THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 0/ffie Woods 
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 Tallowing Me "Deer 
 Series 
 efc. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 Cfiar/es Cope/and 
 
 LT-S 'J* 
 
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 C/NN& COMPANY
 
 oCJ 
 
 AT STATIONERS' HALI.
 
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 LOVES The WILDERNESS 
 
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 'HE reader who follows these trails will find 
 them leading into a new country, a land 
 of space and silence where it is good to 
 be, away up among the mountains and woods and 
 salmon rivers and mossy barren grounds of Lab- 
 rador and Newfoundland. There he will find him- 
 self face to face with new animals white wolf, 
 fisher, salmon, wild goose, polar bear, and a score 
 of others big and little that stop their silent hunt- 
 ing to look at the intruder curiously and without 
 fear. In his turn he will lay aside his gun and his 
 thoughts of killing for a moment, and watch these 
 animals with his heart as well as his eyes wide open, 
 trying to see without prejudice just what things 
 they are doing, and then to understand if possible
 
 why and how they do them : why, for instance, the 
 big Arctic wolf spares the bull caribou that attacks 
 him wantonly; why the wild goose has no fear at 
 home ; why the baby seals are white at birth ; how 
 the salmon climb the falls which they cannot jump, 
 and why they hasten back to the sea when they 
 are hurt; how the whale speaks without a voice; 
 and what makes the fisher confuse his trail, or leave 
 beside it a tempting bait for you when you are fol- 
 lowing him, all these and twenty more curious 
 things are waiting to be seen and understood at the 
 end of the trail. 
 
 The reader who has not followed such trails before 
 will ask at once, How many of these things are 
 true ? Every smallest incident recorded here is as 
 true as careful and accurate observation can make 
 it. In most of the following chapters, as in all previ- 
 ous volumes, will be found the direct results of my 
 own experience among animals ; and in the few cases 
 where, as stated plainly in the text, I have used 
 the experience of other and wiser men, I have taken 
 the facts from first-hand and accurate observers, 
 and have then sifted them carefully so as to retain
 
 only those that are in my own mind without a ques- 
 tion as to their truth. In the long story of Wayee- 
 ses the White Wolf, for example, in which for 
 the greater interest I have put the separate facts 
 into a more or less connected biography, every 
 incident in this wolf's life, from his grasshopper 
 hunting to the cunning caribou chase, and from 
 the den in the rocks to the meeting of wolf and chil- 
 dren on the storm-swept barrens, is minutely true 
 to fact, and is based squarely upon my own obser- 
 vation and that of my Indians. 
 
 In one case only, the story of Kopseep the Salmon, 
 have I ventured to make an exception to this rule 
 of absolute accuracy. For years I have followed 
 and watched the salmon from the sea to the head- 
 springs of his own river and back again to the sea, 
 and all that part of his story is entirely true to fact ; 
 but beyond the breakers and beneath the tide no 
 man has ever followed or seen him. I was obliged, 
 therefore, either to omit that part of his life or to 
 picture it as best I could from imagination and the 
 records of the salmon hatcheries and deep-sea trawl- 
 ers. I chose, for the story's sake, the latter course, 
 
 Preface 
 
 &5T
 
 Preface- 
 
 and this part of the record has little value beyond 
 a purely literary one. It is a guess at probable 
 truth, and not, like the rest of the book, a record 
 of careful observation. 
 
 If the reader find himself often wondering at the 
 courage or gentleness or intelligence of these free 
 folk of the wilderness, that need not trouble or 
 puzzle him for an instant. He is not giving human 
 traits to the beasts, but is simply finding, as all do 
 find who watch animals closely, many things which 
 awaken a sympathetic response in his own heart, 
 and which he understands, more or less clearly, in 
 precisely the same way that he understands him- 
 self and his own children. 
 
 It is not choice, but necessity, which leads us 
 to this way of looking at animals and of trying to 
 understand them. If we had a developed animal 
 psychology based upon the assumption that life 
 in one creature is essentially different from life in 
 another, and that the intelligence in a wolf's head, 
 for instance, is of a radically different kind from the 
 same intelligence in the head of some other animal 
 with two legs instead of four, then we might use 
 
 W-U^o 
 
 H$ ~*^r 
 ^
 
 our knowledge to understand what we see upon 
 these trails. But there is no such psychology, and 
 the assumption itself is a groundless one. Nature 
 is of one piece, and consistent throughout. The 
 drop is like the ocean, though it bears no ships on 
 its bosom ; the tear on a child's cheek breaks the 
 light into glorious color, as does the rainbow on 
 the spray of Niagara ; and the law that holds the 
 mountains fast sleeps in the heart of every grain of 
 sand on the seashore. When we wish to measure 
 the interstellar spaces we seek no new celestial unit, 
 but apply confidently our own yardstick ; and the 
 chemistry that analyzes a baby's food serves equally 
 well for the satellites of Jupiter. This is but an 
 analogy, to be sure, but it serves to guide us in the 
 realm of conscious life, which also seems of one 
 piece and under one law. Inspired writers of every 
 age have sought to comprehend even gods and 
 angels by the same human intelligence that they 
 applied to the ants and the conies, and for the same 
 reason, that they possessed but one measure of 
 life. Love and hate, fear and courage, joy and grief, 
 pain and pleasure, want and satisfaction, these 
 
 Preface
 
 things, which make so large a part of life, are found 
 in animals as well as in men, differing much in de- 
 gree but not at all in kind from the same feelings 
 in our own hearts ; and we must measure them, if 
 we are to understand them at all, by a common 
 standard. To call a thing intelligence in one crea- 
 ture and reflex action in another, or to speak of the 
 same thing as love or kindness in one and blind 
 impulse in the other, is to be blinder ourselves than 
 the impulse which is supposed to govern animals. 
 Until, therefore, we have some new chemistry that 
 will ignore atoms and atomic law, and some new 
 psychology that ignores animal intelligence alto- 
 gether, or regards it as under a radically different 
 law from our own, we must apply what we know 
 of ourselves and our own motives to the smaller 
 and weaker lives that are in some distant way akin 
 to our own. 
 
 To cover our own blindness and lack of observa- 
 tion we often make a mystery and hocus-pocus of 
 animal life by using the word instinct to cover it 
 all ; as if instinct were the mysterious and exclu- 
 sive possession of the animals, and not a common 
 
 U[
 
 heritage which we share with them in large meas- 
 ure. It is an unmeaning word at best ; for no one 
 has told us, except in the vaguest way, what in- 
 stinct is, or has set the limit where instinct ends 
 and conscious intelligence begins, or has shown how 
 far the primary instincts of a child differ from those 
 of any other animal. On the other hand, one who 
 watches animals closely and sympathetically must 
 judge from what he sees that the motives which 
 govern an animal's action are often very much like 
 our own, the difference being that the animal's mo- 
 tive is more simple and natural than ours, and that 
 among the higher orders the greater part of an 
 animal's life playing, working, seeking food, mak- 
 ing dens, outwitting other animals, avoiding traps 
 and enemies is directed not by a blind instinct 
 but by a very wide-awake intelligence. And this in- 
 telligence begins by the use of native powers and is 
 strengthened by their daily occupation ; is encour- 
 aged and developed by the mother's training and 
 example as she leads her little ones into the world, 
 and is perfected by the animal's own experience, 
 which he remembers in the face of new problems 
 
 XIX 
 
 3-
 
 precisely as we do. A wild animal's life may 
 indeed be far below ours, but he lives much in 
 that pleasant border-land between thought and feel- 
 ing where we so often find ourselves in our quiet 
 moments, and there is no earthly need to make a 
 mystery of him by talking vaguely of instinct, since 
 so much of his life corresponds to our own and 
 becomes intelligible to us the moment we lay aside 
 our prejudice or hostility and watch him with a 
 patient and friendly interest. 
 
 I make no claim whatever that animals reason 
 or think or feel as men and women do. I have 
 watched them too long for that ; and sitting beside 
 the beaver's village in the still twilight of the wil- 
 derness I find enough to occupy eyes and mind 
 without making any comparison with the unquiet 
 cities of men far away. But here before me is a life 
 to be understood before it can be described, a life, 
 not an automaton, with its own joys and fears, its 
 own problems, and its own intelligence ; and the 
 only conceivable way for me to understand it is to 
 put myself for a moment in its place and lay upon 
 it the measure of the only life of which I have any
 
 direct knowledge or understanding, which is my 
 own. And this, far from being visionary or hyper- 
 sensitive, as the makers of mechanical natural his- 
 tory would have us believe, is the only rational, 
 indeed the only possible, way of understanding any 
 animal action. 
 
 So, whether one looks for the facts of animal life 
 or for the motives which govern it, the reader may 
 follow these trails, as I first followed them, with the 
 idea of seeing with his own eyes and understanding 
 with his own heart. He will see many things that 
 he does not understand, and so will listen with respect 
 to Noel and Old Tomah, who for fifty seasons and 
 more have lived close to the Wood Folk. And he 
 will find at the end of every trail a real animal, as 
 true to life as I am able to see and describe it after 
 many years of watching in the wilderness. 
 
 WILLIAM J. LONG. 
 STAMFORD, CONN., 
 
 January, 1905. 
 
 xx 
 
 Preface
 
 JL 
 * 
 
 : t*f-:v.| 
 Js^'t 
 
 WAYEESES THE STRONG ONE . 
 
 THE OLD WOLF'S CHALLENGE . 
 
 WHERE THE TRAIL BEGINS 
 
 NOEL AND MOOKA .... 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WOLF . 
 
 THE WHITE WOLF'S HUNTING . 
 
 TRAILS THAT CROSS IN THE SNOW 
 IN QUEST OF WAPTONK THE WILD 
 PEQUAM THE FISHER .... 
 THE TRAIL OF THE CUNNING ONE . 
 OUT OF THE DEEPS ..... 
 MATWOCK. OF THE ICEBERGS . 
 WHERE THE SALMON JUMP 
 THE STORY OF KOPSEEP .... 
 xxiii 
 
 3 
 13 
 
 27 
 
 S 1 
 
 103 
 
 137 
 173 
 219 
 243 
 273 
 297 
 3i5 
 343
 
 'WAYEESES HAD CHOSEN HER DEN WELL" (see page 19) 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 I 
 
 'THE TERRIBLE HOWL OF A GREAT WHITE WOLF" . 9 
 WATCHING HER GROWING YOUNGSTERS" . . -45 
 ' As THE MOTHER'S LONG JAWS CLOSED OVER THE SMALL 
 
 OF THE BACK" 75 
 
 'THE SILENT, APPALLING DEATH-WATCH BEGAN" . 117 
 'A QUICK SNAP WHERE THE HEART LAY" . . .163 
 WHEN HE WINDS DOWN THE INVISIBLE STAIRCASE OF 
 
 THE WINDS" 185 
 
 ' HE RUSHED STRAIGHT AT ME " 203 
 
 'HE HAD PICKED UP THE TRAIL AND DARTED AWAY" . 22J 
 
 ROUSES PEQUAM'S TEMPER" 263 
 
 A LONG SNAKY BODY LEAPED CLEAR OF THE WATER" . 291 
 
 A SALMON SPRINGS OUT" 329 
 
 'AS IF IT WERE HIS OWN SHADOW THAT HE WAS TRYING 
 
 TO ESCAPE" 365
 
 E were beating up the Straits to the 
 Labrador when a great gale swooped 
 down on us and drove us like a scared wild 
 duck into a cleft in the mountains, where 
 the breakers roared and the seals barked on 
 the black rocks and the reefs bared their 
 teeth on either side, like the long jaws of 
 a wolf, to snap at us as we passed. 
 
 In our flight we had picked up a fisher- 
 man snatched him out of his helpless punt 
 
 3
 
 as we luffed in a smother of spray, and 
 dragged him aboard, like an enormous frog, 
 
 at the end of the ][b sheet and ii: was he 
 
 who now stood at the wheel of our little 
 schooner and took her careening in through 
 the tickle of Harbor Woe. There, in a deso- 
 late, rock-bound refuge on the Newfoundland 
 coast, the Wild Duck swung to her anchor, 
 veering nervously in the tide rip, tugging 
 impatiently and clanking her chains as if 
 eager to be out again in the turmoil. At 
 sunset the gale blew itself out, and presently 
 the moon wheeled full and clear over the 
 dark mountains. 
 
 Noel, my big Indian, was curled up asleep 
 in a caribou skin by the foremast; and the 
 crew were all below asleep, every man glad 
 in his heart to be once more safe in a snug 
 harbor. All about us stretched the desolate 
 wastes of sea and mountains, over which 
 silence and darkness brooded, as over the 
 first great chaos. Near at hand were the 
 black rocks, eternally wet and smoking w 7 ith 
 the fog and' gale ; beyond towered the ice- 
 bergs, pale, cold, glittering like spires of
 
 silver in the moonlight; far away, like a 
 vague shadow, a handful of little gray houses 
 clung like barnacles to the base of a great 
 bare hill whose foot was in the sea and whose 
 head wavered among the clouds of heaven. 
 Not a light shone, not a sound or a sign 
 of life came from these little houses, whose 
 shells close daily at twilight over the life 
 within, weary with the day's work. Only 
 the dogs were restless those strange crea- 
 tures that shelter in our houses and share 
 our bread, yet live in another world, a dumb, 
 silent, lonely world shut out from ours by 
 impassable barriers. 
 
 For hours these uncanny dogs had puzzled 
 me, a score of vicious, hungry brutes that 
 drew the sledges in winter and that picked 
 up a vagabond living in the idle summer by 
 hunting rabbits and raiding the fishermen's 
 flakes and pig-pens and by catching flounders 
 in the sea as the tide ebbed. Venture among 
 them with fear in your 
 heart and they would 
 fly at your legs and 
 throat like wild beasts;
 
 but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better still 
 go quietly on your way without concern, and 
 they would skulk aside and watch you hun- 
 grily out of the corners of their surly eyes, 
 whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mas- 
 tiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them 
 flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, 
 miles away from the hamlet ; now sitting on 
 their tails in a solemn circle; now howling 
 all together as if demented, and anon listen- 
 ing intently in the vast silence, as if they 
 heard or smelled or perhaps just felt the 
 presence of some unknown thing that was 
 hidden from human senses. And when I 
 paddled ashore to watch them one ran swiftly 
 past without heeding me, his nose out- 
 stretched, his eyes green as foxfire in the 
 moonlight, while the others vanished like 
 shadows among the black rocks, each intent 
 on his unknown quest. 
 
 That is why I had come up from my warm 
 bunk at midnight to sit alone on the taffrail, 
 listening in the keen air to the howling that 
 made me shiver, spite of myself, and watch- 
 ing in the vague moonlight to understand if
 
 possible what the brutes felt amid the primal 
 silence and desolation. 
 
 A long interval of profound stillness had 
 passed, and I could just make out the circle 
 of dogs sitting on their tails on the open 
 shore, when suddenly, faint and far away, an 
 unearthly howl came rolling down the moun- 
 tains, ooooooo-ow-wow-wow ! a long wailing 
 crescendo beginning softly, like a sound in a 
 dream, and swelling into a roar that waked 
 the sleeping echoes and set them jumping like 
 startled goats from crag to crag. Instantly 
 the huskies answered, every dog breaking 
 out into indescribable frenzied wailings, as a 
 collie responds in agony to certain chords of 
 music that stir all the old wolf nature sleep- 
 ing within him. For five minutes the uproar 
 was appalling; then it ceased abruptly and 
 the huskies ran wildly here and there among 
 the rocks. From far away an answer, an 
 echo perhaps of their wailing, or, it may be, 
 the cry of the dogs of 
 St. Margaret's, came 
 ululating over the deep, J \&T~ \y 
 Then silence again, vast 
 
 ffieOM Wo/ft
 
 TSeOWOMfs 
 
 Cfta/Jenge 
 
 i--*-!^ - -_ -^_i-n 
 
 and unnatural, settling over the gloomy land 
 like a winding-sheet. 
 
 As the unknown howl trembled faintly 
 in the air Noel, who had slept undisturbed 
 through all the clamor of the dogs, stirred 
 uneasily by the foremast. As it deepened 
 and swelled into a roar that filled all the 
 night he threw off the caribou skin and came 
 aft to where I was watching alone. " Das 
 Wayeeses. I know dat hwulf; he follow 
 me one time, oh, long, long while 
 ago," he whispered. And taking 
 my marine glasses he stood 
 beside me watching intently. 
 There was another long 
 period of waiting; our eyes 
 grew weary, filled as they were with shadows 
 and uncertainties in the moonlight, and we 
 turned our ears to the hills, waiting with 
 strained, silent expectancy for the challenge. 
 Suddenly Noel pointed upward and my eye 
 caught something moving swiftly on the crest 
 of the mountain. A shadow with the slink- 
 ing trot of a wolf glided along the ridge 
 between us and the moon. Just in front of
 
 1 The terrible howl of the great 
 white wolf"
 
 us it stopped, leaped upon a big rock, turned 
 
 a pointed nose up to the sky, sharp and clear -757 /^j^//// /*-, 
 
 as a fir top in the moonlight, and ooooooo- , 
 ow-wow-wow ! the terrible howl of a great .-^-^\ v_3> 
 white wolf tumbled down on the husky dogs 
 and set them howling as if possessed. No 
 doubt now of their queer actions which had 
 puzzled me for hours past. The wild wolf 
 had called and the tame wolves waked to 
 answer. Before my dull ears had heard a 
 rumor of it they were crazy with the excite- 
 ment. Now every chord in their wild hearts 
 was twanging its thrilling answer to the 
 leader's summons, and my own heart awoke 
 and thrilled as it never did before to the call 
 of a wild beast. 
 
 For an hour or more the old wolf sat there, 
 challenging his degenerate mates in every 
 silence, calling the tame to be wild, the 
 bound to be free again, and listening gravely 
 to the wailing answer of the dogs, which 
 refused with groanings, as if dragging them- 
 selves away from overmastering temptation. 
 Then the shadow vanished from the big 
 rock on the mountain, the huskies fled away
 
 wildly from the shore, and only the sob of 
 the breakers broke the stillness. 
 
 That was my first (and Noel's last) shad- 
 owy glimpse of Wayeeses, the huge white 
 wolf which I had come a thousand miles 
 over land and sea to study. All over the 
 Long Range of the northern peninsula I fol- 
 lowed him, guided sometimes by a rumor 
 a hunter's story or a postman's fright, caught 
 far inland in winter and huddling close by 
 his fire with his dogs through the long 
 winter night and again by a track on the 
 shore of some lonely, unnamed pond, or the 
 sight of a herd of caribou flying wildly from 
 some unseen danger. Here is the white 
 wolf's story, learned partly from much watch- 
 ing and following his tracks alone, but more 
 from Noel the Indian hunter, in endless 
 tramps over the hills and caribou marshes 
 
 in lon 
 
 ./ ,quiet 
 
 ^ 'the firelight 
 beside the 
 salmon rivers.
 
 FROM a cave in the rocks, on the 
 unnamed mountains that tower over 
 Harbor Weal on the north and east, a 
 huge mother wolf appeared, stealthily, as all 
 wolves come out of their dens. A pair of 
 green eyes glowed steadily like coals deep 
 within the dark entrance ; a massive gray 
 head rested unseen against the lichens of a 
 gray rock ; then the whole gaunt body glided 
 like a passing cloud shadow into the June 
 sunshine and was lost in a cleft of the rocks. 
 15
 
 i6 
 
 Where ffierra/I 
 
 There, in the deep shadow where no eye 
 might notice the movement, the old wolf 
 shook off the delicious sleepiness that still 
 lingered in all her big muscles. First she 
 spread her slender fore paws, working the 
 toes till they were all wide-awake, and bent 
 her body at the shoulders till her deep chest 
 touched the earth. Next a hind leg stretched 
 Out straight and tense as a bar, and was taken 
 back again in nervous little jerks. At the 
 same time she yawned mightily, wrinkling 
 her nose and showing her red gums with the 
 black fringes and the long white fangs that 
 could reach a deer's heart in a single snap. 
 Then she leaped upon a great rock and sat 
 up straight, with her bushy tail curled close 
 about her fore paws, a savage, powerful, noble- 
 looking beast, peering down gravely over the 
 green mountains to the shining sea. 
 
 A moment before the hillside had appeared 
 utterly lifeless, so still and rugged and deso- 
 late that one must notice and welcome the 
 stir of a mouse or ground squirrel in 
 the moss, speaking of life that is glad 
 ~-~.. ,..- and free and
 
 vigorous even in the deepest solitudes; yet 
 now, so quietly did the old wolf appear, 
 so perfectly did her rough gray coat blend 
 with the rough gray rocks, that the hillside 
 seemed just as tenantless as before. A stray 
 wind seemed to move the mosses, that was 
 all. Only where the mountains once slept 
 now they seemed wide-awake. Keen eyes 
 saw every moving thing, from the bees in 
 the bluebells to the slow fishing-boats far out 
 at sea; sharp ears that were cocked like a 
 collie's heard every chirp and trill and rustle, 
 and a nose that understood everything was 
 holding up every vagrant breeze and search- 
 ing it for its message. For the cubs were 
 coming out for the first time to play in the 
 big world, and no wild mother ever lets that 
 happen without first taking infinite precau- 
 tions that her little ones be not molested nor 
 made afraid. 
 
 A faint breeze from the west strayed over 
 the mountains and instantly the old wolf 
 turned her sensitive nose to question it. 
 There on her right, and just across a deep 
 ravine where a torrent went leaping down to
 
 
 the sea in hundred-foot jumps, a great stag 
 caribou was standing, still as a stone, on a 
 lofty pinnacle, looking down over the marvel- 
 ous panorama spread wide beneath his feet. 
 Every day Megaleep came there to look, and 
 the old wolf in her daily hunts often crossed 
 the deep path which he had worn through the 
 moss from the wide table-lands over the ridge 
 to this sightly place where he could look down 
 curiously at the comings and goings of men 
 on the sea. But at this season when small 
 game was abundant and indeed at all sea- 
 sons when not hunger-driven the wolf was 
 peaceable and the caribou were not molested. 
 Indeed the big stag knew well where the old 
 wolf denned. Every east wind brought 
 her message to his nostrils ; but secure in 
 his own strength and in the general peace 
 which prevails in the summer-time among 
 all large animals of the north, he came 
 daily to look down on the harbor and 
 wag his ears at the fishing-boats, which he 
 could never understand. 
 
 Strange neighbors these, the grim, savage 
 mother wolf of the mountains, hiding her
 
 young in dens of the rocks, and the wary, 
 magnificent wanderer of the broad caribou 
 barrens ; but they understood each other, and 
 neither wolf nor caribou had any fear or 
 hostile intent one for the other. And this 
 is not strange at all, as might be supposed 
 by those who think animals are governed 
 by fear on one hand and savage cruelty on 
 the other, but is one of the commonest things 
 to be found by those who follow faithfully 
 the northern trails. 
 
 Wayeeses had chosen her den well, on 
 the edge of the untrodden solitudes sixty 
 miles as the crow flies that stretch north- 
 ward from Harbor Weal to Harbor Woe. It 
 was just under the ridge, in a sunny hollow 
 among the rocks, on the southern slope of 
 the great mountains. The earliest sunshine 
 found the place and warmed it, bringing 
 forth the bluebells for a carpet, while in every 
 dark hollow the snow lingered all summer 
 long, making dazzling white patches on the 
 mountain; and under the high waterfalls, 
 that looked from the harbor like bits of silver 
 ribbon stretched over the green woods, the 
 
 Where JfteT/zil 
 
 "Begins
 
 ice clung- to the rocks in fantastic knobs and 
 20 
 
 gargoyles, making cold, deep pools for the 
 
 trout to play in> So it was both cool and 
 
 warm there, and whatever the weather the 
 gaunt old mother wolf could always find just 
 the right spot to sleep away the afternoon. 
 Best of all it was perfectly safe ; for though 
 from the door of her den she could look 
 down on the old Indian's cabin, like a pebble 
 on the shore, so steep were the billowing 
 hills and so impassable the ravines that no 
 human foot ever trod the place, not even in 
 autumn when the fishermen left their boats 
 at anchor in Harbor Weal and camped inland 
 on the paths of the big caribou, herds. 
 
 Whether or not the father wolf ever knew 
 where his cubs were hidden only he himself 
 could tell. He was an enormous brute, power- 
 ful and cunning beyond measure, that haunted 
 the lonely thickets and ponds bordering the 
 great caribou barrens over the ridge, and 
 that kept a silent watch, within howling dis- 
 tance, over the den which he never saw. 
 Sometimes the mother wolf met him on her 
 wanderings and they hunted together. Often
 
 he brought the game he had caught, a fox 
 or a young goose ; and sometimes when she 
 had hunted in vain he met her, as if he had 
 understood her need from a distance, and led 
 her to where he had buried two or three 
 of the rabbits that swarmed in the thickets. 
 But spite of the attention and the indifferent 
 watch which he kept, he never ventured near 
 the den, which he could have found easily 
 enough by following the mother's track. 
 The old she-wolf would have flown at his 
 throat like a fury had he showed his head 
 over the top of the ridge. 
 
 The reason for this was simple enough to 
 the savage old mother, though there are 
 some things about it that men do not yet 
 understand. Wolves, like cats and foxes, and 
 indeed like most wild male animals, have an 
 atrocious way of killing their own young 
 when they find them unprotected ; so the 
 mother animal searches out a den by herself 
 and rarely allows the male to come near it. 
 Spite of this beastly habit it must be said 
 honestly of the old he-wolf that he 
 shows a marvelous gentleness towards ?- 
 
 21 
 
 "Begins
 
 his mate. He runs at the slightest show of 
 
 teet ^ * rom a motner w tf na -tf his size, and will 
 
 stand meekly a snap of the j aws or a cruel gash 
 
 f the terrible fangs in his flank without de- 
 fending himself. Even our hounds seem to 
 have inherited something of this primitive 
 wolf trait, for there are seasons when, unless 
 urged on by men, they will not trouble a 
 mother wolf or fox. Many times, in the early 
 spring when foxes are mating, and again later 
 when they are heavy with young and incapa- 
 ble of a hard run, I have caught my hounds 
 trotting meekly after a mother fox, sniffing 
 her trail indifferently and sitting down with 
 heads turned aside when she stops for a 
 moment to watch and yap at them disdain- 
 fully. And when you call them they come 
 shamefaced; though in winter-time, when 
 running the same fox to death, they pay no 
 more heed to your call than to the crows 
 clamoring over them. But we must return 
 to Wayeeses, sitting over her den on a great 
 gray rock, trying every breeze, searching every 
 movement, harking to every chirp and rustle 
 before bringing her cubs out into the world.
 
 Satisfied at last with her silent investiga- 
 tion she turned her head towards the den. 
 There was no sound, only one of those silent, 
 unknown communications that pass between 
 animals. Instantly there was a scratching, 
 scurrying, whining, and three cubs tumbled 
 out of the dark hole in the rocks, with fuzzy 
 yellow fur and bright eyes and sharp ears 
 and noses, like collies, all blinking and won- 
 dering and suddenly silent at the big bright 
 world which they had never seen before, so 
 different from the dark den under the rocks. 
 
 Indeed it was a marvelous world that the 
 little cubs looked upon when they came out 
 to blink and wonder in the June sunshine. 
 Contrasts everywhere, that made the world 
 seem too big for one little glance to com- 
 prehend it all. Here the sunlight streamed 
 and danced and quivered on the warm rocks ; 
 there deep purple cloud shadows rested for 
 hours, as if asleep, or swept over the moun- 
 tain side in an endless game of fox-and-geese 
 with the sunbeams. Here the birds trilled, 
 the bees hummed in the bluebells, the brook 
 roared and sang on its way to the sea ; while 
 
 23 
 
 Where ffie Trail 
 "Begins
 
 over all the harmony of the world brooded a 
 
 silence to great to be disturbed Sunli ht 
 
 and shadow, snow and ice, gloomy ravines and 
 dazzling mountain tops, mayflowers and sing- 
 i n g birds and rustling winds filled all the earth 
 with color and movement and melody. From 
 under their very feet great masses of rock, 
 tossed and tumbled as by a giant's play, 
 stretched downwards to where the green 
 woods began and rolled in vast billows to 
 the harbor, which shone and sparkled in the 
 sun, yet seemed no bigger than their mother's 
 paw. Fishing-boats with shining sails hov- 
 ered over it, like dragon-flies, going and 
 coming from the little houses that sheltered 
 together under the opposite mountain, like a 
 cluster of gray toadstools by a towering pine 
 stump. Most wonderful, most interesting of 
 all was the little gray hut on the shore, almost 
 under their feet, where little Noel and the 
 Indian children played with the tide like fid- 
 dler crabs, or pushed bravely out to meet the 
 fishermen in a bobbing nutshell. For wolf 
 cubs are like collies in this, that they seem 
 to have a natural interest, perhaps a natural
 
 kinship with man, and next to their own kind 
 nothing arouses their interest like a group of 
 children playing. 
 
 So the little cubs took their first glimpse 
 of the big world, of mountains and sea and 
 sunshine, and children playing on the shore, 
 and the world was altogether too wonderful 
 for little heads to comprehend. Nevertheless 
 one plain impression remained, the same that 
 you see in the ears and nose and stumbling 
 feet and wagging tail of every puppy-dog you 
 meet on the streets, that this bright world 
 is a famous place, just made a-purpose for 
 little ones to play in. Sitting on their tails 
 in a solemn row the wolf cubs bent their 
 heads and pointed their noses gravely at the 
 sea. There it was, all silver and blue and 
 boundless, with tiny white sails dancing over 
 it, winking and flashing like entangled bits of 
 sunshine ; and since the eyes of a cub, like 
 those of a little child, cannot judge distances, 
 one stretched a paw at the nearest sail, miles 
 away, to turn it over and make it go the other 
 way. They turned up their heads sidewise 
 and blinked at the sky, all blue and calm and 
 
 Where ffteJ/w/ 
 "Beg/us
 
 26 
 
 Wfiere ffteTra/l 
 
 infinite, with white clouds sailing over it like 
 swans on a limpid lake ; and one stood up on 
 his hind legs and reached up both paws, like 
 a kitten, to pull down a cloud to play with. 
 Then the wind stirred a feather near them, 
 the white feather of a ptarmigan which they 
 had eaten yesterday, and forgetting the big 
 world and the sail and the cloud the cubs 
 took to playing with the feather, chasing and 
 worrying and tumbling over each other, while 
 the gaunt old mother wolf looked down from 
 her rock and watched and was satisfied.
 
 that same 
 afternoon, little ? 
 
