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.
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