for a while—­for perhaps half a mile.  Then it got tired, and stopped with its legs sprawled apart, and bawled after her appealingly.  At first she seemed surprised at its tiring so soon.  But with a resigned air she stopped.  The calf at once lay down and resolutely went to sleep.  Its wild mother, puzzled but patient, stood over it protectingly, licking its silky coat (so much softer than her own little one’s had been), and smelling it all over as if unable to get used to the peculiar scent.  When it woke up she led it on again, this time for perhaps a good mile before it began to protest against such incomprehensible activity.  And so, by easy stages and with many stops, she led the little alien on, deep into her secret woods, and brought it, about sunset, to the shore of a tiny secluded lake.

“That same evening the farmer, looking for his strayed cow, came upon the dead body on the slope above the stream.  He saw the marks of the fight and the tracks of the bear, and understood the story in part.  But he took it for granted that the bear, after killing the mother, had completed the job by carrying off the calf.  The tracks of the moose he paid no attention to, never dreaming that they concerned him in the least.  But the bear he followed, vowing vengeance, till he lost the trail in the gathering dusk, and had to turn home in a rage, consoling himself with plans for bear traps.

“In her home by the lake, caressed and tenderly cared for by her tall new mother, the calf quickly forgot her real mother’s fate.  She forgot about the whole affair except for one thing.  She remembered to be terribly afraid of bears—­and that fear is indeed the beginning of wisdom, as far as all the children of the wild are concerned.  She would start and tremble at sight of any particularly dense and bulky shadow, and to come unexpectedly upon a big black stump was for some weeks a painful experience.  But the second step in wisdom—­the value of silence—­she was very slow to learn.  If her new mother got out of her sight for half a minute she would begin bawling after her in a way that must have been a great trial to the nerves of a reticent, noiseless moose cow.  The latter, moreover, could never get over the idea that to cause all that noise some dreadful danger must be threatening.  She would come charging back on the run, her mane stiff on her back and her eyes glaring, and she would hunt every thicket in the neighborhood before she could feel quite reassured.  Meanwhile, the calf would look with wonder in her big, velvet-soft eyes, with probably no slightest notion in her silly head as to what was making her new mother so excited.”