 Noel and his sister Mooka were going on : - 
 wonderful sledge journeys, meeting wolves 
 and polar bears and caribou and all sorts of 
 adventures, more wonderful by far than any 
 that ever came to imagination astride of a 
 rocking-horse. They had a rare team of dogs, 
 Caesar and Wolf and Grouch and the rest, ^ 
 five or six uneasy crabs which they had 
 caught and harnessed to a tiny sledge made 
 from a curved root and a shingle tied together 
 with a bit of sea-kelp. And when the crabs 
 
 scurried away over the hard sand, waving 
 
 29
 
 their claws wildly, Noel and Mooka would 
 s*r / caper alongside, cracking a little whip and 
 
 Crying " Hi ' hi ' Ceesar! Hi y a ' Wolf! Hi ' 
 
 _ and then s h r iekin g with 
 laughter as the sledge overturned and the 
 crabs took to fighting and scratching in the 
 tangled harness, just like the husky dogs in 
 winter. Mooka was trying to untangle them, 
 dancing about to keep her bare toes and fin- 
 gers away from the nipping claws, when she 
 jumped up with a yell, the biggest crab hang- 
 ing to the end of her finger. 
 
 " Owee ! oweeeee ! Caesar bit me," she 
 wailed. Then she stopped, with finger in 
 her mouth, while Caesar scrambled headlong 
 into the tide; for Noel was standing on the 
 beach pointing at a brown sail far down in 
 the deep bay, where Southeast Brook came 
 singing from the green wilderness. 
 
 " Ohe, Mooka ! there 's father and Old 
 Tomah come back from salmon fishing." 
 
 " Let 's go meet um, little brother," said 
 Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a 
 wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The 
 old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail
 
 MooAa 
 
 up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like 
 
 an old salt, with the steering oar, while the 
 
 crew, forgetting her nipped finger, tugged ^0~* 
 
 valiantly at the main-sheet. 
 
 They were scooting away gloriously, ris- 
 ing and pounding the waves, when Mooka, 
 who did net have to steer and whose rest- 
 less glance was roving over every bay and 
 hillside, jumped up, her eyes round as lynx's. 
 
 " Look, Noel, look ! There 's Megaleep 
 again watching us." And Noel, following her 
 finger, saw far up on the mountain a stag 
 caribou, small and fine and clear as a cameo 
 against the blue sky, w 7 here they had so often 
 noticed him with wonder watching them as 
 they came shouting home with the tide. 
 Instantly Noel threw himself against 
 the steering oar; the punt came up 
 floundering and shaking in the wind. 
 
 "Come on, little sister; we can go up 
 Fox Brook. Tomah showed me trail." 
 And forgetting the salmon, as they 
 had a moment before forgotten the ; 
 crabs and sledges, these two children : 
 of the wild, following every breeze ,;
 
 and bird call and blossoming bluebell and 
 s ^- ar an ke, tumbled ashore and went 
 
 hurrying up the brook, splashing through 
 the sha i lowSj darting like kingfishers over 
 the points, and jumping like wild goats from 
 rock to rock. In an hour they were far up the 
 mountain, lying side by side on a great flat 
 rock, looking across a deep impassable valley 
 and over two rounded hilltops, where the scrub 
 spruces looked like pins on a cushion, to the 
 bare, rugged hillside where Megaleep stood 
 out like a watchman against the blue sky. 
 
 " Does he see us, little brother ? " whis- 
 pered Mooka, quivering with excitement and 
 panting from the rapid climb. 
 
 " See us ? sartin, little sister ; but that only 
 make him want peek um some more," said 
 the little hunter. And raised carelessly on 
 his elbows he was telling Mooka how Mega- 
 leep the caribou trusted only his nose, and 
 how he watched and played peekaboo with 
 anything which he could not smell, and how 
 in a snowstorm 
 
 Noel was off now like a brook, babbling 
 a deal of caribou lore which he had learned
 
 from Old Tomah the hunter, when Mooka, 
 whose restless black eyes were always wan- 
 dering, seized his arm. 
 
 " Hush, brother, and look, oh, look! there ^ 
 on the big rock ! " 
 
 Noel's eyes had already caught the Indian 
 trick of seeing only what they look for, and 
 so of separating an animal instantly from his 
 surroundings, however well he hides. That 
 is why the whole hillside seemed suddenly 
 to vanish, spruces and harebells, snow-fields 
 and drifting white clouds all grouping them- 
 selves, like the unnoticed frame of a picture, 
 around a great gray rock with 
 a huge shaggy she-wolf keeping 
 watch over it, silent, alert, 
 motionless. 
 
 Something stirred in the 
 shadow of the old wolf's watch- 
 tower, tossing and eddying and 
 growing suddenly quiet, as if the : '" - 
 wind were playing among dead oak leaves. 
 The keen young eyes saw it instantly, dilat- 
 ing with surprise and excitement. The next 
 instant they had clutched each other's arms.
 
 34 
 
 ' Woel 
 andMooAa 
 
 Jm -4W>-w 
 
 " Ooooo ! " from Mooka. 
 " Cubs ; keep still ! " from Noel. 
 And shrinking close to the rock under a 
 friendly dwarf spruce they lay still as two 
 rabbits, watching with round eyes, eager but 
 unafraid, the antics of three brown wolf cubs 
 that were chasing the flies and tumbling over 
 some invisible plaything before the door of 
 the den. 
 
 Hardly had they made the discovery when 
 the old wolf slipped down from the rock and 
 stood for an instant over her little ones. Why 
 the play should stop now, while the breeze 
 was still their comrade and the sunshine was 
 brighter than ever, or why they should steal 
 away into the dark den more silently than 
 ( , they had come, none of the cubs could tell. 
 - \ They felt the order and they obeyed instantly 
 and that is always the wonder of 
 watching little wild things at play. 
 The old mother wolf vanished among 
 the rocks and appeared again higher 
 on the ridge, turning her head uneasily 
 to try every breeze and rustle and 
 moving shadow. Then she
 
 went questing into the spruce woods, feeling 
 
 but not understanding some subtle excite- .- . _ 
 
 ment in the air that was not there before, 
 
 and only the two Indian children were left 
 
 keeping watch over the great wild hillside. 
 
 For over an hour they lay there expect- 
 antly, but nothing stirred near the den ; then 
 they too slipped away, silently as the little 
 wild things, and made their slow way down 
 the brook, hand in hand in the deepening 
 shadows. Scarcely had they gone when the 
 bushes stirred and the old she-wolf, that had 
 been ranging every ridge and valley since she 
 disappeared at the unknown alarm, glided 
 over the spot where a moment before Mooka 
 and Noel had been watching. Swiftly, silently 
 she followed their steps ; found the old trails 
 coming up and the fresh trails returning; 
 then, sure at last that no danger threatened 
 her own little ones, she loped away up the 
 hill and over the topmost ridge to the caribou 
 barrens and the thickets where young rabbits 
 were already stirring about in the twilight. 
 
 That night, in the cabin under the cliffs, 
 Old Toman had to rehearse again all the
 
 wolf lore learned in sixty years of hunting : 
 how, fortunately for the deer, these enormous 
 wolves had never been abundant and were 
 now very rare, a few having been shot, and 
 more poisoned in the starving times, and the 
 rest having vanished, mysteriously as wolves 
 do, for some unknown reason. Bears, which 
 are easily trapped and shot and whose skins 
 are worth each a month's wages to the fisher- 
 men, still hold their own and even increase 
 on the great island ; while the wolves, once 
 more numerous, are slowly vanishing, though 
 they are never hunted and not even Old 
 Tomah himself could set a trap cunningly 
 enough to catch one. The old hunter told, 
 while Mooka and Noel held their breaths 
 and drew closer to the light, how once, when 
 he made his camp alone under a cliff on the 
 lake shore, seven huge wolves, white as 
 the snow, came racing swift and 
 silent over the ice straight at the 
 which he had barely time to 
 kindle; how he shot 
 two, and the others, 
 seizing the fish he
 
 had just caught through the ice for his own 
 
 supper, vanished over the bank ; and he could _^ , _ 
 
 not say even now whether they meant him 
 
 
 harm or no. Again, as he talked and the grim 
 
 old face lighted up at the memory, they saw 
 him crouched with his sledge-dogs by a blaz- 
 ing fire all the long winter night, and around 
 him in the darkness blazing points of light, 
 the eyes of wolves flashing back the firelight, 
 and gaunt white forms flitting about like 
 shadows, drawing nearer and nearer with ever- 
 growing boldness till they seized his largest 
 dog though the brute lay so near the fire 
 that his hair singed and whisked it away 
 with an appalling outcry. And still again, 
 when Tomah was lost three days in the 
 interior, they saw him wandering with his 
 pack over endless barrens and through 
 gloomy spruce woods, and near him all the 
 time a young wolf that followed his steps 
 quietly, with half-friendly interest; and came 
 no nearer day or night. 
 
 All these things and many more the chil- 
 dren heard from Old Tomah, and among all 
 his hunting experiences and the stories and
 
 legends which he told them there was not 
 one to make them afraid. For the horrible 
 story of Red Riding Hood is not known 
 among the Indians, who know well how 
 untrue the tale is to wolf nature, and how 
 foolish it is to frighten children with false 
 stories of wolves and bears, misrepresent- 
 ing them as savage and bloodthirsty brutes, 
 when in truth they are but shy, peace-loving 
 animals, whose only motive toward man, 
 except when crazed by wounds or hunger, 
 is one of childish curiosity. All these fero- 
 cious animal stories have their origin in 
 other centuries and in distant lands, where 
 they may possibly have been true, but more 
 probably are just as false to animal nature; 
 for they seem to reflect not the shy animal 
 J that men glimpsed in the woods, but rather 
 I the boastings of some hunter, who always 
 " magnifies his own praise by increasing the 
 ferocity of the game he has killed, or else 
 the pure imagination of some ancient nurse 
 who tried to increase her scant authority by 
 frightening her children with te-rrible tales. 
 Here certainly the Indian attitude of kinship,
 
 gained by long centuries of living near to 
 the animals and watching them closely, comes _ . 
 nearer to the truth of things. That is why 
 little Mooka and Noel could listen for hours 
 to Old Tomah's animal stories and then go 
 away to bed and happy dreams, longing for 
 the light so that they might be off again to 
 watch at the wolf's den. 
 
 One thing only disturbed them for a 
 moment. Even these children had wolf 
 memories and vied with Old Tomah in 
 eagerness of telling. They remembered one 
 fearful winter, years ago, when most of the 
 families of the little fishing village on the 
 East Harbor had moved far inland to shel- 
 tered cabins in the deep woods to escape the 
 cold and the fearful blizzards of the coast. 
 One still moonlit night, when the snow lay 
 deep and the cold was intense and all the 
 trees were cracking like pistols in the frost, a 
 mournful howling rose all around their little 
 cabin. Light footfalls sounded on the crust ; 
 there were scratchings at the very door and 
 hoarse breathings at every crack; while the 
 dogs, with hackles up straight and stiff on
 
 their necks, fled howling under beds and 
 tables. And when Mooka and Noel went 
 fearfully with their mother to the little win- 
 dow for the men were far away on a cari- 
 bou hunt there were gaunt white wolves, 
 five or six of them, flitting restlessly about in 
 the moonlight, scratching at the cracks and 
 even raising themselves on their hind legs 
 to look in at the little windows. 
 
 Mooka shivered a bit when she remem- 
 bered the uncanny scene, and felt again the 
 '/ strong pressure of her mother's arms holding 
 her close ; but Old Tomah brushed away her 
 fears with a smile and a word, as he had 
 always done when, as little children, they had 
 showed fear at the thunder or the gale or 
 the cry of a wild beast in the night, 
 till they had grown to 
 look upon all Nature's 
 phenomena as hiding a 
 smile as kindly as that 
 of Old Tomah himself, 
 who had a face wrinkled 
 and terribly grim, to be 
 sure, but who could
 
 smile and tell a story so that every child trusted 
 him. The wolves were hungry, starving hun- 
 gry, he said, and wanted only a dog, or one 
 of the pigs. And Mooka remembered with a 
 bright laugh the two little unruly pigs that 
 had been taken inland as a hostage to famine, 
 and that must be carefully guarded from the 
 teeth of hungry prowlers, for they would soon 
 be needed to keep the children themselves 
 from starving. Every night at early sunset, 
 when the trees began to groan and the keen 
 winds from the mountains came whispering 
 through the w r oods, the two pigs were taken 
 into the snug kitchen, where with the dogs 
 they slept so close to the stove that she could 
 always smell pork a-frying. Not a husky dog 
 there but would have killed and eaten one of 
 these little pigs if he could have caught him 
 around the corner of the house after nightfall, 
 though you would never have suspected it if 
 you had seen them so close together keep- 
 ing each other warm after the fire went out. 
 And besides the dogs and the wolves there 
 were lynxes big, round-headed, savage-look- 
 ing creatures that came prowling out of the
 
 deep woods every night, hungry for a taste 
 of the little pigs ; and now and then an enor- 
 mous polar bear, that had landed from an 
 iceberg, would shuffle swiftly and fearlessly 
 among the handful of little cabins, leaving 
 his great footprints in every yard and tearing 
 to pieces, as if made of straw, the heavy log 
 pens to which some of the fishermen had 
 foolishly confided their pigs or sheep. He 
 even entered the woodsheds and rummaged 
 about after a stray fishbone or an old seal- 
 skin boot, making a great rowdydow in the 
 still night ; and only the smell of man, or the 
 report of an old gun fired at him by some 
 brave woman out of the half-open window, 
 kept him from pushing his enormous weight 
 against the very doors of the cabins. 
 
 Thinking of all these things, Mooka for- 
 got her fears of the white wolves, remember- 
 ing with a kind of sympathy how hungry all 
 these shy prowlers must be to leave their 
 own haunts, whence the rabbits and 
 seals had vanished, and 
 venture boldly into the 
 yards of men. As for 
 
 .^ 
 
 **&
 
 Noel, he remembered with regret that he was 
 too small at the time to use the long bow __ _ 
 which he now carried on his rabbit and goose 4 ~ - 
 
 hunts ; and as he took it from the wall, thrum- - 
 ming its chord of caribou sinew and fingering 
 the sharp edge of a long arrow, he was hoping 
 for just such another winter, longing to try 
 his skill and strength on some of these mid- 
 night prowlers a lynx, perhaps, not to begin 
 too largely on a polar bear. So there was no 
 fear at all, but only an eager wonder, when 
 they followed up the brook next day to watch 
 at the wolf's den. And even when Noel found 
 a track, a light oval track, larger but more 
 slender than a dog's, in some moist sand close 
 beside their own footprints and evidently fol- 
 lowing them, they remembered only the young 
 wolf that had followed Tomah and pressed on 
 the more eagerly. 
 
 Day after day they returned to their watch- 
 tower on the flat rock, under the dwarf 
 spruce at the head of the brook, and lying 
 there side by side they watched the play of 
 the young wolf cubs. Every day they grew 
 more interested as the spirit of play entered
 
 into themselves, understanding the gladness 
 *f / of the wild rough-and-tumble when one of 
 the cubs lay in wait for another and leaped 
 upon him from ambush ; understanding also 
 something of the feeling of the gaunt old she- 
 wolf as she looked down gravely from her 
 gray rock watching her growing youngsters. 
 Once they brought an old spy-glass which 
 they had borrowed from a fisherman, and 
 through its sea-dimmed lenses they made 
 out that one of the cubs was larger than the 
 other two, with a droop at the tip of his right 
 ear, like a pointed leaf that has been creased 
 sharply between the fingers. Mooka claimed 
 that wolf instantly for her own, as if they 
 were watching the husky puppies, and by his 
 broken ear said she should know him again 
 when he grew to be a big wolf, if he should 
 ever follow her, as his father perhaps had 
 followed Old Tomah ; but Noel, thinking of 
 his bow and his long arrow with the sharp 
 point, thought of the winter night long ago 
 and hoped that his two wolves would know 
 enough to keep away when the pack came 
 again, for he did not see any way to recognize
 
 " Watching her growing 
 youngsters"
 
 and spare them, especially in the moonlight. 
 
 So they lay there making plans and dreaming 
 
 dreams, gentle or savage, for the little cubs lf*-/~^ 
 
 that played with the feathers and grasshop- ^ 
 
 pers and cloud shadows, all unconscious that 
 
 any eyes but their mother's saw or cared for Ji^* 
 
 their wild, free playing. 
 
 Something bothered the old she-wolf in 
 these days of watching. The den was still 
 secure, for no human foot had crossed the 
 deep ravine or ventured nearer than the 
 opposite hilltop. Her nose told her that 
 unmistakably ; but still she was uneasy, and 
 whenever the cubs were playing she felt, 
 without knowing why, that she was being 
 watched. When she trailed over all the 
 ridges in the twilight, seeking to know if 
 enemies had been near, she found always the 
 scent of two human beings on a flat rock 
 under the dwarf spruces; and there were 
 always the two trails coming up and going 
 down the brook. She followed once close 
 behind the two children, seeing them plainly 
 all the way, till they came in sight of the 
 little cabin under the cliff, and from the door
 
 her enemy man came out to meet them. For 
 these two little ones, whose trail she knew, 
 ^ sn e- W olf, like most mother animals 
 - m tne p resence o f children, felt no fear nor 
 enmity whatever. But they watched her 
 den and her own little ones, that was sure 
 enough; and why should any one watch a 
 den except to enter some time and destroy? 
 That is a question which no mother wolf 
 could ever answer; for the wild animals, 
 unlike dogs and blue jays and men, mind 
 strictly their own business and pay no atten- 
 tion to other animals. They hate also to be 
 watched; for the thought of watching always 
 suggests to their minds that which follows, 
 the hunt, the rush, the wild break-away, and 
 the run for life. Had she not herself watched 
 a hundred times at the rabbit's form, the 
 fox's runway, the deer path, the wild-goose 
 nest? What could she expect for her own 
 little ones, therefore, when the man cubs, 
 beings of larger reach and unknown power, 
 came daily to watch at her den? 
 
 All this unanswered puzzle must have 
 passed through the old wolf's head as she
 
 trotted up the brook away from the Indian 
 cabin in the twilight. When in doubt trust 
 your fears, that is wolf wisdom in a nut- 
 shell ; and that marks the difference between 
 a wolf and a caribou, for instance, which in 
 doubt trusts his nose or his curiosity. So 
 the old wolf took counsel of her fears for her 
 little ones, and that night carried them one 
 by one in her mouth, as a cat carries her 
 kittens, miles away over rocks and ravines 
 and spruce thickets, to another den where no 
 human eye ever looked upon their play. 
 
 " Shall we see them again, little brother ? " 
 said Mooka wistfully, when they had climbed 
 to their watch-tower for the third time and 
 seen nothing. And Noel made confident 
 answer : 
 
 " Oh, yes, we see um again, HI sister. 
 Wayeeses got um wandering foot ; go 
 'way off long ways; 
 bimeby come back 
 on same trail. He 
 jus' like In- 
 jun, like 
 u m old 
 
 49 
 
 Moo/fa
 
 camp best. Oh, yes, sartin we see um again." 
 s-^^ft. But Noel's eyes looked far away as he spoke, 
 and in his heart he was thinking of his bow 
 and his long arrow with the sharp point, and 
 of a moonlit night with white shapes flitting 
 noiselessly over the snow and scratching at 
 the door of the little cabin.
 
 ANEW experience had come to the little 
 wolf cubs in a single night, the ex- 
 perience of fear. For weeks they had lain hid 
 in the dark den, or played fearlessly in the 
 bright sunshine, guarded and kept at every 
 moment, day or night, by the gaunt old mother 
 wolf that was their only law, their only com- 
 panion. At times they lay for hours hungry 
 and restless, longing to go out into the bright 
 world, yet obeying a stronger will than their 
 own, even at a distance. For, once a wild 
 mother in her own dumb way has bidden her 
 
 53
 
 little ones lie still, they rarely stir from the 
 spot, refusing even to be dragged away from 
 tne nes t or den, knowing well the punishment 
 in store j slie return an( } fi nc j tnem absent. 
 
 Moreover, it is useless to dissimulate, to go 
 out and play and then to be sleeping inno- 
 cently with the cubs when the old wolf's 
 shadow darkens the entrance. No conceal- 
 ment is possible from wolf's nose; before 
 she enters the den the mother knows per- 
 fectly all that has happened since she went 
 away. So the days glided by peacefully 
 between sleep and play, the cubs trusting 
 absolutely in the strength and tenderness 
 that watched over them, the mother building 
 the cubs' future on the foundation of the two 
 instincts which are strong in every wild 
 creature born into a world of danger, the 
 instinct to lie still and let nature's color- 
 ing hide all defenseless little ones, and the 
 instinct to obey instantly a stronger will 
 than their own. 
 
 There was no fear as yet, only instinctive 
 wariness ; for fear comes largely from others' 
 example, from alarms and excitement and
 
 cries of danger, which only the grown animals 
 understand. The old wolf had been undis- 
 
 55 
 
 . , 
 
 turbed ; no dog or hunter had chased her ; vyn 1 
 
 no trap or pitfall had entangled her swift 
 
 feet. Moreover, she had chosen her den well, 
 
 where no man had ever stood, and where 
 
 only the eyes of two children had seen her 
 
 at a distance. So the little ones grew and 
 
 played in the sunshine, and had yet to learn 
 
 what fear meant. 
 
 One day at dusk the mother entered swiftly 
 and, without giving them food as she had 
 always done, seized a cub and disappeared. 
 For the little one, which had never before 
 ventured beyond sight of the den, it was a 
 long journey indeed that followed, miles 
 and miles beside roaring brooks and mist- 
 filled ravines, through gloomy woods where 
 no light entered, and over bare ridges where y 
 the big stars sparkled just over his ears as f 
 he hung, limp as a rabbit skin, from his' 
 mother's great jaws. An owl hooted dismally, 
 whoo-hooo ! and though he knew the sound 
 well in his peaceful nights, it brought now 
 a certain shiver. The wind went sniffing
 
 suspiciously among the spruce branches; a 
 startled bird chirped and whirred away out 
 of their path; the brook roared among the 
 rocks; a big salmon jumped and tumbled 
 back with resounding splash, and jumped 
 again as if the otter were after him. There 
 was a sudden sharp cry, the first and last 
 voice of a hare when the weasel rises up 
 in front of him; then silence, and the fitful 
 rustle of his mother's pads moving steadily, 
 swiftly over dry leaves. And all these sounds 
 of the wilderness night spoke to the little cub 
 of some new thing, of swift feet that follow 
 and of something unknown and terrible that 
 waits for all unwary wild things. So fear 
 was born. 
 
 The long journey ended at last before a 
 dark hole in the hillside ; and the smell of his 
 mother, the only familiar thing 
 in his first strange pilgrimage, 
 greeted the cub from the rocks 
 on either side as he passed in out 
 of the starlight. He was dropped 
 without a sound in a larger den, 
 on some fresh -gathered leaves
 
 and dead grass, and lay there all alone, very 
 
 still, with the new feeling trembling all over _ 
 
 him. A long hour passed ; a second cub was s/ircr 
 
 laid beside him, and the mother vanished as N 
 
 before ; another hour, and the wolf cubs were 
 
 all together again with the mother feeding 
 
 them. Nor did any of them know where 
 
 they were, nor why they had come, nor the 
 
 long, long way that led back to where the 
 
 trail began. 
 
 Next day when they were called out to 
 play they saw a different and more gloomy 
 landscape, a chaos of granite rocks, a forest 
 of evergreen, the white plunge and rolling 
 mist of a mountain torrent ; but no silver sea 
 with fishing-boats drifting over it, like clouds 
 in the sea over their heads, and no gray hut 
 with children running about like ants on 
 the distant shore. And as they played they 
 began for the first time to imitate the old 
 mother keeping guard over them, sitting up 
 often to watch and listen and sift the winds, 
 trying to understand what fear was, and why 
 they had been taken away from the sunny 
 hillside where the world was so much bigger
 
 and brighter than here. But home is where 
 mother is, that, fortunately, is also true of 
 the little Wood Folk, who understand it in 
 their own savage way for a season, and in 
 their wonder at their new surroundings the 
 memory of the old home gradually faded 
 away. They never knew with what endless 
 care the new den had been chosen ; how the 
 mother, in the days when she knew she was 
 watched, had searched it out and watched 
 over it and put her nose to every ridge and 
 ravine and brook-side, day after day, till she 
 was sure that no foot save that of the wild 
 things had touched the soil within miles of 
 the place. They felt only a greater wildness, a 
 deeper solitude ; and they never forgot, though 
 they were unmolested, the strange feeling that 
 was born in them on that first terrifying night 
 journey in their mother's jaws. 
 
 Soon the food that was brought home at 
 dawn the rabbit or grouse, or the bunch of 
 rats hanging by their tails, with which the 
 mother supplemented their midday drink of 
 milk became altogether too scant to satisfy
 
 their clamorous appetites; and in the bright 
 
 afternoons and the long summer twilights 
 
 the mother led them forth on short journeys rwi _ ~f 
 
 to hunt for themselves. No big caribou 
 
 or cunning fox cub, as one might suppose, 
 
 but " rats and mice and such small deer " 
 
 were the limit of the mother's ambition for 
 
 her little ones. They began on stupid grubs 
 
 that one could find asleep under stones and 
 
 roots, and then on beetles that scrambled 
 
 away briskly at the first alarm, and then, 
 
 when the sunshine was brightest, on 
 
 grasshoppers, lively, wary fellows 
 
 that zipped and buzzed away just 
 
 when you were sure you had 
 
 them, and that generally landed 
 
 from an astounding jump facing in a 
 
 different direction, like a flea, so as to be 
 
 ready for your next move. 
 
 It was astonishing how quickly the cubs 
 learned that game is not to be picked up 
 tamely, like huckleberries, and changed their 
 style of hunting, creeping, instead of trot- 
 ting openly so that even a porcupine must 
 notice them, hiding behind rocks and bushes
 
 and tufts of grass till the precise moment 
 came, and then leaping with the swoop of a 
 goshawk on a ptarmigan. A wolf that cannot 
 catch a grasshopper has no business hunting 
 rabbits this seemed to be the unconscious 
 motive that led the old mother, every sunny 
 afternoon, to ignore the thickets where game 
 was hiding plentifully and take her cubs to 
 the dry, sunny plains on the edge of the 
 caribou barrens. There for hours at a time 
 they hunted elusive grasshoppers, rushing 
 helter-skelter over the dry moss, leaping up 
 to strike at the flying game with their paws 
 like a kitten, or snapping wildly to catch it 
 in their mouths and coming down with a 
 back-breaking wriggle to keep themselves 
 from tumbling over on their heads. Then 
 on again, with a droll expression and noses 
 sharpened like exclamation points, to find 
 another grasshopper. 
 
 Small business indeed and often ludicrous, 
 
 this playing at grasshopper hunting. So it 
 
 seems to us ; so also, perhaps, to the wise old 
 
 mother, which knew all the ways of game, 
 
 i from crickets to caribou and from ground
 
 sparrows to wild geese. But play is the first 
 great educator, that is as true of animals as 
 of men, and to the cubs their rough helter- 
 skelter after hoppers was as exciting as a 
 stag hunt to the pack, as full of surprises as 
 the wild chase through the soft snow after 
 a litter of lynx kittens. And though they 
 knew it not, they were learning things every 
 hour of the sunny, playful afternoons that 
 they would remember and find useful all the 
 days of their life. 
 
 So the funny little hunt went on, the 
 mother watching gravely under a bush where 
 she was inconspicuous, and the cubs, full of 
 zest and inexperience, missing the flying tid- 
 bits more often than they swallowed them, 
 until they learned at last to locate all game 
 accurately before chasing or alarming it ; and 
 that is the rule, learned from hunting grass- 
 hoppers, which a wolf follows ever afterward. 
 Even after they knew just where the grass- 
 hopper was hiding, watching them after a 
 jump, and leaped upon him swiftly from a 
 distance, he often got away when they lifted 
 their paws to eat him. For the grasshopper
 
 was not dead under the light paw, as they 
 supposed, but only pressed into the moss 
 waiting for his chance to jump. Then the 
 ^< cubs learned another lesson: to hold their 
 game dow-n with both paws pressed closely 
 together, inserting their noses like a wedge 
 and keeping every crack of escape shut tight 
 until they had the slippery morsel safe under 
 their back teeth. And even then it was deli- 
 ciously funny to watch their expression as 
 they chewed, opening their jaws wide as if 
 swallowing a rabbit, snapping them shut again 
 as the grasshopper \viggled; and always with 
 a doubt in their close-set eyes, a questioning 
 twist of head and ears, as if they were not 
 quite sure whether or not they were really 
 eating him. 
 
 Another suggestive thing came out in 
 these hunts, which you must notice whether 
 you watch wolves or coyotes or a den of 
 fox cubs. Though no sound came from the 
 watchful old mother, the cubs seemed at 
 every instant under absolute control. One 
 would rush away pell-mell after a hopper, 
 miss him and tumble away again, till he was
 
 some distance from the busy group on the 
 edge of the big lonely barren. In the midst 
 of his chase the mother would raise her head 
 and watch the cub intently. No sound was 
 uttered that human ears could hear; but the 
 chase ended right there, on the instant, and 
 the cub came trotting back like a well-broken 
 setter at the whistle. It was marvelous be- 
 yond comprehension, this absolute author- 
 ity and this silent command that brought a 
 wolf back instantly from the wildest chase, 
 and that kept the cubs all together under 
 the watchful eyes that followed every move- 
 ment. No wonder wolves are intelligent in 
 avoiding every trap and in hunting together 
 to outwit some fleet-footed quarry with unbe- 
 lievable cunning. Here on the edge of the 
 vast, untrodden barren, far from human eyes, 
 in an ordinary family of wolf cubs playing 
 wild and free, eager, headstrong, hungry, yet 
 always under control and instantly subject to 
 a wiser head and a stronger will than their 
 own, was the explanation of it all. Later, in 
 the bitter, hungry winter, when a big caribou 
 was afoot and the pack hot on his trail, the
 
 cubs would remember the lesson, and every 
 free wolf would curb his hunger, obeying the 
 silent signal to ease the game and follow 
 slowly while the leader raced unseen through 
 the woods to head the game and lie in am- 
 bush by the distant runway. 
 
 From grasshoppers the cubs took to hunt- 
 ing the wood-mice that nested in the dry 
 moss and swarmed on the edges of every 
 thicket. This was keener hunting; for the 
 wood-mouse moves like a ray of light, and 
 always makes at least one false start to mis- 
 lead any that may be watching for him. 
 The cubs soon learned that when Tookhees 
 appeared and dodged back again, as if fright- 
 ened, it was not because he had seen them, 
 but just because he always appears that way. 
 So they crouched and hid, like a cat, and 
 when a gray streak shot over the gray moss 
 and vanished in a tuft of grass they leaped 
 for the spot and always found it vacant. 
 For Tookhees always doubles on his trail, or 
 burrows for a distance under the moss, and 
 never hides where he disappears. It took 
 the cubs a long while to find that out; and
 
 then they would creep and watch and listen - 
 
 till they could locate the game by a stir ,_ - - 
 
 under the moss, and pounce upon it and ///// ^ 
 
 nose it out from between their paws, just as N 
 
 they had done with the grasshoppers. And 
 
 when they crunched it at last like a ripe plum 
 
 under their teeth it was a delicious tidbit, 
 
 worth all the trouble they had taken to 
 
 get it. For your wolf, unlike the ferocious, 
 
 grandmother-eating creature of the nursery, 
 
 is at heart a peaceable fellow, most at home 
 
 and most happy when mouse hunting. 
 
