The night tumult had aroused the Hermit in his cabin, a mile distant at the edge of the forest. With the coming of daylight he set out to ascertain what had happened. By good fortune he stumbled upon the camp just as the disgusted hunter was leaving and he heard the story of the charging moose, the evidence of whose mad flight was apparent for some distance. He invited the hunter to spend a few days in his cabin, an invitation which the man thankfully accepted. Though each morning found him abroad, armed and eager, he caught no further glimpse of the big moose.
Meanwhile, the wilderness was becoming an uncomfortable place for the hunter. The myriad swarms of insects gave him no peace by day or night, while the big moose was spending long peaceful hours far away at the edge of a tiny, wood-girt lake. During the day the moose dozed on a cool mud bed in the shallows, his body submerged save for the tip of his nose. This, too, disappeared from sight occasionally as the flies became too persistent. At night he wandered abroad, searching out the best feeding-grounds.
Late summer gave place to autumn with its warm mellow days and its nights tinged with frost. The sun shone through a faint haze, touching to glowing color the maples in the swamp and the golden birches on the knolls. Now and then a leaf drifted to the ground with a faint rustle.
At the edge of the wilderness where stood the cabin of the Hermit and those of his widely scattered neighbors, the aromatic smell of burning leaves hung all day in the still air, while the early stars looked down on bright heaps of burning rubbish. It was the outdoor cleaning time.
On several occasions, as the Hermit stood dreamily watching the thin wisps of smoke curl upward from the burning heap, he heard the call of a moose to its mate or its challenge to a rival. The sound thrilled him as no sound had for years. He longed to answer the summons. Accordingly, one day he made a trip into the borders of the wilderness where a group of slender birch trees huddled. Like Hiawatha he stripped one of a section of its bark.
The next evening found him seated comfortably on the top rail of the snake fence which separated his upland pasture from the closely pressing forest. The sun had set, and a mellow twilight with a tang of frost in the air was fast obscuring the black stumps and welding together the clumps of blueberries and wild raspberries.