Just behind my tent on the big lake, one summer, a faint, woodsy little trail wandered away into the woods, with endless turnings and twistings, and without the faintest indication anywhere, till you reached the very end, whither it intended going. This little trail was always full of interesting surprises. Red squirrels peeked down at you over the edge of a limb, chattering volubly and getting into endless mischief along its borders. Moose birds flitted silently over it on their mysterious errands. Now a jumping, smashing, crackling rush through the underbrush halts you suddenly, with quick beating heart, as you climb over one of the many windfalls across your path. A white flag followed by another little one, flashing, rising, sinking and rising again over the fallen timber, tells you that a doe and her fawn were lying behind the windfall, all unconscious of your quiet approach. Again, at a turn of the trail, something dark, gray, massive looms before you, blocking the faint path; and as you stop short and shrink behind the nearest tree, a huge head and antlers swing toward you, with widespread nostrils and keen, dilating eyes, and ears like two trumpets pointing straight at your head--a bull moose, _sh!_
For a long two minutes he stands there motionless, watching the new creature that he has never seen before; and it will be well for you to keep perfectly quiet and let him surrender the path when he is so disposed. Motion on your part may bring him nearer to investigate; and you can never know at what slight provocation the red danger light will blaze into his eyes. At last he moves away, quietly at first, turning often to look and to make trumpets of his ears at you. Then he lays his great antlers back on his shoulders, sticks his nose far up ahead of him, and with long, smooth strides lunges away over the windfalls and is gone.
So every day the little trail had some new surprise for you,--owl, or hare, or prickly porcupine rattling his quills, like a quiver of arrows, and proclaiming his Indian name, _Unk-wunk! Unk-wunk!_ as he loafed along. When you had followed far, and were sure that the loitering trail had certainly lost itself, it crept at last under a dark hemlock; and there, through an oval frame of rustling, whispering green, was the loneliest, loveliest little deer-haunted beaver pond in the world, where Quoskh lived with his mate and his little ones.