 There was another kind of this mouse 
 chasing which furnished better sport and 
 more juicy mouthfuls to the young cubs. 
 Here and there on the Newfoundland moun- 
 tains the snow lingers all summer long. In 
 every northern hollow of the hills you see, 
 from a distance, white patches no bigger than 
 your hat sparkling in the sun ; but when you 
 climb there, after bear or caribou, you find 
 great snow-fields, acres in extent and from 
 ten to a hundred feet deep, packed close and 
 hard with the pressure of a thousand winters. 
 Often when it rains in the valleys, and raises
 
 66 
 
 the salmon rivers to meet your expectations, 
 a thin covering of new snow covers these 
 white fields ; and then, if you go there, you 
 zz~" will find the new page written all over with 
 the feet of birds and beasts. The mice espe- 
 cially love these snow-fields for some un- 
 known reason. All along the edges you find 
 the delicate, lacelike tracery which shows 
 where little feet have gone on busy errands 
 or played together in the moonlight ; and if 
 you watch there awhile you will surely see 
 Tookhees come out of the moss and scamper 
 across a bit of snow and dive back to cover 
 under the moss again, as if he enjoyed the 
 feeling of the cold snow under his feet in 
 the summer sunshine. He has tunnels there, 
 too, going down to solid ice, where he hides 
 things to keep which would spoil if left in 
 the heat of his den under the mossy stone, 
 and when food is scarce he draws upon these 
 cold-storage rooms ; but most of his summer 
 snow journeys, if one may judge from watch- 
 ing him and from following his tracks, are 
 taken for play or comfort, just as the bull 
 caribou comes up to lie in the snow, with
 
 the strong sea wind in his face, to escape 
 the flies which swarm in the thickets below. 
 Owl and hawk, fox and weasel and wildcat, 
 all the prowlers of the day and night have 
 long since discovered these good hunting- 
 grounds and leave the prints of wing and 
 claw over the records of the wood-mice ; but 
 still Tookhees returns, led by his love of the 
 snow-fields, and thrives and multiplies spite 
 of all his enemies. 
 
 One moonlit night the old wolf took 
 her cubs to the edge of one of these snow- 
 fields, where the eager eyes soon noticed 
 dark streaks shooting hither and yon over 
 the bare white surface. At first they 
 chased them wildly; but one might as well 
 try to catch a moonbeam, which has not 
 so many places to hide as a wood-mouse. 
 Then, remembering the grasshoppers, they 
 crouched and crept and so caught a few. 
 Meanwhile old mother wolf lay still in hid- 
 ing, contenting herself with snapping up the 
 game that came to her, instead of chasing it 
 wildly all over the snow-field. The example 
 was not lost ; for imitation is strong among
 
 intelligent animals, and most of what they 
 learn is due simply to following the mother. 
 Soon the cubs were still, one lying here under 
 shadow of a bush, another there by a gray 
 rock that lifted its head out of the snow. 
 As a dark streak moved nervously by one of 
 these hiding-places there would be a rush, 
 a snap, the pchap pchap of jaws crunching a 
 delicious morsel; then all quiet again, with 
 only gray, innocent-looking shadows resting 
 softly on the snow. So they moved gradu- 
 ally along the edges of the great white field; 
 and next morning the tracks were all there, 
 plain as daylight, telling their silent story of 
 good hunting. 
 
 To vary their diet the mother now took 
 them down to the shore to hunt among the 
 rocks for ducks' eggs. They were there by 
 the hundreds, scattered along the lonely bays 
 just above high-water line, where the eiders 
 had their nests. 
 
 At first old mother wolf showed them 
 where to look, and when she had found a 
 clutch of eggs would divide them fairly, 
 keeping the hungry cubs in order at a little
 
 distance and bringing each one his share, 
 which he ate without interference. Then 
 when they understood the thing they scat- 
 tered nimbly to hunt for themselves, and the 
 real fun began. 
 
 Now a cub, poking his nose industri- 
 ously into every cranny and under every 
 thick bush, would find a great roll of down 
 plucked from the mother bird's breast, and 
 scraping the top off carefully with his paw, 
 would find five or six large pale-green eggs, 
 which he gobbled down, shells, ducklings 
 and all, before another cub should smell the 
 good find and caper up to share it. Again 
 he would be startled out of his wits as a large 
 brown bird whirred and fluttered away 
 from under his very nose. Sitting on J\ 
 his tail he would watch her with comi- 
 cal regret and longing till she tum- 
 bled into the tide and drifted swiftly I ., 
 away out of danger ; then, remember- 
 ing what he came for, he would turn 
 and follow her trail back to the nest 
 out of which she had stolen 
 at his approach, and find
 
 the eggs all warm for his breakfast. And 
 when he had eaten all he wanted he would 
 take an egg in his mouth and run about un- 
 easily here and there, like a dog with a bone 
 when he thinks he is watched, till he had 
 made a sad crisscross of his trail and found 
 a spot where none could see him. There he 
 would dig a hole and bury his egg and go 
 back for more ; and on his way would meet 
 another cub running about with an egg in 
 his mouth, looking for a spot where no one 
 would notice him. 
 
 From mice and eggs the young cubs turned 
 to rabbits and hares ; and these were their 
 staple food ever afterward when other game 
 was scarce and the wood-mice were hidden 
 deep under the winter snows, safe at last for 
 a little season from all their enemies. Here 
 for the first time the father wolf appeared, 
 coming in quietly one late afternoon, as if he 
 knew, as he probably did, just when he was 
 needed. Beyond a glance he paid no attention 
 whatever to the cubs, only taking his place 
 opposite the mother as the wolves started 
 abreast in a long line to beat the thicket.
 
 By night the cubs had already caught 
 several rabbits, snapping them up as they 
 played heedlessly in the moonlight, just as 
 they had done with the wood-mice. By day, 
 however, the hunting was entirely different. 
 Then the hares and rabbits are resting in 
 their hidden forms under the ferns, or in a 
 hollow between the roots of a brown stump. 
 Like game birds, whether on the nest or 
 sitting quiet in hiding, the rabbits give out 
 far less scent at such times than when they 
 are active ; and the cubs, stealing through 
 the dense cover like shadows in imitation cf 
 the old wolves, and always hunting up-wind, 
 would use their keen noses to locate Mok- 
 taques before alarming him. If a cub suc- 
 ceeded, and snapped up a rabbit before the 
 surprised creature had time to gather head- 
 way, he dropped behind with his catch, while 
 the rest went slowly, carefully, on through 
 the cover. If he failed, as was generally the 
 case at first, a curious bit cf wolf intelligence 
 and wolf training came out at once. 
 
 As the wolves advanced the father and 
 mother would steal gradually ahead at either
 
 end of the line, rarely hunting themselves, 
 but drawing the nearest cub's attention to 
 any game they had discovered, and then 
 moving silently to one side and a little ahead 
 to watch the result. When the cub rushed 
 and missed, and the startled rabbit went fly- 
 ing away, whirling to left or right as rabbits 
 always do, there would be a lightning change 
 at the end of the line. A terrific rush, a snap 
 of the long jaws like a steel trap, then the 
 old wolf would toss back the rabbit with 
 a broken back for the cub to finish him. 
 Not till the cubs first, and then the mother, 
 had satisfied their hunger would the old he- 
 wolf hunt for himself. Then he would dis- 
 appear, and they would not see him for days 
 at a time, until food was scarce and they 
 needed him once more. 
 
 One day, when the cubs were hungry and 
 food scarce because of their persistent hunt- 
 ing near the den, the mother brought them 
 to the edge of a dense thicket where rab- 
 bits were plentiful enough, but where the 
 cover was so thick that they could not follow 
 the frightened game for an instant. The old
 
 he-wolf had appeared at a distance and then 
 vanished ; and the cubs, trotting along behind 
 the mother, knew nothing of what was com- 
 ing or what was expected of them. They 
 lay in hiding on the lee side of the thicket, 
 each one crouching under a bush or root, 
 with the mother off at one side perfectly hid- 
 den as usual. 
 
 Presently a rabbit appeared, hopping along 
 in a crazy way, and ran plump into the jaws 
 of a wolf cub, which leaped up as if out 
 of the ground, and pulled down his game 
 from the very top of the high jump which 
 Moktaques always gives when he is suddenly 
 startled. Another and another rabbit ap- 
 peared mysteriously, and doubled back into 
 the cover before they could be caught. The 
 cubs were filled with wonder. Such hunting 
 was never seen before; for rabbits stirred 
 abroad by day, and ran right into the hungry ^ 
 mouths instead of running away. 
 Then, slinking along like a shadow 
 and stopping to look back and sniff 
 the wind, appeared a big red fox 
 that had been sleeping away 
 
 73 
 
 The Way of
 
 afternoon on top of a stump in the center of 
 the thicket. 
 
 The old mother's eyes began to blaze as 
 Eleemos drew near. There was a rush, swift 
 and sudden as the swoop of an eagle ; a sharp 
 call to follow as the mother's long jaws closed 
 over the small of the back, just as the fox 
 turned to leap away. Then she flung the par- 
 alyzed animal back like a flash ; the young 
 wolves tumbled in upon him ; and before he 
 knew \vhat had happened Eleemos the Sly 
 One, was stretched out straight, with one cub 
 at his tail and another at his throat, tug- 
 ging and worrying and grumbling deep in 
 their chests as the lust of their first fighting 
 swept over them. Then in vague, vanishing 
 glimpses the old he-wolf appeared, quarter- 
 ing swiftly, silently, back and forth through 
 the thicket, driving every living thing down- 
 wind to where the cubs and the mother were 
 waiting to receive it. 
 
 That one lesson was enough for the cubs, 
 though years would pass before they could 
 learn all the fine points of this beating the 
 bush : to know almost at a glance where the
 
 " As the mother's long jaws closed over 
 the small of the back"
 
 OJo/f 
 
 game, whether grouse or hare or fox or luci- 
 vee, was hiding in the cover, and then for 
 one wolf to drive it, slowly or swiftly as the ^ * -^ 
 case might require, while the other hid beside 
 the most likely path of escape. A family 
 of grouse must be coaxed along and never 
 see what is driving them, else they will flit 
 into a tree and be lost ; while a cat must be 
 startled out of her wits by a swift rush, and 
 sent flying away before she can make up her 
 stupid mind what the row is all about. A 
 fox, almost as cunning as Wayeeses himself, 
 must be made to think that some dog enemy 
 is slowly puzzling out his cold trail; while 
 a musquash searching for bake-apples, or a 
 beaver going inland to cut wood for his win- 
 ter supplies of bark, must not be driven, but 
 be followed up swiftly by the path or canal 
 by which he has ventured away from the 
 friendly water. 
 
 All these and many more things must be 
 learned slo\vly at the expense of many fail- 
 ures, especially when the cubs took to hunt- 
 ing alone and the old wolves were not there 
 to show them how ; but they never forgot the
 
 principle taught in that first rabbit drive, 
 that two hunters are better than one to out- 
 wit any game when they hunt intelligently 
 together. That is why you so often find 
 wolves going in pairs ; and when you study 
 them or follow their tracks you discover that 
 they play continually into each other's hands. 
 They seem to share the spoil as intelligently 
 as they catch it, the wolf that lies beside 
 the runway and pulls down the game giving 
 up a portion gladly to the companion that 
 beats the bush, and rarely indeed is there 
 any trace of quarreling between them. 
 
 Like the eagles which have long since 
 learned the advantage of hunting in pairs 
 and of scouting for game in single file 
 the wolves, when hunting deer on the open 
 barrens where it is difficult to conceal their 
 advance, always travel in files, one following 
 * close behind the other ; so that, seen from in 
 JL J- front where the game is watching, two or 
 three wolves will appear like a lone ani- 
 :'.:;? mal trotting across the plain. That 
 alarms the game far less at first ; and 
 not until the deer starts away does 
 
 vsr-
 
 the second wolf appear, shooting out from 
 
 behind the leader. The sight of another ~ 
 
 wolf appearing suddenly on his flank throws '"& Wdy Of 
 
 a young deer into a panic, in which he is *"&" *> 
 
 apt to lose his head and be caught by the 
 
 cunning hunters. 
 
 Curiously enough, the plains Indians, who 
 travel in the same way when hunting or 
 scouting for enemies, first learned the trick 
 so an old chief told me, and it is one of 
 the traditions of his people from watch- 
 ing the timber wolves in their stealthy ad- 
 vance over the open places. 
 
 The wolves were stealing through the 
 woods all together, one late summer after- 
 noon, having beaten a cover without taking 
 anything, when the puzzled cubs suddenly 
 found themselves alone. A moment before 
 they had been trotting along with the old 
 wolves, nosing every cranny and knot hole 
 for mice and grubs, and stopping often for a 
 roll and frolic, as young cubs do in the glad- 
 ness of life ; now they pressed close together, 
 looking, listening, while a subtle excitement 
 filled all the woods. For the old wolves had
 
 go disappeared, shooting ahead in great, silent 
 ^ bounds, while the cubs waited with ears 
 Y\ygff cocked and noses quivering, as if a silent 
 
 command had been understood. 
 
 s ^ ence was intense ; not a sound, not 
 a stir in the quiet woods, which seemed to be 
 listening with the cubs and to be filled with 
 the same thrilling expectation. Suddenly 
 the silence was broken by heavy plunges far 
 ahead, crash ! bump ! bump ! and there l^oke 
 forth such an uproar of yaps and howls as 
 the cubs had never heard before. Instantly 
 they broke away on the trail, joining their 
 shrill yelpings to the clamor, so different 
 from the ordinary stealthy wolf hunt, and 
 filled with a nameless excitement which they 
 did not at all understand till the reek of 
 caribou poured into their hungry nostrils; 
 whereupon they yelped louder than ever. 
 But they did not begin to understand the 
 matter till they caught glimpses of gray 
 backs bounding hither and yon in the 
 underbrush, while the two great wolves 
 raced easily on either side, yapping sharply 
 to increase the excitement, and guiding the
 
 startled, foolish deer as surely, as intelli- ~ 
 gently, as a pair of collies herd a flock of 
 frightened sheep. 
 
 When the cubs broke out of the dense 
 cover at last they found the two old wolves 
 sitting quietly on their tails before a rugged 
 wall of rocks that stretched away on either 
 hand at the base of a great bare hill. In 
 front of them was a young cow caribou, 
 threatening savagely with horns and hoofs, 
 while behind her cowered two half-grown 
 fawns crowded into a crevice of the rocks. 
 Anger, rather than fear, blazed out in the 
 mother's mild eyes. Now she turned swiftly 
 to press her excited young ones back against V 
 the sheltering wall ; now she whirled with a {. 
 savage grunt and charged headlong at the : V 
 wolves, which merely leaped aside and sat ; 
 down silently again to watch the game, till : .'-T 
 the cubs raced out and hovered uneasily 
 about with a thousand questions in every eye 
 and ear and twitching nostril. -> 
 
 The reason for the hunt 
 was now plain a^lr 1 ^]^ 
 
 r aHffWOT 
 
 enough. 
 
 Way of 
 OJo/f
 
 Up to this time the caribou had been let 
 severely alone, though they were very nu- 
 merous, scattered through the dense coverts 
 in every valley and on every hillside. For 
 Wayeeses is no wanton killer, as he is so 
 often represented to be, but sticks to small 
 game whenever he can find it, and leaves 
 the deer unmolested. As for his motive 
 in the matter, who shall say, since no one 
 understands the half of what a wolf does 
 every day? Perhaps it is a mere matter of 
 taste, a preference for the smaller and more 
 juicy tidbits; more likely it is a combina- 
 tion of instinct and judgment, with a possible 
 outlook for the future unusual with beasts 
 of prey. The moment the young wolves 
 take to harrying the deer as they invari- 
 ably do if the mother wolf be not with them 
 the caribou leave the country. The herds 
 become, moreover, so wild and suspicious 
 after a very little wolf hunting that they are 
 exceedingly difficult of approach ; and there 
 is no living thing on earth, not even a white 
 wolf or a trained greyhound, that can tire or 
 overtake a startled caribou. The swinging
 
 rack of these big white wanderers looks easy 
 
 enough when you see it ; but when the fleet f 
 
 staghounds are slipped, as has been more ~? T/i^,* r 
 
 than once tested in Newfoundland, try as 
 
 hard as they will they cannot keep withii 
 
 sight of the deer for a single quarter-mile, 
 
 and no limit has ever yet been found, either 
 
 by dog or wolf, to Megaleep's tirelessness. 
 
 So the old wolves, relying possibly upon 
 
 past experience, keep the cubs and hold 
 
 themselves strictly to small game as long as 
 
 it can possibly be found. Then when the 
 
 bitter days of late winter come, with their 
 
 scarcity of small game and their unbearable 
 
 hunger, the wolves turn to the caribou as 
 
 a last resort, killing a few here by stealth, 
 
 rather than speed, and then, when the game 
 
 grows wild, going far off to another range 
 
 where the deer have not been disturbed and 
 
 so can be approached more easily. 
 
 On this afternoon, however, the old mother 
 wolf had run plump upon the caribou and 
 her fawns in the midst of a thicket, and had 
 leaped forward promptly to round them up 
 for her hungry cubs. It would have been
 
 the easiest matter in the world for an old 
 wolf to hamstring one of the slow fawns, or 
 the mother caribou herself as she hovered 
 in the rear to defend her young; but there 
 were other thoughts in the shaggy gray head 
 that had seen so much hunting. So the 
 mother wolf drove the deer slowly, puzzling 
 them more and more, as a collie distracts 
 the herd by his yapping, out into the open 
 where her cubs might join in the hunting. 
 
 The wolves now drew back, all save the 
 mother, which advanced hesitatingly to where 
 the caribou stood with lowered head watch- 
 ing every move. Suddenly the cow charged, 
 so swiftly, furiously, that the old wolf seemed 
 almost caught, and tumbled away with the 
 broad hoofs striking savagely at her flanks. 
 Farther and farther the caribou drove her 
 enemy, roused now to frenzy at the wolf's 
 nearness and apparent cowardice. Then she 
 whirled in a panic and rushed back to her 
 little ones, only to find that all the other 
 wolves, as if frightened by her furious 
 charge, had drawn farther back from 
 the cranny in the rocks.
 
 Again the old she-wolf approached cau- 
 tiously, and again the caribou plunged at her 
 and followed her lame retreat with headlong 
 fury. An electric shock seemed suddenly jp^fi^^-^f/, 
 to touch the huge he-wolf. Like a flash he 
 leaped in on the fawns. One quick snap of 
 the long jaws with the terrible fangs ; then, 
 as if the whole thing were a bit of play, he 
 loped away easily with the cubs, circling to 
 join the mother wolf, which strangely enough 
 did not return to the attack as the caribou 
 charged back, driving the cubs and the old 
 he-wolf away like a flock of sheep. The 
 coast was now clear, not an enemy in the 
 way; and the mother caribou, with a trium- 
 phant bleat to her fawns to follow, plunged 
 back into the woods whence she had come. 
 
 One fawn only followed her. The other 
 took a step or two, sank to his knees, and 
 rolled over on his side. When the wolves 
 drew near quietly, without a trace of the 
 ferocity or the howling clamor with which 
 such scenes are usually pictured, the game 
 was quite dead, one quick snap of the old 
 wolfs teeth just behind the fore legs having
 
 (Oayof 
 
 g , pierced the heart more surely than a hunter's 
 bullet. And the mother caribou, plunging 
 wildly away through the brush with the 
 startled fawn jumping at her heels, could 
 not know that her mad flight was needless ; 
 that the terrible enemy which had spared 
 her and let her go free had no need nor 
 desire to follow. 
 
 The fat autumn had now come with its 
 abundant fare, and the caribou were not 
 again molested. Flocks of grouse and ptar- 
 migan came out of the thick coverts, in 
 which they had been hiding all summer, and 
 began to pluck the berries of the open plains, 
 where they could easily be waylaid and 
 caught by the growing wolf cubs. Plover 
 came in hordes, sweeping over the Straits 
 from the Labrador; and when the wolves 
 surrounded a flock of the queer birds and 
 hitched nearer and nearer, sinking their gray 
 bodies in the yielding gray moss till 
 they looked like weather-worn logs, 
 
 ^ ie h untm g was f^l f 
 tense excitement, though
 
 the juicy mouthfuls were few and far be- 
 tween. Fox cubs roamed abroad away from 
 their mothers, self-willed and reveling in 
 the abundance ; and it was now easy for 
 two of the young wolves to drive a fox out 
 of his daytime cover and catch him as he 
 stole away. 
 
 After the plover came the ducks in 
 myriads, filling the ponds and flashets of 
 the vast barrens with tumultuous quacking ; 
 and the young wolves learned, like the foxes, 
 to decoy the silly birds by rousing their 
 curiosity. They would hide in the grass, 
 while one played and rolled about on the 
 open shore, till the ducks saw him and began 
 to stretch their necks and gabble their amaze- 
 ment at the strange thing, which they had 
 never seen before. Shy and wild as he nat- 
 urally is, a duck, like a caribou or a turkey, 
 must take a peek at every new thing. Now 
 silent, now gabbling all together, the flock 
 would veer and scatter and draw together 
 again, and finally swing in toward the shore, 
 every neck draw r n straight as a string the 
 better to see what was going on. Nearer
 
 and nearer they would come, till a swift rush 
 out of the grass sent them off headlong, 
 ^'* splashing and quacking with crazy clamor. 
 ^ t/^^s But one or two a l wavs stayed behind with 
 ^ ie w l ves to pay the price of curiosity. 
 
 Then there were the young geese, which 
 gathered in immense flocks in the shallow 
 bays, preparing and drilling for the autumn 
 flight. Late in the afternoon the old mother 
 wolf with her cubs \vould steal down through 
 the woods, hiding and watching the flocks, 
 and following them stealthily as they moved 
 along the shore. At night the great flock 
 would approach a sand-bar, well out of the 
 way of rocks and brush and everything that 
 might hide an enemy, and go to sleep in 
 close little family groups on the open shore. 
 As the night darkened four shadows would 
 lengthen out from the nearest bank of shad- 
 ows, creeping onward to the sand-bar with 
 the slow patience of the hours. A rush, a 
 startled honk ! a terrific clamor of wings and 
 throats and smitten water. Then the four 
 shadows would rise up from the sand and 
 k to the woods, each with a burden
 
 on its shoulders and a sparkle in the close- 
 set eyes over the pointed jaws, which were 
 closed on the neck of a goose, holding it 
 tight lest any outcry escape to tell the star- 
 tied flock what had happened. 
 
 Besides this abundant game there were 
 other good things to eat, and the cubs rarely 
 dined of the same dish twice in succession. 
 Salmon and big sea-trout swarmed now in 
 every shallow of the clear brooks, and, after 
 spawning, these fish were much weakened 
 and could easily be caught by a little cun- 
 ning. Every day and night the tide ebbed 
 and flowed, and every tide left its contribu- 
 tion in windrows of dead herring and caplin, 
 with scattered crabs and mussels for a relish, 
 like plums in a pudding. A wolf had only 
 to trot for a mile or two along the tide line 
 of a lonely beach, picking up the good things 
 which the sea had brought him, and then 
 go back to sleep or play satisfied. And if 
 Wayeeses wanted game to try his mettle and 
 cunning, there were the big fat seals barking 
 on the black rocks, and he had only to cut 
 between them and the sea and throw himself
 
 upon the largest seal as the herd floundered 
 ponderously back to safety. A wolf rarely 
 grips and holds an enemy ; he snaps and lets 
 go, and snaps again at every swift chance; 
 but here he must either hold fast or lose his 
 big game ; and what between holding and 
 letting go, as the seals whirled with bared 
 teeth and snapped viciously in turn, as they 
 scrambled away to the sea, the wolves had a 
 lively time of it. Often indeed, spite of three 
 or four wolves, a big seal would tumble into 
 the tide, where the sharks followed his bloody 
 trail and soon finished him. 
 
 Now for the first time the wolves, led by 
 the rich abundance, began to kill more than 
 they needed for food and to hide it away, 
 like the squirrels, in anticipation of the com- 
 ing winter. Like the blue and the Arctic 
 foxes, a strange instinct to store things 
 seems to stir dimly at times within them. 
 Occasionally, instead of eating and sleeping 
 after a kill, the cubs, led by the mother wolf, 
 
 hunt half of the 
 day and night 
 and carry all
 
 they caught to the snow-fields. There each 
 one would search out a cranny in the rocks 
 and hide his game, covering it over deeply 
 with snow to kill the scent of it from the 
 prowling foxes. Then for days at a time 
 they would forget the coming winter, and 
 play as heedlessly as if the woods would 
 always be as full of game as now; and again 
 the mood would be upon them strongly, and 
 they would kill all they could find and hide 
 it in another place. But the instinct if in- 
 deed it were instinct, and not the natural 
 result of the mother's own experience was 
 weak at best; and the first time the cubs 
 were hungry or lazy they would trail off to 
 the hidden store. Long before the spring 
 with its bitter need was upon them they had 
 eaten everything, and had returned to the 
 empty storehouse at least a dozen times, 
 as a dog goes again and again to the place 
 where he once hid a bone, and nosed it all 
 over regretfully to be quite sure that they 
 had overlooked nothing. 
 
 More interesting to the wolves in these 
 glad days than the game or the storehouse,
 
 92 
 
 Tftetifoyof 
 Ifte V-LWoll 
 
 or the piles of caplin which they cached un- 
 der the sand on the shore, were the wander- 
 ing herds of caribou, splendid old stags 
 with massive antlers, and long-legged, inquis- 
 itive fawns trotting after the sleek cows, 
 whose heads carried small pointed horns, 
 more deadly by far than the stags' cumber- 
 some antlers. Wherever the wolves went 
 they crossed the trails of these wanderers 
 swarming out of the thickets, sometimes by 
 twos and threes, and again in straggling, end- 
 less lines converging upon the vast open 
 barrens where the caribou gathered to select 
 their mates for another year. Where they 
 all came from was a mystery that filled the 
 cubs' heads with constant wonder. During 
 the summer you see little of them, here a 
 cow with her fawn hiding deep in the cover, 
 there a big stag standing out like a watch- 
 man on the mountain top; but when the 
 early autumn comes they are everywhere, 
 crossing rivers and lakes at regular points, 
 and following deep paths which their ances- 
 ^fts tors have followed for 
 -r7 countless generations.
 
 The cows and fawns seemed gentle and 
 
 harmless enough, though their very numbers , 
 
 filled the young wolves with a certain awe. rwi it 
 
 After their first lesson it would have been 
 easy enough for the cubs to have killed all 
 they wanted and to grow fat and lazy as the 
 bears, which \vere now stuffing themselves 
 before going off to sleep for the winter ; but 
 the old mother wolf held them firmly in 
 check, for with plenty of small game every- 
 where, all wolves are minded to go quietly 
 about their own business and let the caribou 
 follow their own ways. When October came 
 it brought the big stags into the open, 
 splendid, imposing beasts, with swollen necks 
 and fierce red eyes and long white manes 
 tossing in the wind. Then the wolves had 
 to stand aside ; for the stags roamed over 
 all the land, pawing the moss in fury, bellow- 
 ing their hoarse challenge, and charging like 
 a whirlwind upon every living thing that 
 crossed their paths. 
 
 When the mother wolf, with her cubs at 
 heel, saw one of these big furies at a distance 
 she would circle prudently to avoid him.
 
 Again, as the cubs hunted rabbits, they 
 would hear a crash of brush and a furious 
 challenge as some quarrelsome stag winded 
 them; and the mother with her cubs gath- 
 ered close about her would watch alertly for 
 his headlong rush. As he charged out the 
 wolves would scatter and leap nimbly aside, 
 then sit down on their tails in a solemn circle 
 and watch as if studying the strange beast. 
 Again and again he would rush upon them, 
 only to find that he was fighting the wind. 
 Mad as a hornet, he would single out a cub 
 and follow him headlong through brush and 
 brake till some subtle warning thrilled through 
 his madness, telling him to heed his flank; 
 then as he whirled he would find the savage 
 old mother close at his heels, her white fangs 
 bared and a dangerous flash in her eyes 
 as she saw the hamstring so near, so easy 
 to reach. One spring and a snap, and the 
 ramping, masterful stag would have been 
 helpless as a rabbit, his tendons cut cleanly 
 at the hock ; another snap and he must come 
 down, spite of his great power, and be food 
 for the growing cubs that sat on their tails
 
 watching him, unterrified now by his fierce 
 challenge. But Megaleep's time had not yet 
 come; besides, he was too tough. So the 
 wolves studied him awhile, amused perhaps 
 at the rough play; then, as if at a silent 
 command, they vanished like shadows into 
 the nearest cover, leaving the big stag in his 
 rage to think himself master of all the world. 
 
 Sometimes as the old he-wolf ranged alone, 
 a silent, powerful, noble-looking brute, he 
 would meet the caribou, and there would be 
 a fascinating bit of animal play. He rarely 
 turned aside, knowing his own power, and 
 the cows and fawns after one look would 
 bound aside and rack away at a marvelous 
 pace over the barrens. In a moment or two, 
 finding that they were not molested, they 
 would turn and watch the wolf curiously till 
 he disappeared, trying perhaps to puzzle it 
 out why the ferocious enemy of the deep 
 snows and the bitter cold should now be 
 harmless as the passing birds. 
 
 Again a young bull with his keen, polished 
 spikehorns, more active and dangerous but 
 less confident than the over-antlered stags,
 
 would stand in the old wolf's path, disputing 
 with lowered front the right of way. Here 
 the right of way meant a good deal, for in 
 many places on the high plains the scrub 
 spruces grow so thickly that a man can easily 
 walk over the tops of them on his snow-shoes, 
 and the only possible passage in summer-time 
 is by means of the numerous paths worn 
 through the scrub by the passing of animals 
 for untold ages. So one or the other of 
 the two splendid brutes that now approached 
 each other in the narrow way must turn aside 
 or be beaten down underfoot. 
 
 Quietly, steadily, the old wolf would come 
 on till almost within springing distance, when 
 he would stop and lift his great head, wrink- 
 ling his chops to show the long white fangs, 
 and rumbling a warning deep in his mas- 
 sive chest. Then the caribou would lose his 
 nerve; he would stamp and fidget and blus- 
 ter, and at last begin to circle nervously, 
 crashing his way into the scrub as if for 
 a chance to take his enemy in the flank. 
 Whereupon the old wolf would trot quietly 
 along the path, paying no more heed to the
 
 interruption ; while the young bull would 
 stand wondering, his body hidden in the 
 scrub and his head thrust into the narrow 
 path to look after his strange adversary. 
 
