I had picked it with
gloves, so that the smell of my hand was not on it. After an hour or
so, if I moved softly, they let me approach quite up to them without
shaking their antlers or renewing their desperate attempts to flounder
away. But I did not touch them. That is a degradation which no wild
creature will permit when he is free; and I would not take advantage
of their helplessness.
Did they starve in the snow? you ask. Oh, no! I went to the place next
day and found that they had gained the spruce tops, ploughing through
the snow in great bounds, following the track of the strongest, which
went ahead to break the way. There they fed and rested, then went to
some dense thickets where they passed the night. In a day or two the
snow settled and hardened, and they took to their wandering again.
Later, in hunting, I crossed their tracks several times, and once I
saw them across a barren; but I left them undisturbed, to follow other
trails. We had eaten together; they had fed from my hand; and there
is no older truce on earth than that, not even in the unchanging East,
where it originated.
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