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But there were times when even a moose-bird failed to affect him, and those were times when he felt himself to be in danger from some other prowling meat hunter. He never forgot the hawk, and its moving shadow always sent him crouching into the nearest thicket.
Ahead of him he could look into the snow gloom between the cedars, and whatever was coming through that gloom would have to pass within a dozen yards of him. Each moment added to his excitement. He heard the chatter of a red squirrel, much nearer than the moose-bird.
"When you were a little bird, a little moose-bird," Canim said, his eyes upon her and burning into her. "When I was a little moose-bird," she whispered, so faint and low he scarcely heard. And she knew she lied, as she bent her head to the strap and took the swing of the trail. And such was the strangeness of it, the real now became unreal.
His muscles relaxed and he sank back, an exultant satisfaction in his eyes which he turned from her so that she might not see. "I will tell you, Li Wan," he spoke decisively; "you were a little bird in some life before, a little moose-bird, when you saw this thing, and the memory of it is with you yet. It is not strange.
As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking "What cheer?" over its meal. "Say, boys," said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load, never blenching, "if you want to get a pair o' moose-antlers, now's your time.
"The memories of the little moose-bird are overstrong and make trouble," he began. "I know! I know!" she broke in. "I see the man in the snow, and as never before I see him crawl on hand and knee. And I, who am a little child, am carried on his back. And this is before Pow-Wah-Kaan and the time I came to live in a little corner of the earth."
As the life that had nearly ebbed out of him poured back into his body, he staggered among the dogs, fastened them to the sledge, and urged them down the mountain into the plain. There was soon no sound of the sledge. From a bush a dozen yards away a wondering moose-bird had watched the terrible struggle.
Never did he fail to respond savagely to the chatter of the squirrel he had first met on the blasted pine. While the sight of a moose-bird almost invariably put him into the wildest of rages; for he never forgot the peck on the nose he had received from the first of that ilk he encountered.
The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which hunters call the "moose-bird" screamed its shrill "What cheer? What cheer?" with ceaseless persistence. "Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!" said the guide, answering it back. "It's good cheer this time.
Not even Life, the stool-pigeon, the arch-capper for the game Life, the ever flourishing graveyard, the everlasting funeral procession. He drifted back to the immediate present for a moment and noted that the river still ran wide open, and that a moose-bird, perched on the bow of the boat, was surveying him impudently. Then he drifted dreamily back to his meditations.
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