 Another time, as the old wolf ranged along 
 the edges of the barrens where the cari- 
 bou herds were gathering, he would hear the 
 challenge of a huge stag and the warning 
 crack of twigs and the thunder of hoofs as 
 the brute charged. Still the wolf trotted 
 quietly along, watching from the corners of 
 his eyes till the stag was upon him, when he 
 sprang lightly aside and let the rush go 
 harmlessly by. Sitting on his tail he would 
 watch the caribou closely and who could 
 tell what was passing behind those cunning 
 eyes that glowed steadily like coals, unruffled 
 as yet by the passing winds, but ready at a 
 rough breath to break out in flames of fire ? 
 Again and again the stag would charge, 
 growing more furious at every failure; and 
 every time the wolf leaped aside he left a 
 terrible gash in his enemy's neck or side, 
 punishing him cruelly for his bullying attack, 
 yet strangely refusing to kill, as he might 
 
 Way of
 
 have done, or to close on the hamstring with 
 one swift snap that would have put the big 
 brute out of the fight forever. At last, know- 
 * ing perhaps from past experience the use- 
 lessness of punishing or of disputing with 
 this madman that felt no wounds in his rage, 
 the wolf would lope away to cover, followed 
 by a victorious bugle-cry that rang over the 
 wide barren and echoed back from the moun- 
 tain side. Then the wolf would circle back 
 stealthily and put his nose down into the 
 stag's hoof-marks for a long, deep sniff, and 
 go quietly on his way again. A wolf's nose 
 never forgets. When he finds that trail wan- 
 dering with a score of others over the snow, 
 in the bitter days to come when the pack 
 are starving, Wayeeses will know whom he 
 is following. 
 
 Besides the caribou there were other things 
 to rouse the cubs' curiosity and give them 
 something pleasant to do besides eating and 
 sleeping. When the hunter's moon rose full 
 and clear over the woods, filling all animals 
 with strange unrest, the pack would circle the 
 great harbor, trotting silently along, nose to
 
 tail in single file, keeping on the high ridge 
 of mountains and looking like a distant train 
 of husky dogs against the moonlight. When 
 over the fishing village they would sit down, 
 each one on the loftiest rock he could find, 
 raise their muzzles to the stars, and join in 
 the long howl, Ooooooo-wow-ow-ow ! a terrible, 
 wailing cry that seemed to drive every dog 
 within hearing stark crazy. Out of the vil- 
 lage lanes far below they rushed headlong, 
 and sitting on the beach in a wide circle, 
 heads all in and tails out, they raised their 
 noses to the distant, wolf-topped pinnacles 
 and joined in the wailing answer. Then the 
 wolves would sit very still, listening with 
 cocked ears to the cry of their captive 
 kinsmen, till the dismal howling died away 
 into silence, when they would start the 
 clamor into life again by giving the wolf's 
 challenge. 
 
 Why they did it, what they felt there in 
 the strange unreality of the moonlight, and 
 what hushed their profound enmity, none can 
 tell. Ordinarily the wolf hates both fox and 
 dog, and kills them whenever they cross his
 
 100 
 
 ffie 
 
 path; but to-night the foxes were yapping 
 an answer all around them, and sometimes a 
 few adventurous dogs would scale the moun- 
 tains silently to sit on the rocks and join in 
 the wild wolf chorus, and not a wolf stirred 
 to molest them. All were more or less luna- 
 tic, and knew not what they were doing. 
 
 For hours the uncanny comedy would drag 
 itself on into the tense midnight silence, the 
 wailing cry growing more demented and 
 heartrending as the spell of ancient days fell 
 again upon the degenerate huskies. Up on 
 the lonely mountain tops the moon looked 
 down, still and cold, and saw upon every 
 pinnacle a dog or a \volf, each with his 
 head turned up at the sky, howling his 
 heart out. Down in the hamlet, scattered for 
 miles along Deep Arm and the harbor 
 shore, sleepers stirred uneasily at the 
 clamor, the women clutching their 
 babies close, the men cursing the 
 crazy brutes and vowing all sorts of 
 vengeance on the morrow. Then 
 the wolves would slip 
 away like shadows into
 
 the vast upland barrens, and the dogs, rest- 
 less as witches with some unknown excite- 
 ment, would run back to whine and scratch 
 at the doors of their masters' cabins. 
 
 Soon the big snowflakes were whirling in 
 the air, busily weaving a soft white wind- 
 ing-sheet for the autumn which was passing 
 away. And truly it had been a good time 
 for the wolf cubs, as for most wild animals; 
 and they had grown large and strong with 
 their fat feeding, and wise with their many 
 experiences. The ducks and geese vanished, 
 driving southward ahead of the fierce autumn 
 gales, and only the late broods of hardy 
 eiders were left for a little season. Herring 
 and caplin had long since drifted away into 
 unknown depths, where the tides flowed end- 
 lessly over them and brought never a one 
 ashore. Hares and ptarmigans turned white 
 to hide on the snow, so that wolf and fox 
 would pass close by without seeing them. 
 Wood-mice pushed their winding tunnels and 
 made their vaulted play rooms deep under the 
 drifts, where none might molest nor make 
 them afraid; and all game grew wary and 
 
 101 
 
 Way of 
 Wolf
 
 102 
 
 toayof 
 
 wild, learning from experience, as it always 
 does, that only the keen can survive the fall 
 hunting. So the long winter, with its snow 
 and ice and its bitter cold and its grim threat 
 of famine, settled heavily over Harbor Weal 
 and the Long Range where Wayeeses must 
 find his living.
 
 103
 
 THREATENING as the northern 
 winter was, with its stern order to the 
 birds to depart, and to the beasts to put on 
 their thick furs, and to the little folk of the 
 snow to hide themselves in white coats, and 
 to all living things to watch well the ways 
 that they took, it could bring no terror to Kn 
 Wayeeses and her powerful young cubs. 
 The gladness of life was upon them, with 
 none of its pains or anxieties or fears, as 
 we know them; and they rolled and tum- 
 bled about in the first deep snow with the / 
 abandon of young foxes, filled with wonder*
 
 6 at the strange blanket that covered the rough 
 places of earth so softly and made their light 
 footsteps more noiseless than before. For to 
 //ll//ff//g k e no } se i ess a nd inconspicuous, and so in 
 harmony with his surroundings, is the first 
 desire of every creature of the vast solitudes. 
 Meeting the wolves now, as they roamed 
 wild and free over the great range, one 
 would hardly have recognized the little 
 brown creatures that he saw playing about 
 the den where the trail began. The cubs 
 were already noble-looking brutes, larger 
 than the largest husky dog ; and the parents 
 were taller, with longer legs and more mass- 
 ive heads and powerful jaws, than any great 
 timber-wolf. A tremendous vitality thrilled 
 in them from nose to paw tips. Their great 
 bodies, as they lay quiet in the snow with 
 heads raised and hind legs bent under them, 
 were like powerful engines, tranquil under 
 enormous pressure ; and when they rose the 
 movement was like the quick snap of a steel 
 spring. Indeed, half the ordinary movements 
 of Wayeeses are so quick that the eye can- 
 not follow them. One instant a wolf would
 
 be lying flat on his side, his long legs out- 
 stretched on the moss, his eyes closed in the 
 sleepy sunshine, his body limp as a hound's 
 after a fox chase ; the next instant, like the 
 click and blink of a camera shutter, he 
 would be standing alert on all four feet, 
 questioning the passing breeze or looking 
 intently into your eyes; and you could not 
 imagine, much less follow, the recoil of twenty 
 big electric muscles that at some subtle 
 warning had snapped him automatically from 
 one position to the other. They were all 
 snow-white, with long thick hair and a heavy 
 mane that added enormously to their im- 
 posing appearance; and they carried their 
 bushy tails almost straight out as they trotted 
 along, with a slight crook near the body, 
 the true wolf sign that still reappears in 
 many collies to tell a degenerate race of a 
 noble ancestry. 
 
 After the first deep snows the family sep- 
 arated, led by their growing hunger and by 
 the difficulty of finding enough game in one 
 cover to supply all their needs. The mother 
 and the smallest cub remained together;
 
 ,, the two larger cubs ranged on the other side 
 ^ ^ e moun t a i n > beating the bush and hunt- 
 
 ing into each othcr , s mouth> as they had 
 
 been trained to do; while the big he-wolf 
 ^VA, -X <^7 hunted successfully by himself, as he had 
 ^ done for years. Scattered as they were, they 
 still kept track of each other faithfully, and 
 in a casual way looked after one another's 
 needs. Wherever he was, a wolf seemed to 
 know by instinct where his fellows were 
 hunting many miles away. When in doubt 
 he had only to mount the highest hill and 
 give the rallying cry, which carried an enor- 
 mous distance in the still cold air, to bring 
 the pack swiftly and silently about him. 
 
 At times, when the cubs were hungry after 
 a two-days fast, they would hear, faint and 
 far away, the food cry, yap-yap-yooo / yap-yap- 
 yoooooo ! quivering under the stars in the 
 ' '.h;! ''Y .;\*?V? tense early-morning air, and would dart away 
 to find game freshly killed by one of the 
 old wolves awaiting them. Again, at night- 
 fall, a cub's hunting cry, ooooo, ow-ow ! ooooo, 
 ow-ow! a deep, almost musical hoot with two 
 short barks at the end, would come singing
 
 down from the uplands; and the wolves, 
 leaving instantly the game they were follow- 
 ing, would hasten up to find the two cubs 
 herding a caribou in a cleft of the rocks, 
 a young caribou that had lost his mother at 
 the hands of the hunters, and that did not 
 know how to take care of himself. And one 
 of the cubs would hold him there, sitting on 
 his tail in front of the caribou to prevent 
 his escape, while the other cub called the 
 wolves away from their own hunting to come 
 and join the feast. 
 
 Whether this were a conscious attempt 
 to spare the game, or to alarm it as little as 
 need be, it is impossible to say. Certainly 
 the wolves know, better apparently than men, 
 that persistent hunting destroys its own ob- 
 ject, and that caribou especially, when much 
 alarmed by dogs or wolves or men, will take 
 the alarm quickly, and the scattered herds, 
 moved by a common impulse of danger, 
 will trail far away to other ranges. That 
 is why the wolf, unlike the less intelligent 
 dog, hunts always in a silent, stealthy, un- 
 obtrusive way; and why he stops hunting
 
 and goes away the instant his own hunger is 
 sa ^ s ^ ec ^ or another wolf kills enough for all. 
 
 And that is also the probable reason why he 
 
 lets the deer alone as long as he can find any 
 other game. 
 
 This same intelligent provision was shown 
 in another curious way. When a wolf in 
 his wide ranging found a good hunting- 
 ground where small game was plentiful, he 
 would snap up a rabbit silently in the twi- 
 light and then go far away, perhaps to join 
 the other cubs in a gambol, or to follow them 
 to the cliffs over a fishing village and set all 
 the. dogs to howling. By day he would lie 
 close in some thick cover, miles away from 
 his hunting-ground. At twilight he would 
 steal back and hunt quietly, just long enough 
 to get his game, and then trot away again, 
 leaving the cover as unharried as if there 
 were not a wolf in the whole neighborhood. 
 
 Such a good hunting-ground cannot long 
 remain hidden from other prowlers in the 
 wilderness ; and Wayeeses, who was keeping 
 his discovery to himself, would soon cross 
 the trail of a certain old fox returning day
 
 after day to the same good covers. No two 
 foxes, nor mice, nor men, nor any other two 
 animals for that matter, ever leave the same 
 scent, any old hound, which will hold 
 steadily to one fox though a dozen others 
 cross or cover his trail, will show you that 
 plainly in a day's hunting, and the wolf 
 would soon know surely that the same fox 
 was poaching every night on his own pre- 
 serves while he was away. To a casual, wan- 
 dering hunter he paid no attention ; but this 
 cunning poacher must be laid by the heels, 
 else there would not be a single rabbit left in 
 the cover. So Wayeeses, instead of hunting 
 himself at twilight when the rabbits are 
 stirring, would wait till midday, when the 
 sun is warm and foxes are sleepy, and 
 then come back to find the poacher's 
 trail and follow it to where Eleemos 
 was resting for the day in a sunny opening 
 in the scrub. There Wayeeses would steal 
 upon him from behind and put an end to his 
 poaching ; or else, if the fox used the same 
 nest daily, as is often the case when he is 
 not disturbed, the wolf would circle the scrub 
 
 I II
 
 warily to find the path by which Eleemos 
 USUally Came Ut n his night ' S huntin S' 
 
 when he found that out Wa y eeses would 
 dart away in the lon& rolling gallop that 
 
 carries a wolf swiftly over the roughest coun- 
 try without fatigue. In an hour or two he 
 would be back again with another wolf. 
 Then Eleemos, dozing away in the winter 
 sunshine, would hear an unusual racket in 
 the scrub behind him, some heavy animal 
 brushing about heedlessly and snifEng loudly 
 at a cold trail. No wolf certainly, for a wolf 
 makes no noise. So Eleemos would get 
 down from his warm rock and slip away, 
 stopping to look back and listen jauntily to 
 the clumsy brute behind him, till he ran 
 plump into the jaws of the other wolf that 
 was watching alert and silent beside the 
 runway. 
 
 When the snows were deep and soft the 
 wolves took to hunting the lynxes, big, 
 savage, long-clawed fighters that swarm in 
 the interior of Newfoundland and play havoc 
 with the small game. For a single lynx 
 the wolves hunted in pairs, trailing the big
 
 prowler stealthily and rushing upon him 
 from behind with a fierce uproar to startle 
 the wits out of his stupid head and send him 
 off headlong, as cats go, before he knew what 
 was after him. Away he would go in mighty 
 jumps, sinking shoulder deep, often indeed 
 up to his tufted ears, at every plunge. After 
 him raced the wolves, running lightly and 
 taking advantage of the holes he had made 
 in the soft snow, till a swift snap in his flank 
 brought Upweekis up with a ferocious snarl 
 to tear in pieces his pursuers. 
 
 Then began as savage a bit of fighting as 
 the woods ever witness, teeth against talons, 
 wolf cunning against cat ferocity. Crouched 
 in the snow, spitting and snarling, his teeth 
 bared and round eyes blazing and long claws 
 aching to close in a death grip, Upweekis 
 waited impatient as a fury for the rush. He 
 is an ugly fighter; but he must always get 
 close, gripping his enemy with teeth and 
 fore claws while the hind claws get in their 
 deadly work, kicking downward in powerful 
 spasmodic blows and ripping 
 everything before them. A
 
 1 14 
 
 . 
 
 "mm/re 
 
 v*** 
 
 dosf would rush in now and be torn to 
 pieces; but not so the wolves. Dancing 
 
 lightly about the big lynx they would watch 
 
 t h e i r c } iance to leap and snap, sometimes 
 avoiding the blow of the swift paw with 
 its terrible claws, and sometimes catching 
 it on their heavy manes; but always a long 
 red mark showed on the lynx's silver fur as 
 the wolves' teeth clicked with the voice of 
 a steel trap and they leaped aside without 
 serious injury. As the big cat grew blind 
 in his fury they would seize their chance like 
 a flash and leap together; one pair of long 
 jaws would close hard on the spine behind 
 the tufted ears; another pair would grip a 
 hind leg, while the wolves sprang apart and 
 braced to hold. Then the fight was all over ; 
 and the moose birds, in pairs, came flitting 
 in silently to see if there were not a few 
 unconsidered trifles of the feast for them to 
 dispose of. 
 
 Occasionally, at nightfall, the wolves' hunt- 
 ing cry would ring out of the woods as one 
 of the cubs discovered three or four of the 
 lynxes growling horribly over some game they
 
 had pulled down together. For Upweekis 
 too, though generally a solitary fellow, often 
 roams with a savage band of freebooters to 
 hunt the larger animals in the bitter winter 
 weather. No young wolf would ever run 
 into one of these bands alone ; but when the 
 pack rolled in upon them like a tempest the 
 lynxes would leap squalling away in a blind 
 rush; and the two big wolves, cutting in 
 from the ends of the charging line, would 
 turn a lynx kit deftly aside for the cubs to 
 hold. Then another for themselves, and the 
 hunt was over, all but the feast at the end 
 of it. 
 
 When a big and cunning lynx took to a 
 tree at the first alarm the wolves would go 
 aside to leeward, where Upweekis could not 
 see them, but where their noses told them 
 perfectly all that he was doing. Then began 
 the long game of patience, the wolves wait- 
 ing for the game to come down, and the lynx 
 waiting for the wolves to go away. Upweekis 
 was at a disadvantage, for he could not see 
 when he had won; and he generally came 
 down in an hour or two, only to find the
 
 wolves hot on his trail before he had taken 
 a dozen jumps. Whereupon he took to an- 
 
 other tree and the game began again * 
 
 when the night was exceeding cold _ 
 
 and one who has not felt it can hardly 
 imagine the bitter, killing intensity of a north- 
 ern midnight in February the wolves, in- 
 stead of going away, would wait under the 
 tree in which the lynx had taken refuge, and 
 the silent, appalling death-watch began. A 
 lynx, though heavily furred, cannot long 
 remain exposed in the intense cold without 
 moving. Moreover he must grip the branch 
 on which he sits more or less firmly with his 
 claws, to keep from falling; and the tense 
 muscles, which flex the long claws to drive 
 them into the wood, soon grow weary and 
 numb in the bitter frost. The wolves mean- 
 while trot about to keep warm; while the 
 stupid cat sits in one spot slowly perishing, 
 and never thinks of running up and down 
 the tree to keep himself alive. The feet 
 grow benumbed at last, powerless to hold 
 on any longer, and the lynx tumbles off 
 into the wolves' jaws ; or else, knowing the
 
 'The silent, appalling death- 
 watch began "
 
 m
 
 danger, he leaps for the nearest wolf and 
 dies fighting. 
 
 Spite of the killing cold, the problem of 
 keeping warm was to the wolves always a 
 simple one. Moving along through the win- 
 ter night, always on a swift, silent trot, they 
 picked up what game came in their way, and 
 scarcely felt the eager cold that nipped at 
 their ears, or the wind, keen as an icicle, that 
 strove to penetrate the shaggy white coats 
 that covered them. When their hunger was 
 satisfied, or when the late day came and found 
 them still hunting hopefully, they would 
 push their way into the thick scrub from one 
 of the numerous paths and lie down on a 
 nest of leaves, which even in midwinter were 
 dry as if no snow or rain had ever fallen. 
 There, where no wind or gale however strong 
 could penetrate, and with the snow filling 
 the low branches overhead and piled over 
 them in a soft, warm blanket three feet thick, 
 they would push their sensitive noses into 
 their own thick fur to keep them warm, and 
 sleep comfortably till the early twilight came 
 and called them out again to the hunting.
 
 I2O 
 
 At times, when not near the scrub, they 
 would burrow deep into a great drift of snow 
 and sleep in the warmest kind of a nest, 
 a trick that the husky dogs, which are but 
 wolves of yesterday, still remember. Like 
 all wild animals, they felt the coming of a 
 storm long before the first white flakes be- 
 gan to whirl in the air; and when a great 
 storm threatened they would lie down to 
 sleep in a cave, or a cranny of the rocks, and 
 let the drifts pile soft and warm over them. 
 However long the storm, they never stirred 
 abroad; partly for their own comfort, partly 
 because all game lies hid at such times and 
 it is practically impossible, even for a wolf, 
 to find it. When a wolf has fed full he can 
 go a week without eating and suffer no great 
 discomfort. So Wayeeses would lie close 
 and warm while the snow piled deep around 
 him and the gale raged over the sea and 
 mountains, but passed unfelt and unheeded 
 over his head. Then, when the storm was 
 over, he pawed his way up through the drift 
 and came out in a new, bright world, 
 where the game, with
 
 appetites sharpened by the long fast, was 
 already stirring briskly in every covert. 
 
 When March came, the bitterest month of 
 all for the Wood Folk, even Wayeeses was 
 often hard pressed to find a living. Small 
 game grew scarce and very wild ; the caribou 
 had wandered far away to other ranges ; and 
 the cubs would dig for hours after a mouse, 
 or stalk a snowbird, or wait with endless pa- 
 tience for a red squirrel to stop his chatter 
 and come down to search under the snow 
 for a fir cone that he had hidden there in 
 the good autumn days. And once, when the 
 hunger within was more nipping than the 
 eager cold without, one of the cubs found a 
 bear sleeping in his winter den among the 
 rocks. With a sharp hunting cry, that sang 
 like a bullet over the frozen wastes, he called 
 the whole pack about him. While the rest lay 
 in hiding the old he-wolf approached warily 
 and scratched Mooween out of his den, and 
 then ran away to entice the big brute into the 
 open ground, where the pack rolled in upon 
 him and killed him in a terrible fight before he 
 had fairly shaken the sleep out of his eyes.
 
 Old Tomah, the trapper, was abroad now, 
 taking advantage of the spring hunger. The 
 7/ifeWllfe Wv//5 wo i ves often crossed his snow-shoe trail, or 
 followed it swiftly to see whither it led. For 
 a wolf, like a farm dog, is never satisfied till 
 he knows the ways of every living thing that 
 crosses his range. Following the broad trail 
 Wayeeses would find here a trapped animal, 
 struggling desperately with the clog and the 
 cruel gripping teeth, there the flayed car- 
 cass of a lynx or an otter, and yonder the leg 
 of a dog or a piece of caribou meat hung 
 by a cord over a runway, with the snow dis- 
 turbed beneath it where the deadly trap was 
 hidden. One glance, or a sniff at a dis- 
 tance, was enough for the wolf. Lynxes do 
 not go about the range without their skins, 
 and meat does not naturally hang on trees; 
 so Wayeeses, knowing all the ways of the 
 woods, would ignore these baits absolutely. 
 Nevertheless he followed the snow-shoe trails 
 until he knew where every unnatural thing 
 lay hidden; and no matter how hungry he 
 was, or how cunningly the old Indian hid 
 his devices, or however deep the new snow
 
 covered all traces of man's work, Wayeeses 
 passed by on the other side and kept his 
 dainty feet out of every snare and pitfall. 
 
 Once, when the two cubs that hunted to- 
 gether were hard pinched with hunger, they 
 found Old Tomah in the twilight and fol- 
 lowed him stealthily. The old Indian was 
 swinging along, silent as a shadow of the 
 woods, his gun on his shoulder and some 
 skins on his back, heading swiftly for the 
 little hut under the cliff, where he burrowed 
 for the night as snug as a bear in his den. 
 An old wolf would have known instantly the 
 danger, for man alone bites at a distance; 
 but the lop-eared cub, which was larger than 
 his brother and therefore the leader, raised 
 his head for the hunting cry. The first yap 
 had hardly left his throat when the thunder 
 roared, and something seared the wolf's side 
 like a hot iron. The cubs vanished like the 
 smoke from the old gun. Then the Indian 
 came swiftly back on the trail, peering about 
 with hawk eyes to see the effect 'of his shot. 
 
 " By cosh ! miss um dat time. Mus' be 
 powder no good." Then, as he read the 
 
 123 
 
 '^fiT* 
 
 S
 
 124 
 
 . ,ir 
 
 plain record in the snow, "One, by cosh! 
 two hwulf, HI fool hwulf, follow my footin'. 
 Mus' be more, come soon pretty quick now ; 
 else he don' howl dat way. Guess mebbe ol' 
 Injun better stay in house nights." And he 
 trailed warily back to hide himself behind a 
 rock and watch till dark in front of his little 
 commoosie. 
 
 Old Tomah's sleep was sound as usual 
 that night; so he could not see the five 
 shadows that stole out of the woods, nor 
 hear the light footfalls that circled his camp, 
 nor feel the breath, soft as an eddy of wind 
 in a spruce top, that whiffed at the crack 
 under his door and drifted away again. 
 Next morning he saw the tracks and under- 
 stood them ; and as he trailed away through 
 the still woods he was wondering, in his 
 silent Indian way, why an old wolf should 
 always bring Malsunsis, the cub, for a good 
 look and a sniff at anything that he is to 
 avoid ever after. 
 
 When all else fails follow the caribou, 
 that is the law which governs the wolf in 
 hungry days; but before they crossed
 
 the mountains and followed the long valleys 
 to the far southern ranges the wolves went 
 back to the hills, where the trail began, for a 
 more exciting and dangerous kind of hunt- 
 ing. The pack had held closer together of 
 late; for the old wolves must often share 
 even a scant fox or rabbit with the hungry 
 and inexperienced youngsters. Now, when 
 famine drove them to the very doors of the 
 one enemy to be feared, only the wisest and 
 wariest old wolf was fit to lead the foray. 
 
 The little fishing village was buried un- 
 der drifts and almost deserted. A few men 
 lingered to watch the boats and houses ; but 
 the families had all gone inland to the 
 winter tilts for wood and shelter. By night 
 the wolves would come stealthily to prowl 
 among the deserted lanes; and the fisher- 
 men, asleep in their clothes under caribou 
 skins, or sitting close by the stove be- 
 hind barred doors, would know nothing of 
 the huge, gaunt forms that flitted noiselessly 
 past the frosted windows. If a pig were left 
 in his pen a sudden terrible squealing would 
 break out on the still night; and when the
 
 fisherman rushed out the pen would be 
 empty, with nothing whatever to account 
 WO//5 or piggi e ' s disappearance. For to their un- 
 trained eyes even the tracks of the wolves 
 were covered up by those of the numerous 
 big huskies. If a cat prowled abroad, or an 
 uneasy dog scratched to be let out, there 
 would be a squall, a yelp, and the cat would 
 not come back, and the dog would never 
 scratch at the door to be let in again. 
 
 Only when nothing stirred in the village, 
 when the dogs and cats had been spirited 
 away, and when not even a rat stole from 
 under the houses to gnaw at a fishbone, 
 would the fishermen know of their big silent 
 visitors. Then the wolves would gather on 
 a snow-drift just outside the village and raise 
 a howl, a frightful wail of famine and dis- 
 appointment, that made the air shudder. 
 From within the houses the dogs answered 
 with mad clamor. A door would open to 
 show first a long seal gun, then a fisherman, 
 then a fool dog that darted between the 
 fisherman's legs and capered away, ki-yi-ing 
 a challenge to the universe. A silence, tense
 
 as a bowstring ; a sudden yelp Hui-hui, as 
 the fisherman whistled to the dog that was 
 being whisked away over the snow with a 
 grip on his throat that prevented any answer ; 
 then the fisherman would wait and call in vain, 
 and shiver, and go back to the fire again. 
 
 Almost every pleasant day a train of dogs 
 would leave the village and go far back on 
 the hills to haul fire-wood, or poles for the 
 new fish-flakes. The wolves, watching from 
 their old den, would follow at a distance to 
 pick up a careless dog that ventured away 
 from the fire to hunt rabbits when his harness 
 was taken off. Occasionally a solitary wood- 
 chopper would start with sudden alarm as 
 a big white form glided into sight, and the 
 alarm would be followed by genuine terror as 
 he found himself surrounded by five huge 
 wolves that sat on their tails watching him 
 curiously. Gripping his ax he would hurry 
 back to call his companions and harness the 
 dogs and hurry back to the village before 
 the early darkness should fall upon them. 
 As the komatik went careering over the snow, 
 the dogs yelping and straining at the harness, 
 
 J
 
 128 
 
 the men running alongside shouting Hi-hi 
 and cracking their whips, they could still 
 see, over their shoulders, the wolves follow- 
 ing lightly close behind; but when they 
 rushed breathless into their houses, and 
 grabbed their guns, and ran back on the 
 trail, there was nothing to be seen. For the 
 wolves, quick as light to feel the presence 
 of danger, were already far away, trotting 
 swiftly up the frozen arm of the harbor, fol- 
 lowing another sledge trail which came down 
 that morning from the wilderness. 
 
 That same night the wolves appeared 
 silently in the little lodge, far up the South- 
 east Brook, where in a sheltered hollow of 
 the hills the fishermen's families were sleep- 
 ing away the bitter winter. Here for one long 
 night they watched and waited in vain ; for 
 every living thing was safe in the tilts behind 
 barred doors. In the morning little Noel's 
 eyes kindled as he saw the wolves' tracks; 
 and when they came back again the tilts were 
 watching. As the lop-eared cub darted after 
 a cat that shot like a ray of moonlight under 
 a cabin, a window opened noiselessly, and
 
 zing! a bowstring twanged its sharp warn- 
 ing in the tense silence. With a yelp the 
 wolf tore the arrow from his shoulder. The 
 warm blood followed the barb, and he lapped 
 it eagerly in his hunger. Then, as the danger 
 swept over him, he gave the trail cry and 
 darted away. Doors banged open here and 
 there; dogs barked to crack their throats; 
 seal guns roared out and sent their heavy 
 echoes crashing like thunder among the hills. 
 Silence fell again over the lodge ; and there 
 were left only a few frightened dogs whose 
 noses had already told them everything, a 
 few fishermen who watched and listened, 
 and one Indian boy with a long bow in his 
 hand and an arrow ready on the string, who 
 trailed away with a little girl at his side try- 
 ing to puzzle out the track of one wolf that 
 left a drop of blood here and there on the 
 snow in the scant moonlight. 
 
 Far up on the hillside in a little opening 
 of the woods the scattered pack came together 
 again. At the first uproar, so unbearable to 
 a silence-loving animal, they had vanished in 
 five different directions; yet so subtle, so
 
 perfect is the instinct which holds a wolf 
 family together that the old mother had 
 scarcely entered the glade alone and sat 
 down to wait and listen when the other 
 wolves joined her silently. Malsunsis, the 
 big cub, scarcely felt his wound at first, 
 for the arrow had but glanced through the 
 thick skin and flesh, and he had torn it 
 out without difficulty; but the old he-wolf 
 limped painfully and held up one fore leg, 
 pierced by a seal shot, as he loped away 
 over the snow. 
 
 It was their first rough experience with 
 men, and probably the one feeling in every 
 shaggy head was of puzzled wonder as to 
 how and why it had all happened. Hitherto 
 they had avoided men with a certain awe, or 
 watched them curiously at a distance, trying 
 to understand their superior ways ; and never 
 a hostile feeling for the masters of the woods 
 had found place in a wolf's breast. Now 
 man had spoken at last; his voice was a 
 brutal command to be gone, and curiously 
 enough these powerful big brutes, any one 
 of which could have pulled down a man
 
 more easily than a caribou, never thought of 
 questioning the order. 
 
