Sometimes I have wondered whether this also were taught in the caribou
school; whether once in his life Megaleep were led to the spot and
made to pass through it, so that he should feel its meaning and
remember. That is not likely; for the one thing which an animal cannot
understand is death. And there were no signs of living caribou
anywhere near the place that I discovered; though down at the other
end of the lake their tracks were everywhere.
There are other questions, which one can only ask without answering.
Is this silent gathering merely a tribute to the old law of the herd,
or does Megaleep, with his last strength, still think to cheat his old
enemy, and go away where the wolf that followed him all his life shall
not find him? How was his resting place first selected, and what
leaders searched out the ground? What sound or sign, what murmur of
wind in the pines, or lap of ripples on the shore, or song of the
veery at twilight made them pause and say, _Here is the place_? How
does he know, he whose thoughts are all of life, and who never looked
on death, where the great silent herd is that no caribou ever sees but
once? And what strange instinct guides Megaleep to the spot where all
his wanderings end at last?
II.
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