The man sat so still that gradually the small inhabitants of the wilderness went fearlessly about their hunting or playing. If they noticed him at all, perhaps they mistook him for a stake of the fence upon which he sat. As he watched dreamily, the dusk grew deeper and the first stars came out, one by one. Then the harvest moon appeared, peeping over the tops of the firs and finally riding clear in the dark sky, throwing a mysterious radiance over the clumps of juniper in the pasture and trying vainly to penetrate the thick stand of second-growth fir, spruce and maple at the edge of the forest.
Now the Hermit slowly raised to his lips the birch-bark trumpet which he had fashioned. The next moment the brooding silence of the night was startled by a harsh roar. The Hermit chuckled softly. "If there is a moose within a mile he can't help hearing that," he thought.
He waited, his heart beating fast with excitement. The echoes rolled for a moment among the hills, then died away, leaving the silence unbroken.
Again he raised the trumpet to his lips and sent out a call into the night. This time the sound had scarcely died away when an answering challenge rolled from a pair of great lungs back in the wilderness. In his excitement the man almost lost his perch upon the fence. "That's an old bull, sure enough. Probably the same one that broke up the hunter's camp," he said, speaking aloud, as is often the custom of those living alone.
He listened a moment. Hearing no further sound, once more he raised his trumpet, this time giving a low, seductive call. The effect was immediate and unexpected. A short distance back in the forest there came the crash of trampled undergrowth and, the next moment, a huge black bulk detached itself from the dark background and stood forth in the moonlight, alarmingly close.
[Illustration: The Hermit took the one chance that presented itself.]
The Hermit caught his breath. It was without doubt the big moose, and that he was in no gentle mood was soon apparent. He listened a moment, motionless as the trees at his back; then he brought forth a harsh roar that sent a chill to the heart of the unprotected man. When he had come to the pasture to try his trumpet, the Hermit had little expected an answer, or at best had hoped merely to call up a cow moose. Instead, he found himself confronted by the biggest bull moose he had ever seen. Though his heart thrilled at sight of the great head and antlers, he wished ardently that there might have been some stronger protection than the frail fence between them.