 It was certainly time to follow the caribou 
 that was probably the one definite pur- ""f*fn 
 pose that came upon the wolves, sitting in a 
 silent, questioning circle in the moonlight, 
 with only the deep snows and the empty 
 woods around them. For a week they had 
 not touched food; for thrice that time they 
 had not fed full, and a few days more would 
 leave them unable to cope with the big car- 
 ibou, which are always full fed and strong, 
 thanks to nature's abundance of deer moss 
 on the barrens. So they started as by a sin- 
 gle impulse, and the mother wolf led them 
 swiftly southward, hour after hour at a tire- 
 less pace, till the great he-wolf weakened 
 and turned aside to nurse his wounded fore 
 leg. The lop-eared cub drew out of the race 
 at the same time. His own wound now 
 required the soft massage of his tongue to 
 allay the fever ; and besides, the fear that 
 was born in him, one night long ago, and 
 that had slept ever since, was now awake 
 again, and for the first time he was afraid
 
 face the famine and the wilderness alone. 
 So the pack swept on, as if their feet would 
 
 TjeWt/fe wolfs never tirCj and the two wounded wo i v es 
 
 A strange, terrible feeling stole swiftly 
 over the covert, which had always hitherto 
 been a place of rest and quiet content. The 
 cub was licking his wound softly when he 
 looked up in sudden alarm, and there was the 
 great he-wolf looking at him hungrily, with 
 a frightful flare in his green eyes. The cub 
 moved away startled and tried to soothe his 
 wound again; but the uncanny feeling was 
 strong upon him still, and when he turned 
 his head there was the big wolf, which had 
 crept forward till he could see the cub behind 
 a twisted spruce root, watching him steadily 
 with the same horrible stare in his unblink- 
 ing eyes. The hackles rose up on the cub's 
 neck and a growl rumbled in his deep chest, 
 for he knew now what it all meant. The 
 smell of blood was in the air, and the old he- 
 wolf, that had so often shared his kill to save 
 the cubs, was now going crazy in his awful 
 hunger. Another moment and there would
 
 have been a terrible duel in the scrub; but 
 as the wolves sprang to their feet and faced 
 each other some deep, unknown feeling stirred 
 within them and they turned aside. The old 
 wolf threw himself down heavily, facing away 
 from the temptation, and the cub slipped 
 aside to find another den, out of sight and 
 smell of the huge leader, lest the scent of 
 blood should overcome them again and cause 
 them to fly at each other's throats in uncon- 
 trollable fury. 
 
 Next morning a queer thing happened, 
 but not uncommon under the circumstances 
 among wolves and huskies. The cub was 
 lying motionless, his head on his paws, his 
 eyes wide open, when something stirred 
 near him. A red squirrel came scampering 
 through the scrub branches just under the 
 thick coating of snow that filled all their 
 tops. Slowly, carefully the young wolf gath- 
 ered his feet under him, tense as a bowstring. >- 
 As the squirrel whisked overhead the wolf v, 
 leaped like a flash, caught him, and crushed 
 him with a single grip. Then with the squir- 
 rel in his mouth he made his way back 
 
 133 
 
 TfieWtfe.
 
 to where the big leader was lying, his head 
 on his paws, his eyes turned aside. Slowly, 
 war}lv the cub approached) witn a friendly 
 twist of his ears and head> tin he kid the 
 
 squirrel at the big wolf's very nose, then 
 drew back a step and lay with paws extended 
 and tail thumping the leaves, watching till 
 the tidbit was seized ravenously and crushed 
 and bolted in a single mouthful. Next instant 
 both wolves sprang to their feet and made 
 their way out of the scrub together. 
 
 They took up the trail of the pack where 
 they had left it, and followed it ten hours, 
 the cub at a swift trot, the old wolf loping 
 along on three legs. Then a rest, and for- 
 ward again, slower and slower, night after 
 day in ever-failing strength, till on the edge 
 of a great barren they stopped as if struck, 
 trembling all over as the reek of game poured 
 into their starving nostrils. 
 
 Too weak now to kill or to follow the fleet 
 caribou, they lay down in the snow wait- 
 ing, their ears cocked, their noses question- 
 ing every breeze for its good news. Left to 
 themselves the trail must end here, for they
 
 could go no farther; but somewhere ahead in 
 the vast silent barren the cubs were trailing, ^ 
 and somewhere beyond them the old mother *"enfi//ei 
 wolf was laying her ambush. Hark ! from 
 a spur of the valley, far below on their left, 
 rang out the food cry, singing its way in the 
 frosty air over woods and plains, and hur- 
 rying back over the trail to tell those who 
 had fallen by the way that they were not 
 forgotten. And when they leaped up, as at 
 an electric shock, and raced for the cry, 
 there were the cubs and the mother wolf, 
 their hunger already satisfied, and there in 
 the snow a young bull caribou to save them. 
 So the long, hard winter passed away, 
 and spring came again with its abundance. 
 Grouse drummed a welcome in the woods; 
 the honk of wild geese filled the air with a 
 joyous clangor, and in every open pool the 
 ducks were quacking. No need now to cling 
 like shadows to the herds of caribou, and no 
 further need for the pack to hold together. 
 The ties that held them melted like snows 
 in the sunny hollows. First the old wolves, 
 then the cubs,, one by one drifted away J> x'
 
 136 
 
 whither the game or their new mates were 
 calling them. When the summer came there 
 was another den on the high hill overlooking 
 
 o o 
 
 the harbor, where the little brown cubs could 
 look down with wonder at the shining sea and 
 the slow fishing-boats and the children play- 
 ing on the shore ; but the wolves whose 
 trail began there were far away over 
 the mountains, following their own 
 ways, waiting for the crisp hunting cry 
 that should bring them again together.
 
 
 
 ,-:-^ ~' ;T *"-"
 
 "ARE we lost, little brother?" 
 ji\. said Mooka, shivering. 
 
 No need of the question, startling and ter- 
 rible as it was from the lips of a child astray 
 in the vast solitudes; for a great gale had 
 swooped down from the Arctic, blotting out 
 in clouds of whirling snow the world of plain 
 and mountain and forest that, a moment be- 
 fore, had stretched wide and still before the 
 little hunters' eyes. 
 
 For an hour or more, running like startled 
 deer, they had tried to follow their own 
 snow-shoe trail back over the wide barrens 
 into the friendly woods; but already the 
 snow had filled it brim full, and whatever 
 139
 
 >' '-.,'> 
 
 faint trace was left of the long raquettes was 
 caught up by the gale and whirled away with 
 a howl of exultation. Before them as they 
 ran every trail of wolf and caribou and snow- 
 shoe, and every distant landmark, had van- 
 ished ; the world was but a chaos of mad roll- 
 ing snow clouds; and behind them Their 
 stout little hearts trembled as they saw not 
 a vestige of the trail they had just made. 
 With the great world itself, their own little 
 tracks, as fast as they made them, were swept 
 and blotted out of existence. Like two spar- 
 rows that had dropped blinded and bewil- 
 dered on the vast plain out of the snow 
 cloud, they huddled together without one 
 friendly sign to tell them whence they had 
 come or whither they were going. Worst 
 of all the instinct of direction, which often 
 guides an Indian through the still fog or 
 the darkest night, seemed benumbed by the 
 cold and the tumult ; and not even Old 
 Tomah himself could have told north or 
 south *in the blinding storm. 
 
 Still they ran on bravely, bending to the 
 fierce blasts, heading the wind as best they
 
 could, till Mooka, tripping a second time in 
 a little hollow where a brook ran deep under 
 
 the snow, and knowing now that they were 
 
 but wandering in an endless circle, seized j>?|pv 
 
 Noel's arm and repeated her question : 
 
 " Are we lost, little brother ? " 
 
 And Noel, lost and bewildered, but grip- 
 ping his bow in his fur mitten and peering 
 here and there, like an old hunter, through 
 the whirling flakes and rolling gusts to 
 catch some landmark, some lofty crag or 
 low tree-line that held steady in the mad 
 dance of the world, still made confident In- 
 dian answer: 
 
 " Noel not lost ; Noel right here. Camp 
 lost, little sister." 
 
 " Can we find um, little brother ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, we find um. Find um bimeby, 
 pretty soon quick now, after storm." 
 
 " But storm last all night, and it's soon 
 dark. Can we rest and not freeze? Mooka 
 tired and and frightened, little brother." 
 
 " Sartin we rest ; build um commoosie and 
 sleep jus' like bear in his den. Oh, yes, sartin 
 we rest good," said Noel cheerfully.
 
 "And the wolves, little brother?" whis- 
 pered Mooka, looking back timidly into the 
 wild waste out of which they had come. 
 
 " Never mind h wolves ; nothing hunts in 
 storm, little sister. Come on, we must find 
 um woods now." 
 
 For one brief moment the little hunter 
 stood with upturned face, while Mooka 
 bowed her head silently, and the great storm 
 rolled unheeded over them. Still holding 
 his long bow he stretched both hands to 
 the sky in the mute appeal that Keesuolukh, 
 the Great Mystery whom we call God, would 
 understand better than all words. Then 
 turning their backs to the gale they drifted 
 swiftly away before it, like two wind-blown 
 leaves, running to keep from freezing, and 
 holding each other's hands tight lest they 
 separate and be lost by the way. 
 
 The second winter had come, sealing up 
 the gloomy land till it rang like iron at the 
 touch, then covering it deep with snow and 
 polishing its mute white face with hoar-frost 
 and hail driven onward by the fierce Arctic
 
 gales. An appalling silence rested on plains 
 and mountains. Not a chirp, not a rustle 
 broke the intense, unnatural stillness. One 
 might travel all day long without a sight or 
 sound of life; and when the early twilight 
 came and life stirred shyly from its coverts 
 and snow caves, the Wood Folk stole out 
 into the bare white world on noiseless, hesi- 
 tating feet, as if in presence of the dead. 
 
 When the Moon of Famine came, the 
 silence was rudely broken. Before daylight 
 one morning, when the air was so tense and 
 still that a whisper set it tinkling like sil- 
 ver bells, the rallying cry of the wolves rolled 
 down from a mountain top; and the three 
 cubs, that had waited long for the signal, 
 left their separate trails far away and hur- 
 ried to join the old leader. 
 
 When the sun rose that morning one who 
 stood on the high ridge of the Top Gallants, 
 far to the eastward of Harbor Weal, would 
 have seen seven trails winding down among ' 
 the rocks and thickets. It needed only a 
 glance to show that the seven trails, each 
 one as clear-cut and delicate as that of a
 
 Tlcil7sIfiatCr05S 
 
 prowling fox, were the records of wolves' 
 cautious feet ; and that they were no longer 
 k eat i n g t h e thickets for grouse and rab- 
 bits> but movmg sw iftly all together for the 
 edges of the vast barrens where the caribou 
 herds were feeding. Another glance but 
 here we must have the cunning eyes of Old 
 Tomah the hunter would have told that 
 two of the trails were those of enormous 
 wolves which led the pack ; two others were 
 plainly cubs that had not yet lost the cub 
 trick of frolicking in the soft snow; while 
 three others were just wolves, big and power- 
 ful brutes that moved as if on steel springs, 
 and that still held to the old pack because 
 the time had not yet come for them to scatter 
 finally to their separate ways and head new 
 packs of their own in the great solitudes. 
 
 Out from the woods on the other side of 
 the barren came two snow-shoe trails, which 
 advanced with short steps and rested lightly 
 on the snow, as if the makers of the trails 
 were little people whose weight on the snow- 
 shoes made * A hardly more im- 
 pression than (/JL *\J/ the broad pads of
 
 Moktaques the rabbit. They followed stealth- 
 ily the winding records of a score of caribou 
 that had wandered like an eddying wind all 
 over the barren, stopping here and there to 
 paw great holes in the snow for the cari- 
 bou moss that covered all the earth beneath. 
 Out at the end of the trail two Indian chil- 
 dren, a girl and a boy, stole along with 
 noiseless steps, scanning the wide wastes 
 for a cloud of mist the frozen breath that 
 hovers over a herd of caribou or peering 
 keenly into the edges of the woods for vague 
 white shapes moving like shadows among 
 the trees. So they moved on swiftly, silently, 
 till the boy stopped with a startled exclama- 
 tion, whipped out a long arrow with a barbed 
 steel point, and laid it ready across his bow. 
 For at his feet was another light trail, the 
 trail of a wolf pack, that crossed his own, 
 moving straight and swift across the barren 
 toward the unseen caribou. 
 
 Just in front, as the boy stopped, a slight 
 motion broke the even white surface that 
 stretched away silent and lifeless on every 
 side, a motion so faint and natural that
 
 146 
 
 Noel's keen eyes, sweeping the plain and the 
 edges of the distant woods, never noticed it. 
 TKUJSJKffGaSS A vagrant w i nd> wh i c h had been wandering 
 
 and moaning all morning as if lost, seemed 
 to stir the snow and settle to rest again. 
 But now, where the plain seemed most empty 
 and lifeless, seven great white wolves crouched 
 down in the snow in a little hollow, their paws 
 extended, their hind legs bent like powerful 
 springs beneath them, their heads raised cau- 
 tiously so that only their ears and eyes showed 
 above the rim of the little hollow where they 
 hid. So they lay, tense, alert, ready, watching 
 with eager, inquisitive eyes the two children 
 drawing steadily nearer, the only sign of life 
 in the whole wide, desolate landscape. 
 
 Follow the back trail of the snow-shoes 
 now, while the wolves are waiting, and it 
 leads you over the great barren into the 
 gloomy spruce woods ; beyond that it crosses 
 two more barrens and stretches of intervening 
 forest ; then up a great hill and down into a 
 valley, where the lodge lay hidden, buried 
 deep under Newfoundland snows.
 
 Here the fishermen lived, sleeping away 
 the bitter winter. In the late autumn they 
 had left the fishing village at Harbor Weal, 
 
 147 
 
 7/3/Isffiat Cross 
 
 driven out like the wild ducks by the fierce 
 gales that raged over the whole coast. With 
 their abundant families and scant provisions 
 they had followed the trail up the Southwest 
 Brook till it doubled around the mountain 
 and led into a great silent wood, sheltered 
 on every side by the encircling hills. Here 
 the tilts were built with double walls, filled in 
 between with leaves and moss, to help the 
 little stoves that struggled bravely with the 
 terrible cold ; and the roofs were covered 
 over with poles and bark, or with the brown 
 sails that had once driven the fishing-boats 
 out and in on the wings of the gale. The -N. 
 high mountains on the west stood between <f - 
 them and the icy winds that swept down 
 over the sea from the Labrador and the 
 Arctic wastes; wood in abundance was at 
 their doors, and the trout-stream that sang 
 all day long under its bridges of snow and 
 ice was always ready to brim their kettles 
 out of its abundance. 7; r~s3 
 
 ~~- 
 
 WOW
 
 So the new life began pleasantly enough ; 
 but as the winter wore away and provi- 
 s ions grew scarce and game vanished from 
 the coverts, they all felt the fearful pinch 
 of famine. Every morning now a confused 
 circle of tracks in the snow showed where 
 the wild prowlers of the woods had come 
 and sniffed at the very doors of the tilts in 
 their ravening hunger. 
 
 Noel's father and Old Tomah were far 
 away, trapping, in the interior; and to Noel 
 with his snares and his bow and arrows fell 
 the pleasant task of supplying the family's 
 need when the stock of dried fish melted 
 away. On this March morning he had 
 started with Mooka at daylight to cross the 
 mountains to some great barrens where he 
 had found tracks and knew that a few herds 
 of caribou were still feeding. The sun was 
 dimmed as it rose, and the sun-dogs gave 
 mute warning of the coming storm ; but the 
 cupboard was empty at home, and even a 
 little hunter thinks first of the game he is 
 following and lets the storm take care of 
 itself. So they hurried on unheeding, Noel
 
 with his bow and arrows, Mooka with a little 
 bag containing a loaf and a few dried cap- 
 lin, peering under every brush pile for the 
 shining eyes of a rabbit, and picking up 
 one big grouse and a few ptarmigan among 
 the bowlders of a great bare hillside. On 
 the edges of the great barren under the Top 
 Gallants they found the fresh tracks of feed- 
 ing caribou, and were following eagerly when 
 they ran plump into the wolf trail. 
 
 Now by every law of the chase the game 
 belonged to these earlier hunters ; and by 
 every power in their gaunt, famished bodies 
 the wolves meant to have it. So said the 
 trail. Every stealthy advance in single file 
 across the open, every swift rush over the hol- 
 lows that might hide them from eyes watch- 
 ing back from the distant woods, showed 
 the wolves' purpose clear as daylight; and 
 had Noel been wiser he would have read a 
 warning from the snow and turned aside. 
 But he only drew his longest, keenest arrow 
 and pressed on more eagerly than before. 
 
 The two trails had crossed each other at 
 last. Beginning near together, one on the
 
 mountains, the other by the sea, they had 
 followed their separate devious ways, now 
 S far apart in the glad bright summer, now 
 drawing toget h er i n t he moonlight of the 
 winter's night. At times the makers of the 
 trails had watched each other in secret, shyly, 
 inquisitively, at a distance ; but always fear 
 or cunning had kept them apart, the boy 
 with his keen hunter's interest baffled and 
 whetted by the brutes' wariness, and the 
 wolves drawn to the superior being by that 
 subtle instinct that once made glad hunting- 
 dogs and collies of the wild rangers of the 
 plains, and that still leads a wolf to follow 
 and watch the doings of men with intense 
 curiosity. Now the trails had met fairly in 
 the snow, and a few steps more would bring 
 the boy and the wolf face to face. 
 
 Noel was stealing along warily, his arrow 
 ready on the string. Mooka beside him was 
 watching a faint cloud of mist, the breath 
 of caribou, that blurred at times the dark 
 tree-line in the distance, when one of those 
 mysterious warnings that befall the hunter
 
 in the far North rested upon them suddenly 
 like a heavy hand. 
 
 I know not what it is, what lesser pres- 
 sure of air, to which we respond like a ba- 
 rometer ; or what unknown chords there are 
 within us that sleep for years in the midst 
 of society and that waken and answer, like 
 an animal's, to the subtle influence of nature, 
 but one can never be watched by an unseen 
 wild animal without feeling it vaguely; and 
 one can never be so keen on the trail that 
 the storm, before it breaks, will not whisper 
 a warning to turn back to shelter before it is 
 too late. To Noel and Mooka, alone on the 
 barrens, the sun was no dimmer than before ; 
 the heavy gray bank of clouds still held sul- 
 lenly to its place on the horizon; and no 
 eyes, however keen, would have noticed the 
 tiny dark spots that centered and glowed 
 upon them over the rim of the little hollow 
 where the wolves were watching. Neverthe- 
 less, a sudden chill fell upon them both. 
 They stopped abruptly, shivering a bit, draw- 
 ing closer together and scanning the waste 
 keenly to know what it all meant. 
 
 Tm/foffiatCros 
 fnJ&&5now 

 
 " Mitcheegeesookh, the storm ! " said Noel 
 sharply ; and without another word they 
 turned and hurried back on their own trail. 
 
 In a short half . hour the world would be 
 
 swallowed up in chaos. To be caught out 
 on the barrens meant to be lost; and to 
 be lost here without fire and shelter meant 
 death, swift and sure. So they ran on, hop- 
 ing to strike the woods before the blizzard 
 burst upon them. 
 
 They were scarcely half-way to shelter 
 when the white flakes began to whirl around 
 them. With startling, terrible swiftness the 
 familiar world vanished; the guiding trail 
 was blotted out, and nothing but a wolf's 
 instinct could have held a straight course 
 in the blinding fury of the storm. Still they 
 held on bravely, trying in vain to keep their 
 direction by the eddying winds, till Mooka 
 stumbled twice at the same hollow over a 
 hidden brook, and they knew they were run- 
 ning blindly in a circle of death. Frightened 
 at the discovery they turned, as the caribou 
 do, keeping their backs steadily to the winds, 
 and drifted slowly away down the long barren.
 
 Hour after hour they struggled on, hand 
 in hand, without a thought of where they 
 were going. Twice Mooka fell and lay still, 
 but was dragged to her feet and hurried on- 
 ward again. The little hunter's own strength 
 was almost gone, when a low moan rose 
 steadily above the howl and hiss of the gale. 
 It was the spruce woods, bending their tops 
 to the blast and groaning at the strain. 
 With a wild whoop Noel plunged forward, 
 and the next instant they were safe within 
 the woods. All around them the flakes sifted 
 steadily, silently down into the thick covert, .^ 
 while the storm passed with a great roar over U^- 
 their heads. 
 
 In the lee of a low-branched spruce they 
 stopped again, as though by a common im- 
 pulse, while Noel lifted his hands. " Thanks, 
 thanks, Keesuolukh ; we can take care of our- 
 selves now," the brave little heart was sing- 
 ing under the upstretched arms. Then they 
 tumbled into the snow and lay for a mo- 
 ment utterly relaxed, like two tired animals, 
 in that brief, delicious rest which follows a 
 terrible struggle with the storm and cold. 
 
 s ~~
 
 154 
 
 First they ate a little of their bread and 
 fish to keep up their spirits; then for the 
 
 '/n fAa'^rtsn^ storm tria ^ was upon them might last for 
 /ji fftu St/On j ,1 i i^ 
 
 days they set about preparing a shelter. 
 
 With a little search, whooping to each other 
 lest they stray away, they found a big dry 
 stub that some gale had snapped off a few 
 feet above the snow. While Mooka scurried 
 about, collecting birch bark and armfuls of 
 dry branches, Noel took off his snow-shoes 
 and began with one of them to shovel away 
 the snow in a semicircle around the base of 
 the stub. In a short half-hour he had a deep 
 hole there, with the snow banked up around 
 it to the height of his head. Next with his 
 knife he cut a lot of light poles and scrub 
 spruces and, sticking the butts in his snow- 
 bank, laid the tops, like the sticks of a wig- 
 wam, firmly against the big stub. A few 
 armfuls of spruce boughs shingled over this 
 roof, and a few minutes' work shoveling 
 snow thickly upon them to hold them in 
 place and to make a warm covering; then 
 a doorway, or rather a narrow tunnel, just 
 beyond the stub on the straight side of the 
 
 .-svcv-vp, ev es; 
 
 m 
 
 \\ 
 
 :P
 
 semicircle, and their commoosie was all ready. 
 Let the storm roar and the snow sift down! 
 The thicker it fell the warmer would be their 
 
 shelter. They laughed and shouted now as 
 they scurried out and in, bringing boughs 
 for a bed and the fire-wood which Mooka 
 had gathered. 
 
 Against the base of the dry stub they 
 built their fire, a wee, sociable little fire 
 such as an Indian always builds, which is 
 far better than a big one, for it draws you 
 near and welcomes you cheerily, instead of 
 driving you away by its smoke and great 
 heat. Soon the big stub itself began to burn, 
 glowing steadily with a heat that filled the 
 snug little commoosie, while the smoke found 
 its way out of the hole in the roof which 
 Noel had left for that purpose. Later the 
 stub burned through to its hollow center, 
 and then they had a famous chimney, which 
 soon grew hot and glowing inside, and added 
 its mite to the children's comfort. 
 
 Noel and Mooka were drowsy now; but 
 before the long night closed in upon them 
 they had gathered more wood, and laid aside 
 
 155 
 
 Tw/IsffiatCmss 
 wow
 
 some wisps of birch bark to use when they 
 should wake, cold and shivering, and find 
 their little fire gone out and the big stub 
 losing its cheery glow. Then they lay down 
 to rest, and the night and the storm rolled 
 on unheeded. 
 
 Towards morning they fell into a heavy 
 sleep ; for the big stub began to burn more 
 freely as the wind changed, and they need 
 not stir every half-hour to feed their little 
 fire and keep from freezing. It was broad 
 j daylight, the storm had ceased, and a wood- 
 j pecker was hammering loudly on a hollow 
 shell over their heads when they started up, 
 , wondering vaguely where they were. Then 
 while Noel broke out of the commoosie, which 
 was fairly buried under the snow, to find out 
 where he was, Mooka rebuilt the fire and 
 plucked a ptarmigan and set it to toasting 
 with the last of their bread over the coals. 
 
 Noel came back soon with a cheery whoop 
 to tell the little cook that they had drifted 
 before the storm down the whole length of 
 the great barren, and were camped now on 
 the opposite side, just under the highest ridge
 
 of the Top Gallants. There was not a track 
 on the barrens, he said; not a sign of wolf or 
 caribou, which had probably wandered deeper 
 into the woods for shelter. So they ate their 
 bread to the last crumb and their bird to the 
 last bone, and, giving up all thought of hunt- 
 ing, started up the big barren, heading for 
 the distant lodge, where they had long since 
 been given up for lost. 
 
 They had crossed the barren and a mile of 
 thick woods beyond when they ran into the 
 fresh trail of a dozen caribou. Following it 
 swiftly they came to the edge of a much 
 smaller barren that they had crossed yes- 
 terday, and saw at a glance that the trail 
 stretched straight across it. Not a caribou 
 was in sight; but they might nevertheless 
 be feeding, or resting in the woods just 
 beyond; and for the little hunters to show 
 themselves now in the open would mean 
 that they would become instantly the target 
 for every keen eye that was watching the 
 back trail. So they started warily to circle 
 the barren, keeping just within the fringe of 
 woods out of sight.
 
 They had gone scarcely a hundred steps 
 when Noel whipped out a long arrow and 
 pointed silently across the open. From the 
 woods on the other side the caribou had 
 broken out of a dozen tunnels under the 
 spruces, and came trotting back in their old 
 trails, straight down-wind to where the little 
 hunters were hiding. 
 
 The deer were acting queerly, now plun- 
 ging away with the high, awkward jumps 
 that caribou use when startled ; now swing- 
 ing off on their swift, tireless rack, and before 
 they had settled to their stride halting sud- 
 denly to look back and wag their ears at the 
 trail. For Megaleep is full of curiosity as a 
 wild turkey, and always stops to get a little 
 entertainment out of every new thing that 
 does not threaten him with instant death. 
 Then out of the woods behind them trotted 
 five white wolves, not hunting, certainly! 
 for whenever the caribou stopped to look the 
 wolves sat down on their tails and yawned. 
 One lay down and rolled over and over in 
 the soft snow; another chased and capered 
 after his own brush,
 
 whirling round and round like a little whirl- 
 
 159 
 
 wind, and the shrill ki-yiol a cub wolf playing 
 
 came faintly across the barren. 7/V//smt &05S 
 
 It was a strange scene, yet one often wit-. 
 nessed on the lonely plains of the far North : 
 the caribou halting, running away, and halt- 
 ing again to look back and watch the queer 
 antics of their big enemies, which seemed 
 now so playful and harmless; the cunning 
 wolves playing on the game's curiosity at 
 every turn, knowing well that if once fright- 
 ened the deer would break away at a pace 
 which would make pursuit hopeless. So they 
 followed rather than drove the foolish deer 
 across the barren, holding them with monkey 
 tricks and kitten's capers, and restraining 
 with an iron grip their own fearful hunger 
 and the blind impulse to rush in headlong 
 and have it all quickly over. 
 
 Kneeling behind a big spruce, Noel was 
 trying nervously the spring and temper of 
 his long bow, divided in desire between the 
 caribou, \vhich they needed sadly at home, 
 and one of the great wolves whose death 
 would give him a place among the mighty
 
 i6o 
 
 hunters, when Mooka clutched his arm, her 
 eyes snapping with excitement, her finger 
 P omtin g silently back on their own trail. A 
 vague shadow glided swiftly among the trees. 
 An enormous white wolf appeared, vanished, 
 came near them again, and crouched down 
 under a low spruce branch waiting. 
 
 Again the two trails had crossed in the 
 snow. The big wolf as he appeared had 
 thrust his nose into the snow-shoe tracks, 
 and a sniff or two told him everything, 
 who had passed, and how long ago, and 
 what they were doing, and how far ahead 
 they were now waiting. But the caribou 
 were coming, coaxed along marvelously by 
 the cubs and the old mother; and the great 
 silent wolf, that had left the pack playing 
 with the game while he circled the barren 
 at top speed, now turned to the business 
 in hand with no thought nor fear of harm 
 from the two children whom he had watched 
 but yesterday. 
 
 Not so Noel. The fire blazed out in his 
 eyes ; the long bow swung to the wolf, bend- 
 ing like a steel spring, and the feathered
 
 shaft of an arrow lay close against the boy's 
 cheek. But Mooka caught his arm 
 
 " Look, Noel, his ear ! Malsunsis, my lit- 
 tle wolf cub," she breathed excitedly. And 
 Noel, with a great wonder in his eyes, slacked 
 his bow, while his thoughts jumped far away 
 to the den on the mountains where the trail 
 began, and to three little cubs playing like 
 kittens with the grasshoppers and the cloud 
 shadows ; for the great wolf that lay so still 
 near them, his eyes fixed in a steady glow 
 upon the coming caribou, had one ear bent 
 sharply forward, like a leaf that has been 
 creased between the fingers. 
 
 Again Mooka broke the tense silence in 
 a low whisper. " How many wolf trails you 
 see yesterday, little brother ? " 
 
 "Seven," said Noel, whose eyes already 
 had the cunning of Old Tomah's to under- 
 stand everything. 
 
 " Then where tother wolf ? Only six here," 
 breathed Mooka, looking timidly all around, 
 fearing to find the steady glare of green 
 eyes fixed upon them from the shadow of 
 every thicket.
 
 162 
 
 Tffii/sI&atQvss 
 
 Noel stirred uneasily. Somewhere close at 
 hand another huge wolf was waiting; and a 
 wholesome fear fell upon him, with a shiver 
 at the thought of how near he had come in 
 his excitement to bringing the whole savage 
 pack snarling about his ears. 
 
 A snort of alarm cut short his thinking. 
 There at the edge of the wood, not twenty 
 feet away, stood a caribou, pointing his ears 
 at the children whom he had almost stumbled 
 over as he ran, thinking only of the wolves 
 behind. The long bow sprang back of itself ; 
 an arrow buzzed like a wasp and buried it- 
 self deep in the white chest. Like a flash a 
 second arrow followed as the stag turned 
 away, and with a jump or two he sank to 
 his knees, as if to rest awhile in the snow. 
 
 But Mooka scarcely saw these things. 
 Her eyes were fastened on the great white 
 wolf which she had claimed for her own 
 when he was a toddling cub. He lay still 
 as a stone under the tip of a bending 
 spruce branch, his eyes following every 
 motion of a young bull caribou which three 
 of the wolves had singled out of the herd
 
 " A quick snap where the 
 heart lay "
 
 and were now guiding surely straight to 
 his hiding-place. 
 
