Followers of the Trail | Page 8

enough to shuffle from one good feeding ground to
another. He would grunt complainingly at any extra exertion, as, for
instance, that which was required to reach the small wild sweet apples
which he dearly loved, and which were clustered thickly on their small
trees at the edge of the forest. At this season Mokwa's diet was almost
strictly vegetarian and the smaller creatures of the wilderness, upon
which he sometimes preyed, had little to fear from him.
The long summer days drifted by and autumn was not far away.
Mokwa grew restless; both his food and surroundings palled upon him.
At length, following a vague though persistent inner impulse, he turned
his face northward toward the hills which had been his birthplace and
from which he had been so strangely carried.
Long before daylight he had taken the trail and, in spite of the protests
of his overfed body, had pushed steadily on, pausing at the edge of the
tamarack swamp long enough to open with his sharp claws a rotting log
that lay in his path, a log which yielded him a meal of fat grubs. Then
he shambled on, drawn by some irresistible force. The mist which hung
like a white veil over the low ground bordering the swamp was fast
dissolving in curling wisps of vapor under the ardent rays of the sun.

The forest was alive with bird song; squirrels chattered to him from the
trees and the rattle of the kingfisher was in his ears, but Mokwa held a
steady course northward, his little eyes fixed on some unseen goal.
About noon he came out upon the bank of the Little Vermilion, not far
from the place where he had so narrowly escaped death on the floating
ice. The roar of the falls came to him clearly on the still air and the big
bear shivered. If he remembered his wild ride, however, the memory
was quickly effaced by the discovery of a blueberry thicket, a luscious
storehouse that apparently had never been rifled. Mokwa feasted
greedily, at first stripping the branches of fruit and leaves alike; but at
length, the keen edge of his appetite dulled, he sought only the finest
berries, crushing many and ruthlessly tearing down whole bushes in his
greed to get a branch of especially choice fruit. Then, his face and paws
stained with the juice and his sides uncomfortably distended, he sought
a secluded nook in which to sleep off his feast.
Toward evening, when the shadows grew long and the hills were
touched with the red and gold of the setting sun, Mokwa again took up
the northward trail, to which he held steadily most of the night.
Morning found him emerging from a thicket of juniper upon the banks
of the river at a place that he instantly recognized as the one from
which he had begun his unwilling travels.
Turning sharply to the right, the bear's eager eyes discovered the trunk
of a hemlock which had been blasted by lightning. Rearing himself
upon his haunches against it, and reaching to his utmost, he prepared to
leave his signature where he had so often left it, always above all rivals.
Ere his unsheathed claws could leave their mark, however, he paused,
gazing at another mark several inches above his own.
The hair rose along his back and his little eyes gleamed red while he
growled deep in his chest; yet, stretch as he would, he could not quite
reach the signature of the other bear. Mokwa dropped to all fours, rage
filling his breast at this indication of a rival in what he considered his
own domain. He hurried on, keenly alert, growing more and more
incensed at every fresh trace of the interloper. Here he came upon
evidences of a meal which the rival had made upon wake-robin roots.

Satisfied before he had devoured all he had dug, some of the roots still
lay scattered about, but, though Mokwa was hungry, he disdained the
crumbs from the other's table. He dined, instead, upon a fat field mouse
which he caught napping beside its runway. Again he pressed on, his
anger steadily fanned by fresh evidences of the hated rival who seemed
always just ahead.
Mokwa slept that night in his old den, but the next morning found him
once more on the trail of the enemy, a trail which was still fresh. He
had not gone far when his rival was, for the time being, forgotten, while
he sniffed eagerly at a new odour which drifted to his sensitive nostrils.
It was the scent of honey, a delicacy which a bear prizes above all else.
At that moment, as if to confirm the evidence of his nose, a bee flew by,
followed by another and another, all