 The snort and plunge of the smitten ani- 
 mal startled this young stag and he turned 
 aside from his course. Like a shadow the big 
 wolf that Mooka was watching changed his 
 place so as to head the game, while two of 
 the pack on the open barrens slipped around 
 the caribou and turned him back again to the 
 woods. At the edge of the cover the stag 
 stopped for a last look, pointing his ears first 
 at Noel's caribou, which now lay very still in 
 the snow, then at the wolves, which with quick 
 instinct had singled him out of the herd, know- 
 ing in some subtle way he was watched from 
 beyond, and which gathered about him in a 
 circle, sitting on their tails and yawning. 
 Slowly, silently Mooka's wolf crept forward, 
 pushing his great body through the snow. 
 A terrific rush, a quick snap under the stag's 
 chest just behind the fore legs, where the 
 heart lay ; then the big wolf leaped aside and 
 sat down quietly again to watch. 
 
 It was soon finished. The stag plunged 
 away, settled into his long rack, slowed down
 
 to a swaying, weakening trot. After him at 
 a distance glided the big wolf, lapping eagerly 
 at the crimson trail, but holding himself with 
 tremendous will power from rushing in head- 
 long and driving the game, which might 
 run for miles if too hard pressed. The stag 
 sank to his knees ; a sharp yelp rang like a 
 pistol-shot through the still woods ; then the 
 pack rolled in like a whirlwind, and it was 
 all over. 
 
 Creeping near on the trail the little hunters 
 crouched under a low spruce, watching as if 
 fascinated the wild feast of the wolves. Noel's 
 bow was ready in his hand; but luckily the 
 sight of these huge, powerful brutes over- 
 whelmed him and drove all thoughts of kill- 
 ing out of his head. Mooka plucked him by 
 the sleeve at last, and pointed silently home- 
 wards. It was surely time to go, for the big- 
 gest wolf had already stretched himself and 
 was licking his paws, while the two cubs 
 with full stomachs were rolling over and over 
 and biting each other playfully in the snow. 
 Silently they stole away, stopping only to 
 tie a rag to a pointed stick, which they
 
 thrust between their own caribou's ribs to 
 make the wolves suspicious and keep them 
 from tearing the game and eating the tidbits 
 while the little hunters hurried away to bring 
 the men with their guns and dog sledges. 
 
 They had almost crossed the second bar- 
 ren when Mooka, looking back uneasily from 
 the edge of the woods, saw a single big wolf 
 emerge across the barren and follow swiftly 
 on their trail. Startled at the sight, they 
 turned swiftly to run; for that terrible feel- 
 ing which sweeps over a hunter, when for 
 the first time he finds himself hunted in 
 his turn, had clutched their little hearts and 
 crushed all their confidence. A sudden panic 
 seized them; they rushed away for the woods, 
 running side by side till they broke into the 
 fringe of evergreen that surrounded the bar- 
 ren. There they dropped breathless under a 
 low fir and turned to look. 
 
 "It was wrong to run, little 
 brother," whispered Mooka. 
 
 "Why?" said Noel. 
 
 " Cause Wayeeses see it, and think 
 'fraid." 
 
 167 
 
 ffi/IsffiatCross 
 /nff&JSnow
 
 " But I was 'fraid out there, little sister," 
 confessed Noel bravely. " Here we can climb 
 tree ; good chance shoot um with my arrows." 
 
 Like two frightened rabbits they crouched 
 under the fir, staring back with wild round 
 eyes over the trail, fearing every instant to 
 see the savage pack break out of the woods 
 and come howling after them. But only the 
 single big wolf appeared, trotting quietly 
 along in their footsteps. Within bowshot he 
 stopped with head raised, looking, listening 
 intently. Then, as if he had seen them in 
 their hiding, he turned aside, circled widely 
 to the left, and entered the woods far below. 
 
 Again the two little hunters hurried on 
 through the silent, snow-filled woods, a 
 strange disquietude settling upon them as 
 they felt they were followed by unseen feet. 
 Soon the feeling grew too strong to resist. 
 Noel with his bow ready, and a strange chill 
 trickling like cold water along his spine, was 
 hiding behind a tree watching the back trail, 
 when a low exclamation from Mooka made 
 him turn. There behind them, not ten steps 
 away, a huge white wolf was sitting quietly
 
 on his tail, watching them with absorbed, 
 silent intentness. 
 
 Fear and wonder, and swift memories of 
 Old Tomah and the wolf that had followed 
 him when he was lost, swept over Noel in a 
 flood. He rose swiftly, the long bow bent, 
 and again a deadly arrow cuddled softly 
 against his cheek; but there were doubts 
 and fears in his eye till Mooka caught his 
 arm with a glad little laugh 
 
 " My cub, little brother. See his ear, and 
 oh, his tail ! Watch urn tail, little brother." 
 For at the first move the big wolf sprang 
 alertly to his feet, looked deep into Mooka's 
 eyes with that intense, penetrating light 
 which serves a wild animal to read your 
 very thoughts, and instantly his great bushy 
 tail was waving its friendly greeting. 
 
 It was indeed Malsunsis, the cub. Before 
 the great storm broke he had crouched with 
 the pack in the hollow just in front of the 
 little hunters ; and although the wolves were 
 hungry, it was with feelings of curiosity only 
 that they watched the children, who seemed 
 to the powerful brutes hardly more to be 
 
 169 
 
 7iv//sffiat Cross 
 
 wow
 
 feared than a couple of snowbirds hopping 
 across the vast barren. But they were chil- 
 dren of men that was enough for the white- 
 wolf packs, which for untold years had never 
 been known to molest a man. This morn- 
 ing Malsunsis had again crossed their trail. 
 He had seen them lying in wait for the cari- 
 bou that his own pack were driving; had 
 seen Noel smite the bull, and was filled with 
 wonder; but his own business kept him still 
 in hiding. Now, well fed and good-natured, 
 but more curious than ever, he had followed 
 the trail of these little folk to learn some- 
 thing about them. 
 
 Mooka as she watched him was brim full 
 of an eagerness which swept away all fear. 
 " Tomah says, wolf and Injun hunt just 
 alike ; keep ver' still ; don't trouble game 
 'cept when he hungry," she whispered. " Says 
 too, Keesuolukh made us friends 'fore white 
 man come, spoil um everything. Das what 
 Malsunsis say now wid hees tail and eyes; 
 only way he can talk um, little brother. No, 
 no" for Noel's bow was still strongly bent, 
 "you must not shoot. Malsunsis think
 
 we friends." And trusting her own brave 
 little heart she stepped in front of the deadly 
 arrow and walked straight to the big wolf, 
 which moved aside timidly and sat down 
 again at a distance, with the friendly expres- 
 sion of a lost collie in eyes and ears and 
 wagging tail tip. 
 
 Cheerfully enough Noel slacked his long 
 bow, for the wonder of the woods was strong 
 upon him, and the hunting-spirit, which leads 
 one forth to frighten and kill and to break 
 the blessed peace, had vanished in the better 
 sense of comradeship which steals over one 
 when he watches the Wood Folk alone and 
 friendly in the midst of the solitudes. As 
 they went on their way again the big wolf 
 trotted after them, keeping close to their 
 trail but never crossing it, and occasion- 
 ally ranging up alongside, as if to keep 
 them in the right way. Where the woods 
 were thickest Noel, with no trail to guide 
 him, swung uncertainly to left and right, 
 peering through the trees for some land- 
 mark on the distant hills. Twice the big 
 wolf trotted out to one side, returned and
 
 trotted out again in the same direction ; and 
 Noel, taking the subtle hint, as an Indian 
 always does, bore steadily to the right till 
 the great ridge, beyond which the Lodge 
 was hidden, loomed over the tree-tops. And 
 to this day he believes and it is impossi- 
 ble, for I have tried, to dissuade him that 
 the wolf knew where they were going and 
 tried in his own way to show them. 
 
 So they climbed the long ridge to the 
 summit, and from the deep valley beyond 
 the smoke of the Lodge rose up to guide 
 them. There the wolf stopped; and though 
 Noel whistled and Mooka called cheerily, as 
 they would to one of their own huskies that 
 they had learned to love, Malsunsis would 
 go no farther. He sat there on the ridge, 
 his tail sweeping a circle in the snow behind 
 him, his ears cocked to the friendly call and 
 his eyes following every step of the little 
 hunters, till they vanished in the woods 
 below. Then he turned to follow his own 
 way in the wilderness.
 
 
 IN QUEST? 
 
 VAST and lonely barren, covered 
 deep with soft-colored mosses and 
 surrounded by gloomy spruce woods, lies 
 basking in the early morning sunshine. The 
 first sea-wind has just come to call it, swing- 
 ing a fragrant censer over the earth and 
 rolling up the mists that have covered it 
 all night long. Under this fleecy, vanishing 
 coverlet the plain seems to stir and breathe 
 deep of the morning incense and then stretch 
 itself drowsily, like a gray wolf just awake. 
 Here and there little ponds or flashets of ^ 
 shallow water blink and quiver in the light 
 '75
 
 like sleepy eyes, or rest in soft winding 
 shadows like the features and wrinkles of a 
 
 great W eather-beaten face. Silence broods 
 ^ rVajp/ (///it Qver -^ Baking visible shape in the form of 
 a solitary woods raven that hangs motion- 
 less high in air on sable outstretched wings. 
 No sign of life moves on the tranquil face 
 of the earth or water; no sound breaks the 
 restful stillness save the cheeping of young 
 plover hiding in the gray moss, and a low 
 surge, like a sound in a dream, drifting in 
 over distant woods from where the waves 
 break ranks on the unnamed shoals. And 
 here unexpectedly, as good things come 
 at last was the end of my long quest to 
 find the home of Waptonk the wild goose. 
 
 Ever since childhood I had sought him. 
 In the spring he had always called to me 
 from the high heavens; and something in 
 the ring of his bugle-call, something in the 
 sight of that living arrow-head driving stead- 
 ily northward, as if the heavens that bounded 
 me could not contain so free a spirit, and 
 something perhaps in the impulse of his wild 
 heart which called him far away from the
 
 fields of men, and which found an answer in 
 
 the heart of the boy who watched him till _ ^ 
 
 he vanished in the blue, and who had to f J$L^ 
 
 stay on the farm while his soul was away to ]M/'M Y~- 
 
 the wilderness, all these sights and sounds 
 
 and unknown longings had bound me fast 
 
 to Waptonk the Wild, and made me resolve 
 
 some day to follow him and find out what it 
 
 was that called him northward when brooks 
 
 were free and big woods budding and the 
 
 spring impulse was in the heart of all living 
 
 things. 
 
 Later Waptonk had called to me again 
 from the same heavens ; but now the arrow- 
 head pointed southward, and the flight was 
 altogether different. The lines of the wedge 
 wavered and were often broken ; it held closer 
 to earth and was less certain in its magnifi- 
 cent onward rush ; and the clear full-throated 
 bugle-calls that had thrilled the boy's heart 
 with their springtime clangor gave place to 
 a curious communicative chatter, in which 
 almost every note rose at the end to a fal- 
 setto. Now and then a strong, clear note, 
 deeper and more peremptory, would sound
 
 at the head of the wedge, and instantly the 
 wings would cackle an answer and swing into 
 
 k etter ij ne . b ut tn e cry had lost much of its 
 j oy and utter freedom, as the flight had lost 
 its power and swift certainty. 
 <^>^^ I did not know then, in the autumn days, 
 that these were mostly young birds which had 
 never before followed the long trail ; that at 
 the head of every wedge was one of the old 
 birds, pointing out the headlands by which 
 they shaped their course ; that the flight was 
 less certain because the goslings had not yet 
 reached their full power and must rest by 
 the way; and that the cry was less stirring 
 because spring no longer called them away 
 by its throbbing love life and by the sweet 
 home memories of quiet nesting places in 
 the far Northland. Rather were they driven 
 away from the things they loved; and now 
 the security of the great, free, lonely wilder- 
 ness must give place to constant watchful- 
 ness in a hostile land, where danger lurked 
 and roared out upon them from every point 
 and bay and feeding-ground. No wonder the 
 flight wavered ; no wonder the young voices
 
 rose to falsetto in amazement at the change 
 
 179 
 
 from the quiet little pond, which had been 
 
 all their world, to the vast panorama of seas . " ^ 
 
 and mountains and cities of men spread wide 2^, T . w 5j^*~ 
 
 jj^/ 3 Vl/I/ff<^^" 
 
 beneath their wings. ^T^M^ 
 
 Then in the autumn days the boy, like ., ?^v^ 
 
 . . ^v ^"^^^ 
 
 all the rest of the male population in whom 
 
 something of the old savage lingered under 
 its coat of civilization, felt the hunter stir 
 within him, and saw visions and dreamed 
 dreams when the wild-goose call from the 
 heavens came down to him as a kind of a 
 challenge. When the weather was stormy 
 and the flight was low, the boy would climb 
 stealthily out of the rear window of the barn 
 with the forbidden old musket close to his 
 breast. Keeping the barn between his own 
 line of flight and the kitchen windows, he 
 would head across the brown fields to the 
 woods, holding steadily and swiftly on his 
 way to the little Widow Dunkle's, who kept 
 an old gray goose. Sometimes he begged, 
 sometimes he bribed, and sometimes, when 
 the flight was irresistible and the widow 
 away from home, he simply appropriated
 
 i8o 
 
 In Quesfof 
 
 *- #-+ 
 
 what he wanted with all his heart. There 
 would be a rush among the fowls, squawking 
 and quacking of hens and ducks, and one 
 wild clarion yell from the old graylag goose 
 as she found herself in chancery. Then the 
 boy would scoot and dodge away to the big 
 pond in the woods, with the old musket at 
 trail and the old gray goose gripped tight 
 under his elbow, konk-konking her resent- 
 ment, but sensible enough, as all geese are 
 when you take them right. 
 
 Next scene in the little comedy, a boy 
 hidden in the grass and bushes of a lonely 
 point, scanning the heavens as if at any mo- 
 ment they might open and let wonders fall ; 
 and in front of him an old gray goose, with 
 one foot anchored to a brick, swimming 
 about and tip-tilting her tail to the skies 
 as she splashed and probed the bottom for 
 roots, gabbling to herself like a whole flock 
 of geese in her wonder and delight at her 
 strange surroundings. And when at 
 last the wild geese came, and out 
 of the sky came tumbling down 
 ' the stirring clangor, how the
 
 centuries of domestic servitude fell away from 
 
 the old graylag like a useless garment ! Tug- 
 
 ging at the stupid brick, with outstretched 
 
 neck and quivering wings she recognized her 
 
 own people and sent up a wild cry to call 
 
 them down to share her loneliness perhaps, 
 
 who knows ? to come and take her away with r^ *g ""^ 
 
 them. Then the boy, hugging himself and 
 
 holding his breath and loving the old goose 
 
 supremely for her help, would lie still as a 
 
 stone, only his eyes moving to follow the 
 
 flight of the wild birds and see if they would 
 
 come down to his bidding. 
 
 Generally the wedge kept steadily on, 
 straight and true to its course; but every 
 head was bent to bugle down an answer 
 to the captive. Then the boy's heart was 
 touched in turning away from the high flight 
 to watch his old graylag. Beating her use- 
 less wings, struggling after her kindred as 
 far as the anchor string would allow, she 
 would call and call, and all the wildness of 
 the lonely Northland was in her appealing 
 summons. Long after the clangor had died 
 away to a faint crackle and vanished in
 
 immeasurable distance, she would sit listen- 
 ing with neck upstretched, hearing, and in 
 
 her heart answer ing, the call which had died 
 iP rvajplOJlK awav O n the boy's less sympathetic ears. 
 
 After that there was no more joyous gab- 
 bling from Graylag. She would swim about 
 silently, now pecking angrily at the restrain- 
 ing string, now raising her head to look and 
 listen for her wild kindred, till twilight fell 
 sadly on the pond and she would go home 
 mute and passive under the boy's arm again. 
 
 One stormy day great luck headed towards 
 the boy and made his heart jump at the 
 thought of at last meeting the gray wanderers 
 of the upper air that had so often set his 
 heart a-longing. A great gang of wild geese, 
 flying lower than usual, with the sides of 
 their wedge broken by the sleet and irregu- 
 lar from weariness, passed near the pond on 
 their southern migration. Their faint, con- 
 fused honking roused all the wild longing in 
 the heart of Old Graylag. Something too in 
 their call, which she seemed to understand, 
 made her sure they would come this time, 
 and that she would know at last what the
 
 longing in her old heart meant. As she 
 raised herself on her poor wings and sent 
 out her clamorous appeal, the wild leader 
 stopped, and the long wedge seemed to 
 tumble together in a dense mass of cackle 
 and confusion. Then the leader whirled; 
 above the clamor came the deep honk of 
 authority; the lines formed swiftly, with 
 marvelous precision, and straight up the 
 pond to the boy's hiding-place they came, 
 a glorious big wedge of birds, honking, honk- 
 ing in joy at so good a resting-place, and 
 nearly taking the heart out of Old Graylag 
 as she clamored and tugged at her anchor 
 and beat the water with her wings. 
 
 Then, all by himself, the boy saw a bit 
 of Waptonk's drill school which old goose 
 hunters on the coast have looked for many 
 years in vain. High overhead they came till 
 over the middle of the pond, when the leader 
 whirled sharply to the right. The right-hand 
 side of the wedge whirled after him, while 
 the left wing halted and then turned in 
 behind the leaders in a single long line. 
 Every wing was now set stiffly ; the clangor
 
 suddenly ceased, and down they came, round 
 and around in a beautiful spiral, as if sliding 
 UUeSr Of ^ own on an invisible winding staircase. Fol- 
 lowing the big leader came the long, magnify 
 ^ \y cent line, which swung in a complete curve 
 above him and half around the circle again ; 
 all with set wings and outstretched necks, 
 gliding, wheeling, curving steadily downward 
 in perfect order and perfect silence. 
 
 It was marvelous, the grace, the precision, 
 the impressive silence of the stately proces- 
 sion down the spiral staircase of the winds, 
 and the boy forgot the hunter in his intense 
 wonder and admiration. One by one the 
 great birds dropped their black webbed feet 
 and slid gently along just over the surface 
 for a brief moment, and then dropped with 
 a quiet, restful splash into the water. An 
 instant later they had swung together and a 
 low, eager chatter began among them. 
 
 Now Old Graylag alone had been unim- 
 pressed by the wonderful descent, for other 
 things were stirring wildly in her lonely 
 heart. All the while they were coming 
 down, so silent and stately, she kept up an
 
 ' When he winds down the invisible staircase 
 of the winds "
 
 hysterical cackle, with a wild beating of pin- ~ 
 ions and a frantic tugging at the anchor 
 as she strove mightily to join her kindred. 
 As they swung together with necks up sus- 
 piciously for no wild water-fowl likes any 
 welcome or demonstration beyond the uni- 
 versal uplifting of wings she ceased her 
 wild struggle and called softly. Instantly the 
 leader answered and the whole flock drew in 
 steadily towards the shore. 
 
 Behind the rough screen of grass and 
 bushes the boy's heart began to beat loudly 
 as he clutched his long musket. The hunter 
 was wide-awake again, and here were the 
 geese great splendid birds that never be- 
 fore were nearer than the heavens almost 
 within gunshot, drawing steadily nearer and 
 calling as they came on. In front of him 
 the old gray goose, full of a nameless excite- 
 ment, jabbered back at the flock and swung 
 rapidly in small circles about her anchor. 
 Her excitement increased ; the flock halted, 
 wavered, veered aside ; then the heart of 
 the old goose went after them in a wild 
 honk! with a break in it like the fall of
 
 a tin pan. A tug, a plunge, a flurry of 
 wings ; the anchor string snapped and away 
 
 she went> k a if flyi^ half running over the 
 W ater, and plunged in among the wild birds 
 ^ ? in a smother of spray. In an instant she was 
 swallowed up in a dense circle of gray backs 
 and slender black necks with white cheek 
 patches, and the whole flock drew swiftly 
 away into open water, cackling and jabber- 
 ing softly, with the nasal konk-a-konk of Old 
 Graylag sounding incessantly above the 
 hushed chatter of her wild kindred. 
 
 Late that day, after waiting long, cold 
 hours in the vain hope that they would come 
 near my hiding-place, I pushed out sadly in 
 a leaky old tub of a boat to catch the Widow 
 Dunkle's goose. The flock took alarm while 
 I was yet far away; slanted heavily up-wind 
 to the tree-tops, where with much calling 
 and answering the young birds fell into line, 
 and the wedge bore away swiftly seaward. 
 After them went Old Graylag heartbroken, 
 beating her heavy way over the water, call- 
 ing and calling again to the flock that had 
 now become only a
 
 confused tangle of wild voices over the tree- 
 tops. Straight to the shore she went, and 
 across a little wild meadow, still follow- 
 ing the flock. When I caught her she was 
 waddling bravely through the woods, stop- 
 ping anon to call and listen; but she made 
 no resistance when I tucked her under my Y^ ~r -^ 
 elbow and carried her home and slipped her, 
 unobserved in the darkness, into her accus- 
 tomed place in the Widow Dunkle's duck 
 coop. 
 
 That was the nearest I ever came, in boy- 
 hood days, to a close acquaintance with 
 Waptonk the Wild ; but always in the fall 
 his voice roused the hunter as no other sound 
 ever did ; and always in the spring his clang- 
 ing jubilate aroused the longing in the boy's 
 heart to follow after him and find out what 
 it was in the wild, lonely North that called 
 him. Later, as a hunter, I grew acquainted 
 with many of his winter ways, watched him 
 feeding on the shoals or standing for sleep 
 on the lonely sand bars, and thrilled to the 
 rustling sweep of his broad wings as he 
 swung in over my decoys.
 
 The trained geese which were often used 
 190 
 
 descendants of sundry wing-tipped or 
 
 wounded birds that had been saved to breed 
 in ca ptivity were very different from Old 
 
 Gra y la s- When the honk of wild s eese was 
 
 heard and the long wedge wavered over the 
 pond, these trained birds would be loosed to 
 circle far out from shore and with wild 
 clamor call down their wilder kinsfolk. Then 
 slowly, cautiously, as if they knew well the 
 treacherous work they were doing, they 
 would lead the w r ild birds in towards the 
 blind till within range of the hidden gunners, 
 when they would scatter suddenly and rush 
 aside to get out of the way ; and the decoyed 
 and wondering geese would be left open to 
 the murderous fire of the concealed hunters. 
 An evil work, it seemed to me, in which I 
 am glad to remember I took no part be- 
 yond that of watching with intense interest, 
 and wondering at the cunning patience with 
 which the old pot-hunter had trained his 
 wild confederates. 
 
 Watching these trained decoys one day, 
 it was hard to realize that the birds were but
 
 yesterday the wildest and wariest of all the 
 feathered folk. Then the startling paradox 
 occurred to me that the very wildest of the '** ^ UGS ^Sf 
 creatures are the easiest to tame by man and ' sL^s 
 
 the quickest to adopt his ways. The spar- 
 rows that live about our houses all their days 
 have little fear of men; but at the first 
 attempt to catch them they are suspicious 
 for life, and to domesticate them would be 
 an impossibility. So with the ruffed grouse, 
 a very tame bird in his native wilderness, 
 that barely moves aside to let men pass ; g? 
 yet all attempts to domesticate him or <?;' 
 to make him content with safe quarters 
 and abundant fare have been, with a few v , 
 rare exceptions, unaccountable failures. * 
 He lets you come near and watch him 
 readily enough; but the moment you 
 put him in your coop the very 
 spirit of wildness takes posses- v 
 sion of him, and he dies in the * 
 attempt to regain his freedom. 
 The wild goose, on the other 
 hand, the wariest and 
 wildest of birds when
 
 192 
 
 In Quest of 
 
 he comes among us in his migrations, giving 
 wide berth to everything that has the least 
 semblance to man or man's invention, and 
 never letting you get within rifle-shot if his 
 wary sentinels can detect your approach, will 
 feed from your hand after he has been a few 
 hours in your coop ; and his descendants will 
 take a permanent and contented place in your 
 barn-yard. In the spring, when the migra- 
 tory fever stirs within him, he will answer 
 the clarion call of his fellows in the sky and 
 spread wide his wings to join them; but 
 that passes speedily, and he turns back to 
 your dooryard and seems content even with 
 the clipped wing which keeps him there 
 while his brothers and kinsfolk fade away 
 in the cold blue distance. Cases have been 
 known in which a wounded goose, having 
 been kept all winter, has flown away with a 
 passing flock into the unknown North dur- 
 ing the spring migration, and returned 
 the next fall to the same barn-yard, 
 bringing her brood with her. And 
 so with the turkeys that range our 
 fields ; they are descendants of birds
 
 that but yesterday were ranging the woods 
 
 as wild and unapproachable as wilderness _ 
 
 The first great lesson I learned in the 
 years of following the wild goose as a hun- 
 ter was one of tremendous respect for his 
 wariness and intelligence. To call a person 
 a goose would be an exaggerated compli- 
 ment, or a bit of pure flattery, if one but 
 understood what he was saying. Wherever 
 he feeds in the open, Waptonk has his senti- 
 nels posted on the highest point of observa- 
 tion wise old birds that know their business 
 and it is next to impossible to approach 
 a flock without being detected. Once it was 
 enough to lead a cow slowly towards where 
 the birds were feeding on the stubble and 
 keep yourself hidden on the farther side of 
 the grazing animal ; but now Waptonk looks 
 keenly under every cow to see if she have 
 an extra pair of legs or no, and so other de- 
 vices must be invented, only to be quickly 
 fathomed by Waptonk's nimble wit, and then 
 cast aside with the others as useless things. 
 On the coast he still listens to the voice of
 
 his kind and comes to the trained decoys; 
 and on the prairies a deep pit with wounded 
 
 to stakes all about it and honking 
 their fellows will sometimes bring him 
 rc ^ IIU near enough for a quick shot. But these 
 unfair advantages are in themselves a con- 
 fession of man's failure; since by his own 
 wit and aided by modern firearms he is 
 no longer able to contend with the wit of a 
 goose. 
 
 Elsewhere, especially in the great wheat- 
 fields of the Southwest, there is a humorous 
 confession of man's impotence and Wap- 
 tonk's superiority in the queer "goose cav- 
 alry," horsemen that go shooting and 
 shouting about to frighten away from the 
 growing wheat the thronging thousands of 
 wild geese that cannot be circumvented or 
 destroyed. And the most ridiculous thing 
 in the whole proceeding is that the goose 
 cavalryman must fume and fret under the 
 thought that the exasperating birds under- 
 stand him perfectly. They feed and gabble 
 away serenely, paying no more serious heed 
 to him than to any other scarecrow, until
 
 just before he gallops up, or foolishly tries to 
 creep within range behind his horse, when 
 the sentinel gives the alarm and the whole 
 flock takes wing and settles down comfort- 
 ably to feed in another part of the same 
 wheat-field. 
 
 All this is the more remarkable in view of 
 the fact that this marvelous shrewdness with 
 which Waptonk evades the best inventions 
 of men, far from being a matter of instinct, 
 is imparted to him on the spot by his wise 
 old leaders. For untold generations he has 
 been born and bred in the waste places of 
 the North, where he sees no man and where 
 his life is singularly care-free and fearless. 
 When he starts southward for the first time, 
 full-grown and strong of wing, he knows 
 absolutely nothing of the world of men. 
 Left to himself and his own instincts he 
 would speedily tumble into the first cunning 
 pitfall, as his ancestors did when they met 
 for the first time the 
 
 195 
 
 InQuesfof
 
 white man and his devices. Then old and 
 
 igO 
 
 young alike had little fear of man, as 
 QlieSI Of ave jj ttle now in their wild nort h ern 
 
 home, and met him with only the ordi- 
 nar y ^id creature's watchfulness; but in a 
 few seasons they learned better, and now the 
 chief concern of the old birds on the south- 
 ern migration is to keep the young well 
 away from things that are dangerous. For- 
 tunately for the young goose, his parents 
 always lead the flock of which he is a part; 
 and from them and from the old leaders, 
 trained in the school of long experience, he 
 speedily learns to shift for himself and to 
 make his own way in a world of wits. 
 
 All these and many more things the boy 
 learned as he followed Waptonk with the 
 hunters ; but still his chief question remained 
 unanswered. From books and baymen alike, 
 from explorers and the shrewd pld pot-hunter 
 of the Middleboro' ponds, he heard always 
 the same story: how the honking wedge 
 might be called down to decoys, and how 
 the wary birds might be tolled or trapped or 
 outwitted and killed; but what Waptonk
 
 197 
 
 JnQuesfof 
 
 was as a living creature, what thoughts were 
 in his head and what feelings in his heart 
 when he was far from men, in his own home 
 where he could be himself, that problem 
 nobody answered. Something to be killed, u^y^ 
 rather than a living thing to be known and 23^ 
 understood, was what met the boy at every 
 turn and hushed his questions. And always 
 in the spring, when the wild call of the wide 
 voyagers floated down from the blue heavens, 
 and the boy's eyes followed eagerly the rush 
 of the great living wedge sweeping north- 
 ward to love and liberty, something new 
 and strange, yet familiar as the spring or 
 the sunrise, stirred and awoke in the boy's 
 heart and made him long to follow. 
 
 That is no strange experience, I think. 
 
 Something stirs in the hearts of most ^_ ^ 
 
 men, and sweeps the years away and '".- .-vv; 
 
 makes them boys again, with the 
 
 impulse to wander and to do 
 
 splendid things far away, when 
 
 the first jubilant trumpet clangor 
 
 of the wild goose comes down to 
 
 them in the spring twilight.
 
 It was no surprise, therefore, but only the 
 fulfilment of many years of quiet expectancy, 
 JlJUUCSi UI w | ien j cre pt out of the low spruces away up 
 * W&pIOJiK. - n t ] ie northern peninsula of Newfoundland, 
 and found the end of my long quest. A sub- 
 dued chatter of wild voices had called to me 
 softly above the steady murmur of the river 
 as I stole through the woods to the salmon 
 pool in the early June morning. Following 
 the sounds, which seemed very near at first, 
 but which faded away like a will-o'-the-wisp 
 when I tried to find them, they led me away 
 from the river and out of the big woods to 
 where an unknown barren lay just awake 
 under the sunrise, greeting the intruder with 
 the silent, questioning look of the wilderness. 
 And there, close at hand in a little flashet, 
 was Waptonk the Wild, waiting quietly as 
 if he had always expected me. 
 
 Still and secret as my approach had been, 
 with that curious unconscious effort to efface 
 himself that marks the going of a man or 
 an animal alone in the great wilderness, 
 Waptonk had been watching me for some 
 moments before I saw him. He was resting
 
 quietly in the middle of the flashet, a splen- 
 did big gander, with soft gray body that 
 almost lost its outlines against the gray shore, 
 and glossy black neck standing straight up 
 from the water, and a pure white cravat 
 rising on either side to his cheeks, like the 
 immaculate "choker" of the old-fashioned 
 New England minister. All the wildness 
 and wariness seemed to have fallen away 
 from him, as a man drops a useless garment 
 when he enters his own home. He looked at 
 me steadily, quietly, without fear ; with a cer- 
 tain sense of dignity in every strong, grace- 
 ful line of his body, and with an unmistakable 
 sense of his responsibility in guarding that 
 which was hidden away somewhere on the 
 farther shore. My first wondering impression 
 was, Can this be the same bird that I have 
 followed so long in vain, whose name, in the 
 expression " a wild-goose chase," is a symbol 
 for all that is hopeless and inapproachable ? 
 There he sat, quiet, self-contained, without a 
 tremor of fear or curiosity, and "with no inten- 
 tion, so far as my eyes could discover, 
 either to approach or to fly away. 
 
 199 
 
 In Quest of 
 
 as?
 
 I drew near quietly and sat down on the 
 snore > while Waptonk swung easily back and 
 
 f rth n a Sh rt beat in fr nt f me ' As the 
 ffr * /~jj minutes passed and I made no hostile sound 
 
 or movement, the short patrol increased its 
 swing till it covered an irregular half circle 
 whose center was a point on the farther shore ; 
 and I knew then where I should find his nest 
 and gray mate. Presently he began to talk, 
 a curious low gabble. Out of the grass 
 and moss on the point rose a head and long 
 dark neck to look at me steadily. Near it 
 were low cheepings and whistlings, where 
 the goslings had been hiding in silence till 
 the danger passed by. 
 
 I rose at this, having found his secret, and 
 made my way round the pond, with immense 
 caution because of the quaking bogs and bot- 
 tomless black mud that lurked under my feet 
 at every step. Waptonk stopped his patrol to 
 watch me a moment, then followed closely, 
 keeping just abreast of me as I made my slow 
 way along the treacherous shore. When I 
 doubled the end of the little pond and drew 
 near to where his nestlings were hidden,
 
 2OI 
 
 InQuesfof 
 
 Waptonk turned to the shore and hurried to 
 his mate ahead of me. A moment he stood 
 over her reassuringly, bending to intertwine 
 his neck with hers and to rub his cheek softly * /'M^t-^- 
 over her wings with a gesture that could mean ^^r^^^^ ' 
 only a caress. His head bent lower still to c3^ 
 touch for an instant the goslings that were 
 hiding in the moss ; then he left them abruptly 
 and rushed to where I was standing watch- 
 ing the amazing scene, and drew up defiantly, 
 squarely across my path. 
 
 An involuntary thrill of admiration ran 
 over me as I looked down at him standing 
 there so strong and confident, ready to de- 
 fend his own. " You splendid fellow ; you 
 brave knight, if ever there was one among 
 the feathered folk ! " I kept saying to myself. 
 But I wanted to test him farther, and espe- 
 cially I wanted to see all that was hidden 
 in the gray moss ; so I 
 started forward again 
 cautiously. 
 
 At the first step a fr^ , 
 lightning transforma- \\ 
 tion swept over 
 
 u 
 
 I
 
 Waptonk. Big as he was, he ruffled all his 
 
 feathers and half spread his great wings till 
 ~>^x<~ he looked twice his own size, and formidable 
 
 enou g n t scare any prowler. Another step ; 
 then his eyes flashed, and lowering his head 
 and black neck close to the ground he rushed 
 straight at me, hissing like forty snakes, and 
 with a gasping, terrifying cackle in his throat, 
 as if his rage were choking him. 
 
 It was magnificent, this swift change from 
 quiet dignity to raging defiance of an enemy 
 ten times his size. The fierce hissing got 
 into my nerves, spite of myself, and made me 
 wonder if any wild animal, living constantly, 
 as animals do, on the thin edge of flight and 
 panic, could stand up against the terrifying 
 sound for a moment. I remembered the time 
 when, as a little boy, I had been soundly 
 drubbed and beaten out of the barn-yard by 
 an irate old gander, and watched now the 
 great wings with a lively memory of what 
 blows they could deal. Like a man caught 
 in a fault, I had absolutely no defense; for 
 Waptonk was on his own ground, and I had 
 no business whatever in meddling with his
 
 " He rushed straight 
 at me "
 
 affairs. To throw myself upon* him, there- 
 fore, and by brute force to overcome the 
 noble fellow defending his little ones, was 'f* f J*L- 
 out of the question; as plainly impossible * 
 as to rob a bird's nest or to beat a child. 
 But suppose Noel, my big Indian, should 
 chance that way on his perpetual quest for T^ * 
 new beaver ground? I could see the queer 
 squint in his eye and the grin on his wrin- 
 kled face as he watched me hopping over 
 the bogs, with the old gander nipping at my 
 heels and spanking me with his broad wings 
 as he chased me gloriously out of his baili- 
 wick. That was too much, even for the sake 
 of encouraging Waptonk as he deserved ; so 
 instead of running away I sank down quietly 
 in the moss, waiting half humorously to take 
 my medicine and fully expecting to get it 
 "good and plenty." 
 
 Quite near me he stopped, his head down 
 close to the ground, his tongue bent up like 
 a spring into the roof of his mouth, hissing 
 vigorously and watching me keenly out of 
 his bright eyes to see the effect of his dem- 
 onstration. It flashed upon me instantly why
 
 206 
 
 InQuesfof 
 
 he bristled his feathers and raised his wings, 
 while he carried his neck and head down 
 close to the ground, like a big snake. The 
 wings, his only weapons, were half raised for 
 a blow; but the fierce-hissing yet harmless 
 head would surely hold the attention of any 
 attacking animal just as an owl snaps his 
 beak to frighten you and keep your eyes 
 away from his dangerous claws until he gets 
 them into you unexpectedly. Any wild ani- 
 mal, if he were brave enough to attack, would 
 naturally avoid the snakelike hissing and leap 
 over it for the larger body, only to be met by 
 a stinging blow in the face from the power- 
 ful wings. If the delicate neck were carried 
 high, any animal would naturally leap for it, 
 and Waptonk's fight would be over almost 
 before he could strike a blow. As it is, Wap- 
 tonk carries his most vulnerable point as close 
 to the ground as possible, as a ship carries 
 her magazine below the water-line, and by 
 scaring an animal with his snakelike hiss he 
 gets a fair chance to use his weapons, and so 
 i takes care of himself splen- 
 didly against all prowlers. 
 
 t'K
 
 Waptonk was evidently amazed at my quiet. 
 Having expected either fight or flight, he was 
 thrown off his balance and hardly knew how &* QUCSf Of 
 to meet the emergency. I fancied I could see 
 it all in his eyes as he looked at me steadily. 
 A moment or two he kept his defensive atti- 
 tude, till the hissing gradually died away. 
 He raised himself suddenly and threshed his 
 great wings in my face. I could feel the 
 strong wind of them on my cheek and meas- 
 ure the nervous muscular beat under his 
 feathers as he tried their power. Then he 
 put his head down to the ground and hissed 
 again, daring me to come on. 
 
 Ten yards behind him sat his mate, her 
 head raised out of the grass, watching us 
 steadily without a sound. Suddenly she ut- 
 tered a low call with a curious accent of 
 warning and reassurance. It was a commu- 
 nication to her champion, plainly enough, 
 for he wavered slightly for the first time 
 from his intense attitude. The next moment 
 she slipped out of the grass into the pond, 
 and after her came five goslings, alert little 
 bundles of yellow-brown fuzz, that walked
 
 steadily across the shore, with a funny effect 
 of carrying their knees up close to their 
 iDyfieSrOf s h ou lders, and glided easily into the friendly 
 waters. There was another low call from 
 the gray mate; then Waptonk, though he 
 had not turned his head nor taken his keen 
 eyes for an instant from my face, turned 
 swiftly aside and threw himself into the 
 water. A push or two from his powerful 
 webs, and he was floating safely far beyond 
 my reach, still looking back at me alertly 
 over his shoulder as he surged away. 
 
 The little family glided swiftly along the 
 pond shore, the mother leading them and 
 talking to them reassuringly. Between them 
 and me hovered Waptonk, swinging back 
 and forth on his watchful patrol, till they 
 disappeared from sight; then he glided 
 silently after them into a muddy lagoon 
 where the treacherous bogs for- 
 any human 
 to follow. 
 
 bade
 
 An hour later the little wild family stole 
 shyly out of the haven where they had hid- 
 den, and found me sitting quietly just where ^ 
 I had first appeared. If they were surprised 
 or uneasy, they gave no sign of their feelings 
 beyond a bright, inquisitive look, but swam 
 slowly past me and climbed the bank where 
 it was worn hard by their feet, and started 
 across the barren on their day's foraging. 
 For hours I followed them, keeping out of 
 sight as much as possible, watching with 
 keenest interest their feeding and discipline, 
 and noting especially the crude beginnings 
 of that wedge formation with which they 
 would later make their first long flight south- 
 ward ahead of the autumn gales. 
 
 Wherever they went, Waptonk, the big 
 gander, was near them, hovering on the out- 
 skirts, or watching over them keenly from 
 every little hillock that commanded a wider 
 view of the great barren. He ate but little, 
 and apparently only incidentally. His whole 
 business seemed to be to guard his little flock 
 while the mother led them about to feed, or 
 trained them to the perfect discipline that
 
 
 is the wonder . of all those who have ever 
 
 2 IO 
 
 watched wild geese. And when at midday 
 ^ e feeding was done, and the goslings were 
 sunning themselves on the bank of another 
 fl as het under the mother's eye, Waptonk took 
 wing and bore away swiftly over the woods 
 and marshes to the ocean ; as if in his cramped 
 life he w r anted room and exercise, or perhaps 
 just a glimpse of the wide sea, which he 
 loved, as all others do who have once felt 
 the spell of its boundless mystery. For within 
 the hour he was back again, as usual, stand- 
 ing guard over his own. 
 
 Later, as I returned day after day to watch 
 the gray voyagers that had so long attracted 
 me, I saw a rare bit of Waptonk's care and 
 sagacity. One of the goslings, more head- 
 strong than the others, in wandering away 
 from the leader over a treacherous bit of 
 bog-land found himself stogged in some soft 
 mud that he attempted to cross too hurriedly 
 and carelessly. He floundered desperately 
 for a moment, called sharply, and then lay 
 perfectly quiet with wings extended on the 
 mud to keep himself from sinking deeper.
 
 Instantly the mother bird called all the 
 
 young close about her, raised her neck high 
 
 to look over them at her helpless gosling, ^JQ^^f r !^f__ 
 
 then turned her head and honked deeply to 
 
 the gander. Waptonk had already seen the 
 
 danger from his point of vantage and rose 
 
 heavily in the air. Circling once with bent 
 
 head over the little fellow in the mud, as if 
 
 to understand the situation, he turned and 
 
 flapped over him, reaching down to seize a 
 
 wing in his bill. So, with the youngster 
 
 kicking vigorously and flapping his free 
 
 wing to help himself, he half dragged and 
 
 half carried his careless offspring over the 
 
 mud, and hiked him out upon the moss with 
 
 a final unnecessary jerk that seemed to tell 
 
 him roughly to take better care of himself 
 
 another time. But he lowered his head to 
 
 rub his cheek softly down the little fellow's 
 
 neck and over his wings, again and again, 
 
 before he walked quietly away to his post as 
 
 if nothing whatever \ 
 
 had happened. 
 
 Then came the final 
 scene, which made me
 
 tingle in my hiding, increasing the strong 
 desire that rarely leaves me to understand 
 QUeSf Of what passes - m t ] ie heads and hearts of the 
 
 Wood Folk> The mot her went to the care- 
 less Qne and brought him back to where the 
 ^^-Jx*^ flock were waiting. Then standing in the 
 midst of her brood she seemed to be talk- 
 ing to them, first in a low chatter, then in a 
 strange silent communication, in which not 
 a muscle moved, but in which every neck 
 was raised in the attitude of tense attention. 
 A moment later the flock was moving across 
 the barren, cheeping, whistling, feeding as 
 before. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, as I watched by the 
 home flashet, there was another scene alto- 
 gether different ; and here were many things 
 that a man could not be expected to under- 
 stand, though I saw and admired them often 
 enough. As the sun sank and the pointed 
 shadows of the spruces came creeping out 
 across the barren, the little flock came wan- 
 dering back, as is the custom with wild geese, 
 to spend the night by the nest where they 
 were born, and to sleep contentedly under
 
 213 
 
 their mother's wings, while the old gander 
 kept watch and ward in the darkness. For 
 Waptonk is more of a land bird than any of j^?,j_ 
 
 the ducks. The forward set of his legs shows 
 that Nature intended him to walk as well as 
 swim ; and he will never sleep in the water if 
 he can find a safe and quiet spot to rest on 
 the shore. 
 
 At sight of the familiar place the little 
 family that I had watched all day long sud- 
 denly stopped their hungry wandering and 
 came running in a close group, heads all up 
 and whistling, to tumble down the slope and 
 throw themselves with glad splashes into the 
 friendly water, which was all aglow now with 
 the splendors of the sunset. There they drank 
 and washed themselves, and played together 
 
 in little races and scuffles, and , - 
 
 stopped their play to stretch their cv;^3-S 
 necks down to the oozy bottom ; ^V^ : -i--f vr 
 for roots that they had overlooked, 
 or for earth and peb- 
 bles to aid their diges- 
 tion. Then as the 
 shadows lengthened
 
 they glided to an open spot on the bank to 
 preen and gabble softly ; while the big parent 
 /^ ftf^CST Of birds, their own preening finished as they 
 watched the play of their little ones, went 
 from one to another, rubbing them tenderly 
 with their white cheeks, chattering over each 
 one in turn, and in twenty little indescribable 
 ways showing their fondness their gladness 
 also that the long good day was done and 
 they were safe at home once more. 
 
 Perhaps this was all imagination ; but, 
 even so, a man must look in his heart, not 
 in the psychologies or natural histories, if 
 he would understand half of what the Wood 
 Folk are doing. Here before my eyes was 
 a little family that had come back in the 
 sunset, after much wandering and some dan- 
 ger, to the one spot in the great wilderness 
 that they knew well, where life began for 
 the goslings, and where each familiar thing 
 seemed to welcome them and make them 
 feel at home. Over them 
 stood the parents, 
 strong and watchful 
 against the world, but
 
 bending their necks tenderly to tell their 
 little ones by the soft caress of their cheeks 
 
 that they loved and understood them. A 
 
 low, contented gabble filled the twilight 
 
 stillness, unintelligible perhaps, yet telling 
 
 plainly by its changing accents the goslings' v 
 
 changing feelings from the day's bright ex- Y^ -<- 
 
 citement to the evening's sleepy content, 
 
 and recalling to me in a sudden wave of ten- 
 
 derness the chatter of a little child far away 
 
 in the same twilight, who could speak no 
 
 words as yet, but whose feelings I could 
 
 understand perfectly as she talked back to 
 
 the friendly universe and then crooned her- 
 
 self and her dolly to sleep, alone in her o\vn 
 
 little crib. A great tide of light rolled sud- 
 
 denly over the plain from the west as the 
 
 clouds lifted, bathing all things in a rosy 
 
 splendor, and the young birds stopped their 
 
 chatter to turn their heads and watch silently 
 
 for a moment as the glory swept over them ; 
 
 and the voices were different, more hushed 
 
 and sleepy, yet with a slight note of wonder, 
 
 like birds wakened by a light, when I heard 
 
 them again. In the nearest thickets a choir
 
 In Quest of 
 
 , of thrushes were ringing the Angelus ; nearer 
 a solitary vesper-sparrow, hidden in the gray 
 moss, was singing his hymn to the even- 
 ing ; an unknown call floated down from the 
 distant hills; a fox barked in answer; while 
 the river hushed its roar as the night fell 
 and went singing down on its way to the 
 sea. And to all these sounds, and to every 
 wave of light and passing shadow and rest- 
 less wing of the eddying plovers, 
 the young birds responded instantly 
 with low cheeps and whistles, draw- 
 ing nearer and nearer together to 
 feel a last touch of their parents' 
 white cheeks ; while I lay 
 and watched them, myself 
 drifting away into that deli- 
 cious border-land of 
 feeling and sense- 
 impression in which 
 the young birds live 
 so constantly, where all conscious 
 thought vanishes and one becomes 
 * alive in every nerve and finger-tip 
 ? > to the sights and sounds and subtle
 
 harmonies of the world. For Nature reveals 
 not only herself, but some beautiful and for- 
 gotten part of a man's own soul, when she 
 finds him responsive in the wilderness. 
 
 Slowly the glory deepened and faded, and 
 the crimson flush that had spread wide over ^-^ 
 the great barren came creeping back into the ^ g '**' 
 west out of which it had come. After it 
 came the silence, hushing the goslings' chat- 
 ter and the birds' hymn ; and only the river 
 was left singing to itself through the listen- 
 ing woods. Over the vast plain came again 
 the sea-wind swinging its fragrant censer, 
 from which fell now only heavy and drowsy 
 odors ; and the fleecy mists that I had seen 
 rise at dawn settled softly again to cover the 
 sleeping earth like a garment. I could no 
 longer see the birds that I had followed all 
 the long, sunny day; but where the little 
 family stood a soft gray shadow blurred the 
 open shore ; and from it came now and then 
 a sleepy, inquisitive peep as some little one 
 stirred uneasily, and then a deep, quiet an- 
 swer to tell him that all was well, and that 
 he was not alone in the darkness.
 
 In Quest of 
 
 g That was my first real meeting with Wap- 
 tonk, my first answer to the question which 
 had always been in my heart, and which 
 neither the books nor the hunters could 
 answer, as to what he was like in his own 
 land, where the guns and decoys of men 
 might not enter. And I was satisfied, per- 
 fectly satisfied, as I turned away in the 
 twilight across the wild barren to where 
 my little tent by the salmon 
 river was waiting. 
 
 &i&t&l 
 

 
 2I 9
 
 PEQUAM the fisher, the Cunning One 
 as Simmo calls him, who follows your JL. 
 snow-shoe track but never crosses it, is one '- 
 of the shadows of the big woods. A dark 
 shadow indeed to the Wood Folk, for wher- 
 ever he goes death follows close behind him ; 
 and a shadow to your eyes also, for when you 
 do see him, unexpectedly, after much watch- 
 ing and patience, he darts up the hillside, 
 leaping and dodging, vanishing and appearing 
 and vanishing again, like one of the shadows 
 that the sunbeams are chasing when a brisk 
 wind drives the clouds away and the woods 
 are filled with rustlings and uncertainties.
 
 222 
 
 JPeguam 
 
 Why is he called the fisher ? That is one 
 of the mysteries. Ask the half-breeds of the 
 great Barren Grounds, and they may tell 
 you, perhaps, that he is called fisher because 
 he is a most industrious thief in stealing 
 the fish with which they bait their traps, 
 in angling them out of the cunning de- 
 vices without getting his own paw caught 
 or bringing the heavy deadfall down on his 
 own back. The name Weejack, however, 
 which still clings to him there, has no thought 
 of fish or fishing in it, but suggests rather 
 the elves and goblins, the cunning and mis- 
 chievous Little Folk, that are supposed to 
 haunt the solitudes and play havoc with the 
 trapper's saple line. 
 
 The earlier naturalists, catching rare 
 glimpses of Pequam and trusting to their 
 own knowledge rather than to the Indians' 
 better understanding, probably called him 
 fisher because they confused him with Kee- 
 onekh the otter, whom he slightly resembles 
 and who is a famous fisherman. Like all 
 weasels and next to Carcajou the wolver- 
 he is greatest and fiercest of his tribe
 
 he likes fish; but I have never known him to 
 catch one unaided save once; and then he 
 leaped into a shallow pool among the rocks, 
 where the receding waters had left a big 
 salmon half stranded, and darted about like 
 a fury in a blinding smother of water till 
 he gripped his slippery prize securely and 
 dragged him away into the shadows. 
 
 Pequam has other names. Black Fox he 
 is called in places where he is but rarely 
 seen, though he bears no relation to the 
 black or silver fox, and Pennant's Marten by 
 the bookish people, and Black Cat by all the 
 Maine trappers, who follow him on the spring 
 snows when he is gorged with food, and 
 who catch him cunningly at last asleep in 
 a hollow log and that is the only way I 
 have ever tried in which I have really caught 
 a weasel asleep. But whatever his name, 
 Pequam has the same nature wherever I 
 have found or heard of him ; whether on the 
 high mountain ranges, or the bleak Labra- 
 dor barrens, or the silent shadow-filled north- 
 ern woods, a crafty, restless, bloodthirsty 
 haunter of every trail, even of your own; at
 
 once shy and daring, springing in tense 
 alarm at the slightest unknown squeak or 
 
 or rustle, yet with a screeching ferocity 
 at times, when you corner him, that makes 
 your spine tingle. 
 
 Because he is little known, even to the 
 naturalists, let me describe him just as you 
 meet him at home in the woods. If you see 
 him at all, which is not likely unless you 
 follow him for miles on the snow and find 
 his kill and then track him to his den, you 
 will be conscious chiefly of a black streak 
 drawn swiftly up the hillside and vanishing 
 over the top of a rock or a mossy log. If 
 you get any idea of the creature at all, it 
 will be something like that of an enormous 
 black cat with a terrier in swift pursuit. If 
 he but stand for an instant to see what 
 frightened him and give you one of the 
 rarest sights in the woods, you will see an 
 exceedingly nervous animal, suggesting at 
 once a cat and a huge weasel. He is much 
 larger than a house cat, with short legs and 
 a pointed face, like a marten's, and glossy 
 black fur. That is as far as you will ever 
 
 ^-2
 
 get in your description; except perhaps the 
 tail, which, you see, is long and soft and 
 glossy as he vanishes over the log. And, 
 like a scared cat, he fluffs it out like a 
 bottle-brush to make it look big and to 
 scare you should you attempt to follow him. 
 Two or three times in the woods I have 
 had just such glimpses of Pequam as I have 
 described ; but, except in hunting on the 
 snow, only once have I seen him plainly 
 when he had no idea I was watching him. 
 I was sitting quietly in the woods at day- 
 break, watching for deer and moose on 
 Matagammon, when there was a rustle 
 behind me and Moktaques went hopping 
 by in the crazy, erratic way that hares 
 have when hunted. " Kagax is after him," I 
 thought, and turned to watch for the weasel, 
 at the same time picking up a stick to 
 stop the bloodthirsty little wretch's hunting. 
 Then out of the underbrush darted Pequam, 
 his muzzle twitching, tail quivering, dart- 
 ing, leaping, dodging, halting, all on fire with 
 excitement. Every hair on his body seemed 
 to be alive and filled with nerves; and I
 
 thought instantly of a young fisher that I 
 used to watch for hours at a time in his 
 cage. Whether sleeping or waking, on the 
 ground or in his tree, he seemed to have 
 eyes, ears, and senses all over him. A 
 squeak, a chirp, a scratch, the slightest 
 sound, and instantly he leaped from what 
 he was doing and twisted his head and 
 whirled and leaped again. Once when he 
 was apparently sound asleep I brought my 
 thumb and finger nails together and snapped 
 the edges. A sound so faint would hardly 
 trouble the dreams of even a sleeping wolf; 
 but on the instant Pequam had leaped to 
 his feet wide-awake and was wrinkling his 
 nose in my direction. 
 
 Just this same impression of intense vital- 
 ity and alertness swept over me now as the 
 wild creature passed before me, fairly quiver- 
 ing from nose to tail tip. Not ten feet from 
 my hand, where the hare had made a wild 
 jump, he stopped for an instant, twisted his 
 head in a half circle to catch the scent, 
 darted forward, ran back again with his nose 
 to the ground ; and then, finding he was off
 
 " He had picked up the trail 
 and darted away ' '
 
 scent and running a back track, instead of 
 turning, as any other animal would have 
 done, he simply leaped, whirled in the air 
 like a flash, and came down in his tracks 
 facing in the opposite direction. It was the 
 quickest, the most intense action I have 
 ever seen in a living animal ; and yet it was 
 probably just an ordinary movement in Pe- 
 quam's daily life. An instant later he had 
 picked up the trail and darted away, abso- 
 lutely unconscious that I had watched him. 
 As a hunter Pequam has no equal among 
 the Wood Folk. He follows a trail with all 
 the persistency of a weasel, and he darts for- 
 ward with marvelous quickness when his 
 nose has brought him within striking dis- 
 tance of his game. Of a score of fisher trails 
 that I have followed in the winter woods, 
 never a one but brought me sooner or later 
 to the scene of his killing, with its record 
 written as plainly as if the eye had seen it 
 all. You may follow the track of Eleemos 
 the fox, the Sly One as Simmo calls him, for 
 days at a time, and find only that he has 
 caught nothing and has lain down to sleep
 
 far more hungry than you are yourself. Or 
 you may trace the round, deep pugs of Up- 
 wee kis the lynx for uncounted miles through 
 the bare> W i 1 i te) empty woods, and get at last 
 a kind of sympathy for the big, savage, stu- 
 pid fellow as you think how ravenous he 
 must be; for the tracks lead to nothing but 
 disappointments, at the beaver house, at the 
 rabbit's form, beside the deer yard, and at 
 the hole in the snow where the grouse 
 plunged for the night. But follow Pequam 
 a little way and you come speedily to the 
 story of good hunting: here a mouse, and 
 there a hare, and there a squirrel, and there 
 a deer. Careful, now! He is gorged and 
 sleepy ; and you will find him, not far away, 
 asleep in a hollow tree under the snow. 
 
 Spite of his size Pequam climbs and moves 
 among the big trees with all the sureness 
 and agility of a squirrel, traveling long dis- 
 tances overhead, and even following his 
 game by leaping from branch to branch. 
 Like the squirrel he can jump down from 
 an enormous height, flattening his body and 
 tail against the air so as to break his fall,
 
 striking the ground lightly and darting away 
 as if he enjoyed the dizzy plunge. And, like 
 the larger cats, he sometimes creeps over his 
 game on a lofty limb and leaps down upon 
 it like a thunderbolt; though, unlike Pe- 
 kompf the wildcat and Lhoks the panther, 
 I have never known him to watch in a tree 
 over the runways. His nose is too good 
 and his patience too poor to lead him to 
 these pot-hunting and abominable methods. 
 It is in following Pequam's trail through 
 the snow that you learn, as you do with 
 most large animals, the story of his life. For 
 the northern forests, in winter especially, 
 seem but bare and tenantless places. Far in 
 the South life seems to be the order of the 
 universe: earth, air, and water swarm at all 
 times with a multitude of creatures. Here 
 all is different. Silence and death seem 
 to have gripped the world and emptied it. 
 From early morning, when the intense cold 
 silences all things, to the short midday, when 
 the feeble sun brings forth a jay's cry or a 
 squirrel's disturbing chatter, and on to the 
 early twilight, when the trees groan again 
 
 ffie&Zsfier
 
 232 
 
 JPeguam 
 ffie^F/sfier 
 
 and crack like pistols as the frost snaps the 
 tightening bark, you glide along silently and 
 alone on your snow-shoes; and save for the 
 crossbills and chickadees and the rolling tat- 
 too of the log-cock you seem utterly alone in 
 the universe. No broad wing or gloss of fur 
 or gray shadow of a deer disturbs the sharp 
 outlines of the still tree bolls on every hand. 
 Your own breath, as it drifts away in a cloud 
 of frost among the trees, is the only sign of 
 a living animal in all the snowy landscape. 
 Now look down at your feet. You are 
 standing where the dainty trail of a fox 
 crosses the broad lead of a porcupine and 
 follows it a little way doubtfully. Eleemos 
 is uncertain, you see, whether to turn aside 
 or go on ; debating with his shrunken stom- 
 ach whether or not he is hungry enough to 
 risk being struck through with cruel barbs 
 for a coarse mouthful ; undecided whether to 
 follow Unk Wunk and perhaps find him safe 
 in a tree, or trust again to luck and 
 patience for a sweeter mouthful to 
 stand between a poor fox and death. 
 There ! he follows the
 
 trail ; and by that you may know he is more 
 than hungry. 
 
 Life is here, you see; though it is now 
 hidden away where it takes more than eyes 
 to find it. Tracks are everywhere, all kinds 
 of tracks, telling their stories of last night's 
 wanderings, from the dainty tracery of the 
 wood-mice to the half-filled path that leads 
 you to the moose-yard on the other side of 
 the great ridge. Follow any of them and 
 you find life, or the plain record of life, that 
 goes swiftly and silently to its chief end 
 and concerns itself diligently about its own 
 business. There, a little farther on, are your 
 own snow-shoe slots of yesterday. And see, 
 close beside them, following every turn and 
 winding of your trail but never crossing it, 
 are the cunning tracks of Pequam the fisher. 
 Clear to your camp in a five-mile circle he 
 followed your trail, and even now, behind 
 you, he may be sniffing again at the new, 
 strange tracks that rouse his curiosity. 
 
 Once, feeling that I was followed, I stole 
 back cautiously and caught him hanging to 
 my heels like a shadow ; but why he follows
 
 234 
 
 ffie&Isfier 
 
 J 
 
 my trail I have never been able to find out. 
 It is a good plan, in the winter woods, to 
 scatter food along your trail, for it over- 
 comes the Wood Folk's distrust of man's 
 footprints; but long before I found that out 
 and practiced it Pequam had followed me. 
 Perhaps he has followed the trappers so 
 long, to steal the bait from their marten 
 traps, that it has become a habit. 
 
 It was on a morning like this, still and 
 cold and lifeless, that I left the big lumber 
 camp on the Dungarvon and struck off east- 
 ward for the barrens. I was after caribou; 
 but two miles away in the woods I ran 
 across old Newell the Indian, whose hunt- 
 ing camp was far up the river, moving 
 swiftly along, with his eyes on a fresh trail. 
 
 " Hello, brother ! what you hunt um ? " 
 I hailed him. 
 
 For answer he pointed with a grunt to the 
 snow, where a fisher had gone along that 
 morning as if some one were after him. 
 
 " Pequam in a hurry this morning. Thinks 
 if Newell around, fisher better mog along 
 somewhere else," I ventured; and the grim
 
 old face before me softened at the tribute 
 to his skill in hunting. 
 
 " Oh, I get um," he said, smiling. " Das de 
 fellow rob my saple traps. Find um where 
 he kill deer dis morny. Now he go off 
 wid hees belly full, sleepy, oh, sleepy. Find 
 um bimeby, pretty soon quick now. You 
 wan' go along help um ? " he added invitingly. 
 
 That was a new kind of hunting for me; 
 so I left the caribou gladly and followed the 
 old Indian. He had no gun; only an ax; 
 and I was curious to know how he intended 
 to catch so spry and wary an animal un- 
 aided; but I asked no questions, following 
 silently and keeping out to one side of the 
 trail, looking far ahead for a glimpse and a , f ^ 
 possible shot at Pequam among the trees. % 
 Indeed, it was probably the sight of my rifle 
 and a light ax at my belt that caused Hi 
 Newell to issue his invitation. 
 
 The fisher was plainly suspicious or 
 alarmed, for he was traveling rapidly, yet 
 with marvelous craftiness. Newell assured 
 me that Pequam had neither seen nor ; 
 smelled him. Probably he had eaten , 
 
 235 
 
 JPeguam 
 ffie&Ysfier
 
 2 3 6 
 
 JPeguam 
 ffie^/sfier 
 
 full and was now minded to lie down for a 
 long sleep, and, like a bear seeking a winter 
 den after the telltale snow has fallen, was 
 making a cunning trail to deceive and mis- 
 lead any that might try to find him. This 
 was my own explanation and good enough for 
 the moment; but later Newell gave a very 
 different reason for the crooked trail we 
 were following. 
 
 Again and again the trail doubled on 
 itself where Pequam came back for a dis- 
 tance, stepping in his own footprints, and 
 then leaped away in a great side jump into 
 some thick cover where his new tracks were 
 hidden. Newell, who was watching for such 
 things, generally saw the trick and turned 
 aside ; but more than once he was deceived, 
 and we went on to find the trail ending 
 abruptly with a single footprint in the snow. 
 Then we would turn back and hunt on 
 either side till we picked up the trail again. 
 
 Twice the tracks ended at the foot of a 
 great tree where Pequam had climbed and 
 ran among the branches overhead ; and then 
 we had to circle widely to find where he
 
 had leaped down and run on again. Once 
 
 he tunneled for a long distance under the ^ 
 
 snow; and when we found the trail it was , srry fa* 
 
 far out to one side and running at right 
 angles to his former course. So we followed 
 him, mile after mile, and I had long given 
 up the thought of shooting in the fascina- 
 tion of working out the riddle which Pequam 
 had spread for us, when Newell, who had 
 been growing more and more cautious for 
 the past ten minutes, stopped suddenly and 
 pointed ahead. And when I glided up to 
 him there was no sign of a den or a hidden 
 log, but only a little hollow half filled with 
 a flurry of snow where the trail disappeared, 
 as if Pequam had suddenly taken wings to 
 himself and flown away. 
 
 " Where is he ? " I whispered. 
 
 " Oh, we got um now, good place," chuckled 
 Newell. " Pequam tink he fool um ol' Injun ; 
 hide hees footin'. Now he tink safe, go sleep. 
 Guess he fool self dis time By cosh ! oh, by 
 cosh ! " 
 
 From a great hole in the top of a fallen 
 log, fifty feet away, a black streak shot out
 
 and vanished in a flurry of snow. Pequam, 
 instead of going in at this hole, had tun- 
 ne led out of sight for ten or fifteen feet 
 
 and had gone - n at the O p pos i te en d O f t h e 
 
 log, which was hidden by the deep snow 
 and bending evergreens. A cunning trick; 
 for any one approaching the half-buried log 
 w r ould see the inviting hole at the top but 
 find no track leading up to it, and so would 
 conclude naturally that the den was unoccu- 
 pied. Had we been an hour later we w r ould 
 have found him heavy with sleep in the log ; 
 but we had followed too hot on his trail. He 
 had barely settled himself down in his warm 
 den under the snow when our approach 
 startled him and he was off on another 
 crooked trail. 
 
 We stopped where we were to "bile kit- 
 tle"; for the cold of the northern forests is 
 killing in its intensity, and the moment you 
 cease action that moment Nature clamors 
 for fire and food with an insistence never 
 known elsewhere. Late in the afternoon, 
 after following the fresh trail through all its 
 doublings and windings, we came to where
 
 it leaped aside without warning into a dense 
 thicket of low firs. There it ended, as if the ^ 
 ground had opened to swallow Pequam ; but *V *~ 
 just beyond a long mound showed where a 
 fallen log lay buried under the snow, and we 
 knew we should find him there fast asleep. 
 
 Unslipping the light ax, I moved cau- 
 tiously to the smaller end of the log, while 
 Newell crouched at the butt and began to 
 shovel aside the snow with a snow-shoe. My 
 end of the log was solid ; in the whole shell 
 after I had laid it bare of snow I found only 
 a .single hole, and that hardly big enough 
 to admit a squirrel. Meanwhile Newell had 
 pushed a pole into the hollow butt till it 
 was seized savagely and almost jerked out 
 of his hand. A fierce snarl and a muf- 
 fled scratching told us plainly that we had 
 reached at last the end of the trail. 
 
 Very deliberately the old Indian cut a 
 dozen more poles, while I stood guard, and 
 wedged them tightly in the hoi- <..>:";,*" 
 low butt. Next he enlarged the ip *>$ 
 squirrel hole, and I had a glimpse 
 of glossy fur as Pequam rushed
 
 back toward the place where he had entered, 
 240 
 
 only to find it shut securely. The squirrel 
 
 hole was then closed by stakes driven through 
 to the rotten wooc } beneath, and Pequam 
 was caught, with only some six feet of hol- 
 low shell to rage around in. 
 
 I confess I would gladly enough have 
 stopped here; for the sight of any trapped 
 animal, however fierce, that has known all 
 its life only absolute liberty, always awakens 
 in me the desire to break its bars and set it 
 free again. But Newell had no such scruples. 
 Here was a prime fur worth eight dollars, to 
 say nothing of plundered marten traps. The 
 fire that sleeps in an Indian's eyes and that 
 always kindles at the sight of game began to 
 flash as he chopped a long notch through 
 the top of the shell, driving in stakes as 
 he advanced, and slowly but surely pinning 
 Pequam into a space where a blow of the 
 ax would finish it all. 
 
 Through the narrow slit I could see him, 
 the flash of his eye and the white gleam of 
 his teeth under his brown muzzle as he tried 
 the opening, and then the sweep of his bushy
 
 tail as the ax drove him aside. Again and 
 again he whirled on us savagely ; for, unlike 
 the fox and bear that know when you have 
 won and that lie down quietly for the blow, 
 Pequam fights and defies you to the very 
 end. Game killer and robber of traps he 
 may be; but traps are barbarous things at 
 best, and the animal that robs them is only 
 saving some innocent life from suffering, 
 though he knows it not. Here he was, the 
 shadow of the w r oods become solid substance 
 at last, his marvelous cunning overmatched 
 by man's intelligence. Not a chance left in 
 the tough shell that held him fast, while the 
 steel bit nearer and nearer and the stakes 
 pinned him in. And there was something 
 magnificent, an appeal not to be answered 
 lightly, in the way he clung to life, claimed 
 it, fought for it, and screeched out at us 
 defiantly that his life was his own and we 
 must not take it away. 
 
 " Got um safe now," I ventured at last. 
 
 "Safe!" grunted the Indian between the 
 steady chucks of his ax, "by cosh, Pequam 
 never safe till he dead; an' den he fool 
 
 241 
 
 ffie&Tsfier
 
 242 
 
 // 
 
 me two, tree time wen he only play dead. 
 Bes' cock um dat gun; Pequam got plenty 
 tricks he ant try yet." But there was no need 
 of the gun, and I did not look to see the end. 
 Before the short twilight had fallen on the 
 woods we had stroked the splendid fur and 
 valued it, and were heading swiftly for the 
 little hunting camp on the river with Pe- 
 quam's black coat hanging limp and soft 
 and warm between the Indian's shoulders.
 
 243
 
 HAT night, in the queer little 
 hunting camp by the river, while 
 the birch logs glowed on the 
 stone hearth and sang for the 
 last time the songs which the winds had 
 taught them, old Newell answered my ques- 
 tions about the fisher we had caught, and 
 told me of his lonely trapper's life and the 
 many trails he had followed. Under his skill- 
 ful hands as he worked, Pequam's glossy skin 
 changed its face and crept down to the very 
 end of the long cedar stretcher, ready at last 
 to take its place in the row of marten and 
 245
 
 ,, fox and otter pelts that hung outside, touched 
 and made fragrant by the wood smoke, and 
 turning? turn i ng f or t h e last breath of the 
 
 Cunning One forest wind that stole in t h r0 ugh the sides 
 
 of the little commoosie. 
 
 What puzzled and interested me most 
 was the Indian's confident declaration that 
 Pequam had neither seen nor winded him 
 that morning, but had simply felt the pres- 
 ence of an enemy on his trail, and so had 
 taken to doubling and traveling among the 
 branches in order to throw him off the track. 
 
 " Now I tell you now," he said earnestly, 
 in answer to my suggestion that it was 
 merely a precautionary measure, such as the 
 bear takes before denning for the winter, 
 " Pequam, jus' same all animals, know good 
 many ting widout knowin' how he know. 
 So long you jus' watch um animal, he don't 
 fraid 't all. Don't see, don't hear, don't 
 smell; ev'thing jus' right; go on feedin', 
 playin'; feel good inside. Now you go get 
 you gun, follow hees footin'. Bimeby he stop ; 
 wag hees ears; sniff, sniff; look all round 
 de hwoods. Don't hear, don't see, don't smell
 
 noting; get fraid an' run 'way jus' same. 
 Plenty black cat in dese hwoods. You fol- 
 low an' find out for youself." 
 
 It was the old question that one runs up 
 against everywhere in the woods, in his own 
 hunting and in the experience of woodsmen, 
 the unknown sixth sense, or feeling of dan- 
 ger, which sometimes warns a creature be- 
 yond the reach of any known sense, and 
 which seems to imply a kind of silent men- 
 tal communication among animals. Several 
 times since then I have followed Pequam's 
 trail and learned something about his hunt- 
 ing, and in every case have found much 
 to justify the Indian's conclusion. When 
 Pequam kills a large animal and gorges 
 himself, he goes but a mile or two often 
 much less than that and hides him away 
 to sleep, making but slight effort to confuse j. 
 his trail. Follow it now quietly, and you see 
 where it disappears in the snow ; and some- 
 where just beyond you will find 
 Pequam asleep in a hollow log. 
 But if you find the fresh track 
 where he returns to his kill and 
 
 247 
 
 IfteTra/fofffie 
 Cunning One
 
 follow it swiftly before he has settled down 
 to sleep, he begins doubling and tunneling 
 TlieTrai/ Of me and traveling over head long before it would 
 geem poss ibl e that any sight or sound or 
 smell of you could drift away over the hills 
 to where the Cunning One is hiding his 
 trail from the telltale snow. 
 
 Once, while following a fresh track, old 
 Newell had a curious experience of Pequam's 
 cunning; and last summer, when I noticed 
 a fisher's track on the shore of Grassy Pond, 
 under K'tahdin, my guide told me unasked 
 of a similar occurrence which he had him- 
 self witnessed last spring when he was trap- 
 ping among the Sourdnahunk Mountains. 
 Newell found where Pequam had killed a 
 deer on the crust, and followed the trail 
 through the soft snow that had fallen over 
 night, not half an hour after the fisher had 
 left it. Mile after mile he swept along on 
 his snow-shoes, through the swamps and 
 over the hills, pushing the fisher hard and 
 unwinding swiftly every turn and double 
 and side jump and tunnel in the cunning 
 trail. Pequam was heavy and tired. Two or
 
 three times Newell saw him plainly, but 
 with his old gun, whose lock he must protect 
 from the snow, he was not quick enough for 
 a shot; and still the game held on, and at 
 every turn laid some new snarl or puzzle 
 for the old Indian's eyes to unravel. Late in 
 the afternoon the trail turned abruptly from 
 the ridge, which it had been following for 
 miles, and headed straight and swift for a 
 cedar swamp. 
 
 There were plenty of deer here. The 
 spring hunger had driven them out of their 
 yards ; and in the early morning or late 
 afternoon, when the crust hardened enough 
 to bear their weight, they could get at the 
 cedar boughs, which till then had been too 
 high to reach. So long as they spread their 
 legs or went softly, the crust would bear 
 them up ; but at the first heavy plunge they 
 sank through to their shoulders, and w r ere 
 almost helpless. 
 
 Half-way through the swamp the hunted 
 fisher winded a large deer and leaped straight 
 at him. The tracks showed that it was not 
 his usual crafty hunting, but a straight, swift 
 
 249 
 
 ZheTrai/offfie 
 Cunning One
 
 drive, with probably a savage snarl to add to 
 the terror of his rush. At the first startled 
 
 TbeTra/Jofme bound Hetokh the buck sank to his w i t h er s. 
 
 dozen more plunges, and he lay helpless. 
 Pequam raced alongside, leaped for his throat, 
 and gave the death wound. He watched for 
 a moment, crouching in the snow, till the 
 buck lay still ; then he ran on again without 
 stopping to eat or drink. Newell, far behind, 
 puzzling out the trail, neither saw nor heard 
 anything of the swift tragedy, but read it all 
 from the snow a half-hour later. 
 
 Straight back to the hills went Pequam, 
 leisurely, carelessly now, and without mak- 
 ing the slightest effort to hide his trail, as he 
 had done all day, crept into the first good 
 hollow log and lay down to sleep. Newell 
 found him there and wedged him in without 
 trouble, and took his skin within sight of the 
 spot where the deer lay stiffening in the snow. 
 
 Now the curious thing about the killing 
 is this, that Pequam was running for his life, 
 with no time to lose or to throw away. He 
 had already killed one deer and had eaten 
 more than he wanted, and, with an enemy
 
 after him, would disgorge some of what he 
 already carried rather than take more to 
 
 make him heavy. Indeed, after a kill and 
 a full meal, Pequam, when no enemy is near, 
 usually lies quiet for days at a time, drow- 
 sing away in his hollow log. A certain blind 
 ferocity might perhaps account for his kill- 
 ing the deer; but that leaves his 
 subsequent carelessness unaccounted 
 for. And besides, unlike their smaller 
 and more bloodthirsty kinsman the 
 weasel, neither fisher nor marten 
 seem to kill for the lust of killing. They 
 kill only when hungry, and usually go back 
 to any large game until it is eaten up to the 
 very bones before they hunt or kill again. 
 
 All this passed through my mind rapidly, V \ 
 
 and the Indian, in answer to my inquiries, 
 confirmed my idea of the fisher's ordinary 
 habits. Then I put the final question: 
 
 "Why on earth, then, did Pequam kill p> 
 another deer ? " 
 
 "Wy he kill um dat tother deer? Cause 
 he tink Injun hongry, das wy he kill um." 
 And then, as my eyes questioned his in the
 
 firelight, " Wy, you spose now, Pequam fol- 
 low trail heself, jus' same I follow heem all 
 
 "*/&// or me day> huh? Cause he hongry; cause he want 
 Cunning One meat Das wy black cat) das wy hwolfj das 
 
 wy all animal follow trail all day long in 
 snow. He hongry; he want meat. Bimeby 
 roof /i ! scritch ! kill um deer. Eat um 
 plenty ; lie down sleep ; don' follow trail no 
 more." 
 
 " Now I -follow Pequam," continued Newell 
 earnestly, " jus' same he follow deer. Pequam 
 hide, run, climb tree, go under snow; try 
 fool um Injun. All time Injun keep right 
 on; thoo cedar swamp, up big hill, down 
 tother side, ev' where Pequam go, Injun 
 follow hees footin'. Bimeby Pequam tink: 
 'Injun hongry; Injun want meat; Injun 
 want eat um me.' Den he go kill um deer. 
 Tink, p'raps, Injun eat plenty meat ; go 'way; 
 don' follow hees trail no more." 
 
 Startling as was the explanation, there 
 was a grain of reason in it, and I give it 
 because I have none other to offer. Years 
 later, when I asked the Maine guide how he 
 accounted for his fisher's action, he gave
 
 precisely the same reason, though more* 
 than ten years and two countries and many 
 hundreds of miles separated the two occur- 
 rences. The black cat, he said, must have 
 thought or felt in his own dumb way that by 
 killing a deer and leaving it there untouched 
 he might satisfy and turn aside the enemy 
 that followed on his trail. In no other way 
 could he account for the subsequent care- 
 lessness with which the fisher left the game 
 untouched and lay down to sleep in the first 
 good den. For Pequam, spite of his cun- 
 ning, has room in his head for only one idea 
 at a time ; and so long as you let him keep 
 that idea, you may plan safely to 
 catch him. 
 
 A curious instance of this came 
 out a few days later, when I took 
 up my abode with the 
 Indian and went with 
 him to the traps, or wan- 
 dered alone through the 
 woods follow- 
 ing the crooked 
 trails. Newell 

 
 254 
 
 TheTtef/offfie 
 CunningOne 
 
 had a long line of marten traps saple line, 
 he called it following a ridge for nearly ten 
 m iles, crossing the river and returning on the 
 
 ( j own at t h e j ower en( j was 
 
 a rough log cabin where we could find shelter 
 if overtaken by night or a sudden storm. 
 
 The traps, which were scattered at inter- 
 vals along the ridges, were little pens made 
 of stakes or slabs or stones. Inside the pen 
 was a bait of fish or flesh ; and over the nar- 
 row entrance slanted a weighted log resting 
 on a trigger, so arranged that when an ani- 
 mal entered and seized the bait the deadfall 
 came down promptly and broke his back. 
 As he visited the traps Newell frequently 
 carried a drag, a couple of flayed 
 muskrats tied to a string, which 
 he dragged along behind him, 
 making a scented trail from one 
 trap to another. Any 
 marten crossing this 
 trail would turn and 
 follow it, and so come 
 straight to one of the 
 ,\ traps.
 
 One day a large fisher struck the line and 
 made havoc of it. Pequam either tore the 
 
 pen to pieces, or else he entered it craftily 
 
 from the rear and sprung the deadfall harm- OffiOUig OffC 
 
 lessly, and then ate the bait at his leisure. 
 A dozen traps were so destroyed, and one 
 valuable marten which had been caught was 
 eaten with the bait. For nearly a month 
 this had continued. Hardly a day but Pe- 
 quam found the line somewhere, destroying 
 traps and good marten skins until his hun- 
 ger was satisfied, and craftily avoiding every 
 trap and device that Newell set beside the 
 line to catch him. It was useless to follow 
 his trail, for, except when he is gorged with 
 food and heavy with sleep, one might as well 
 try to run down a caribou as to chase a wide- 
 awake fisher with the hope of catching him. 
 At my suggestion Newell took up five of 
 his large steel traps, which had been set for 
 otter, and we set out one day to outwit Pe- 
 quam by making him think he understood 
 our devices. At a place in the line where 
 the big fisher's visits had been most fre- 
 quent we took away the triggers from three
 
 of the deadfalls in succession and propped 
 the logs up securely so that they could not 
 
 fall The pens were doubled in stren gth, so 
 
 t i iat even p e q uam cou id not destroy them; 
 and at the entrance of each pen we placed 
 a steel trap covered over with snow. The 
 two outside traps were left sprung and harm- 
 less, but the middle one had its jaws open 
 ready for business; and a fresh drag was 
 made, connecting the three traps and extend- 
 ing out a half mile on either side. My idea 
 was that Pequam would first find one of 
 the outside traps and poke it about cau- 
 tiously till he was sure it was harmless, and 
 then go straight to the next one. 
 
 Farther down the line we tried another 
 device. In the center of a hollow stump we 
 stuck a pole with a fresh-killed rabbit swing- 
 ing at the top. A row of stakes was then 
 driven about the stump, their tops sharpened 
 and pointing outward, so that Pequam could 
 not reach the stump except through one 
 entrance in the encircling fence. At the 
 entrance we left a steel trap sprung, and 
 covered it carefully with snow; but in the
 
 hollow at the top of the stump was another 
 with its hidden jaws wide open, ready for Pe- 
 quam when he should come to pull down 
 the pole and carry off his prize. During the 
 night a light snow fell and covered up every 
 trace of our work. 
 
 Two days later there was an interesting 
 story to read in the snow. Pequam had fol- 
 lowed the line till he came to the first steel 
 trap, and instantly he set about understand- 
 ing the new arrangement. A dozen times 
 he went about the pen, trying every crevice 
 with his nose and eyes. Then he came to 
 the entrance and very carefully scraped away 
 the snow till the harmless trap was bare. 
 He tried it, cautiously at first, with gentle 
 taps and jabs of his paw; then more and 
 more roughly, poking and jerking it about 
 at the end of its chain ; but no warning snap 
 followed and nothing happened to hurt him. 
 Whereupon he walked straight over the trap 
 and ate the generous bait that was waiting 
 for him. From here he loped on to the next 
 trap, which was not harmless, and, thinking 
 he understood such things, walked straight 

 
 258 
 
 TbeTte/tofffie 
 CunningOne 
 
 into it. We found him near-by with the 
 clog caught fast at the entrance to a den 
 among the rocks. 
 
 Long after I had left the woods I heard 
 from Newell that he had caught another 
 fisher in the top of the hollow stump. , Pe- 
 quam had poked the unset trap about till 
 he knew it was harmless, and then just as 
 he went to sleep carelessly after killing the 
 deer had climbed the stump without any 
 thought, apparently, of another pitfall that 
 might be waiting to receive him. 
 
 But better than the trapping, and without 
 any regrets, was to wander wide through the 
 woods alone, far away from the saple line, to 
 follow Pequam's trail and see what he caught 
 and where he slept; and then at night, be- 
 fore the singing birch logs, to compare notes 
 with Newell and learn from him the reason 
 for things that I could not understand. 
 
 Unlike most wild creatures, Pequam does 
 not seem to keep her little ones with her 
 through the winter. A mother deer usually 
 keeps her fawns until the following spring, 
 breaking a way for them through the heavy
 
 snows, leading them to the best feeding 
 places, guarding them from danger, teach- 
 ing them from her own example the things 
 which a deer must know; and it is one of 
 the sad things of hunting that, if a doe be 
 killed in the autumn, her fawn will have 
 small chance to live through a severe winter, 
 unless, as is sometimes the case, the fawn 
 joins himself to another doe and follows her 
 about. Even Upweekis the lynx often keeps 
 her big, round-eyed, savage young cubs with 
 her, teaching them to hunt and beat the 
 bush together in the long winter when food 
 is scarce. But Pequam, like all the tribe of 
 weasels, which have scant affection for their 
 young, seems to turn her cubs adrift when 
 she has led them about for a little while in the 
 autumn ; after which their instincts and quick 
 wits enable them to shift for themselves. 
 
 In the hungry days, however, the fisher 
 cubs let native cunning take the place of 
 affection. The mother may cast them off, 
 but they know her trail, and follow it at a 
 distance whenever they need food. In the 
 early winter they do very well by themselves,
 
 26o 
 
 TheTtef/offfie 
 
 though they know little of the world then 
 and are easily caught in traps; but when 
 the spring comes and small game is scarce, 
 and they are neither skillful nor powerful 
 enough to tackle a deer, then they fall back 
 on the skill and generosity of their elders. 
 Sometimes they find their own mother; 
 more often for Pequam, like Mooweesuk 
 the coon, has a streak of gentleness in him 
 for his own kind they take up the trail of 
 the first big fisher they cross, and follow it for 
 days to pick the bones and to eat up any- 
 thing he may have left of his kill after his 
 own hunger is satisfied. 
 
 More interesting than these tagging trails 
 . of the young fishers are those of the foxes 
 that follow Pequam. Foxes are always hun- 
 gry, and in the spring, when they are raven- 
 ous and when Pequam takes to killing deer 
 on the crust, two or three of them will hang 
 to the trail of a big fisher and live for weeks 
 on the proceeds of his hunting. Pequam 
 rarely covers or hides his kill ; but if it be a 
 small one, and the territory be not disturbed 
 by men, he will often lie close beside his
 
 game, in the nearest log, and will rush out from 
 his hiding to drive away the prowlers that 
 would not leave a single bone by morning. 
 
 Occasionally in the snow you may read 
 the story of his watch and guard, and 
 then a curious thing sometimes comes out. 
 Scarcely has he eaten his full and yawned 
 sleepily when some prowler comes up on 
 his trail to share the feast. If it be another 
 fisher, Pequam stands aside when he is satis- 
 fied and makes no objection; for the hun- 
 gry beggar is a young animal, not yet big 
 enough to kill for himself. The older ani- 
 mals are solitary, each hunting over a wide 
 territory and rarely, except in famine, cross- 
 ing over to the hunting-grounds of any other 
 fisher; but the young have not yet found 
 their own places, and follow freely where 
 they will. Pequam, if one may believe his 
 tracks, recognizes this and gives his crumbs 
 ungrudgingly to his hungry kinsmen. 
 
 When the foxes appear you read another 
 story. Before Pequam has half finished they 
 come trotting up on his trail, and squat on 
 their tails in a hungry circle around him.
 
 They wrinkle their pointed noses and lick 
 their chops at the good smell in the air; 
 /fl/fa// Of HiC th ev open their jaws in a great hungry yawn, 
 showing their red gums and their sharp 
 white teeth. They are not beggars, oh, 
 no! these gaunt, light-footed bandits that 
 with the crows and moose-birds follow Pe- 
 quam, as a horde of hungry mouths always 
 follow a shark at sea. Sharers of the feast are 
 they, guests from the byways and hedges, to 
 whom every smell is an invitation. Never 
 a word is said ; but one sits behind the mas- 
 ter of the feast and makes his jaws crack 
 suggestingly ; the others move around and 
 yawn prodigiously in his face, telling him 
 politely to hurry up and eat quickly, so that 
 the real feast may begin. 
 
 The very sight of these hungry, yawning, 
 exasperating fellows rouses Pequam's temper 
 like poking a stick at him. He rushes at 
 the nearest fox to annihilate him ; but Elee- 
 mos turns and floats away lightly through 
 the woods, as if the breeze were blowing 
 him. Try as desperately as he will with his 
 short legs, Pequam can never get any nearer
 
 " Rouses Pequam's 
 temper"
 
 to the white tip of the floating plume before , 
 
 him; and worst of it all, Eleemos seems to -_ _ ._ _,- 
 
 be making no effort, but looks back over his '**//&/ Of Me 
 
 shoulder as he capers along. Pequam turns 
 back at last, only to hurl himself headlong 
 through the snow far faster than he came; 
 for the other foxes are already on his kill, 
 tearing it away and bolting it in big, hungry 
 mouthfuls. He scatters them like chaff and 
 hunts one away into the swamp ; whereupon 
 the first fox slips in and gets a mouthful with 
 the others. Then Pequam comes flying back 
 and sits on his deer and spits impotently at 
 his uninvited guests. 
 
 He does not chase them again, but eats 
 his fill, while the foxes sit around and yawn 
 hugely. With a mouthful now to stay their 
 stomachs they can wait a little longer. They 
 are never still a minute, but move around and 
 sit on all sides of the table. When he has 
 eaten enough Pequam cannot quite make up 
 his mind what to do. He is sleepy already 
 and lies down on the deer ; but the old habit 
 of hiding away is strong upon him, and he 
 wants to find a hollow log. He cannot sleep
 
 where he is, and if he goes away, the foxes 
 will fall upon his game ravenously and leave 
 
 him only dry pickings when he comes back 
 agairu He backs away cra f t ii y at i as t, and 
 
 then, when a bush hides him and the foxes 
 are tearing at the game, he rushes back and 
 scatters them like a whirlwind. 
 
 So the little comedy runs on, and each 
 player writes his own part in the snow for 
 your eyes to read. It always ends the same 
 way. Pequam leaves his game grudgingly 
 and curls him up to sleep in his hollow log. 
 But he slumbers uneasily at first, as one 
 does with something on his mind ; and before 
 he can sleep contentedly he must get up once 
 or twice to chivy the foxes, which by this 
 time have eaten their full and are carrying 
 away portions to hide in the woods. 
 
 It is perhaps the thought of these hungry 
 thieves if even a fox can be called a thief 
 for helping himself when he is hungry 
 that leads Pequam to leave behind him a 
 curious sign of his ownership. Once I found 
 where he had killed a porcupine and left 
 the greater portion of it uneaten. Instead of 
 
 --? * /"
 
 Cunning One 
 
 covering or hiding his game he made, at a ^ 
 
 little distance, a circle of tracks, going around ^ 
 
 his game five or six times and leaving as U ff 
 
 many plain boundary lines in the snow. My 
 
 first thought at the time and I hold it still 
 
 was that Pequam was a young fisher, and 
 
 had left a warning to any prowlers that 
 
 might find his game. When I found it, only 
 
 a pair of moose-birds had disregarded the 
 
 warning; but I did not know, at the time, 
 
 of Pequam 's sleepy habit after eating, and 
 
 it may be that he was somewhere near, 
 
 drowsing away in a hollow log, and had 
 
 made the cunning circles of tracks to hide 
 
 his trail and to confuse any one who should 
 
 attempt to find him. 
 
 It is in hunting the porcupine without 
 injury to himself that Pequam's cunning is 
 most manifest. Unk Wunk is one of the 
 unanswered questions of the wilderness; so 
 stupid, and yet so carefully shielded from 
 the harm and hunger that torments all other 
 creatures. He is always fat, while crafty 
 and powerful beasts are starving; and his 
 armor of pointed quills generally shields him
 
 perfectly from their attacks. Occasionally the 
 fox or the lynx or the big owl tackles him, 
 when hunger becomes intolerable and they 
 must eat or d ^ e . k ut to touc h the huge chest- 
 nut bur anywhere is to fill one's mouth with 
 quills; and behind the bur is the lively tail, 
 always ready to drive in the tormenting barbs 
 by the dozen. Pequam alone has learned the 
 secret of safe attack, and kills a porcupine 
 whenever he is hungry and can find no 
 better meat. Trappers take his skin, but 
 rarely find any deeply imbedded quills to tell 
 of these encounters; while the late winter 
 pelts of fox and lynx often show only too 
 plainly how they have been punished in try- 
 ing to satisfy their hunger. 
 
 A curious trail in the deep snow led me, 
 one day, to what may be the secret of Pe- 
 quam's success. He had crossed the clumsy 
 trail of a porcupine and loped along it rapidly, 
 till with a rush he headed Unk Wunk before 
 the latter could climb a tree and escape the 
 attack. For not even Pequam would dare 
 follow along a branch and expose his face to 
 the blow of Unk Wunk's tail. The tracks
 
 
 showed that the porcupine had thrust his 
 
 forehead promptly against a tree to save his 
 
 face, according to his wont, and then stood 
 
 ready, a bristling cushion of spears, defying Ctffinmg One 
 
 anything to touch him. 
 
 Pequam circled swiftly behind his game 
 and plunged into the snow and disappeared. 
 Deep under the deadly tail and the feet and 
 body of Unk Wunk he pushed his tunnel; 
 then thrust his nose out of the snow just 
 under the porcupine's throat and gripped 
 him and held fast. A porcupine never strug- 
 gles when wounded, but holds his thorny 
 guard till he dies. Pequam, lying under the 
 snow with only his muzzle exposed, so that 
 the barbed and swift-striking tail could not 
 touch him, simply held his grip on the throat 
 till the tense muscles relaxed their 
 spasmodic pull and lay still. Then 
 he came out, opened his game 
 carefully along the under side, 
 where there are no quills, and 
 ate his fill and went away 
 untouched, leaving the bri- 
 ery, untoothsome morsels ; 
 
 ^
 
 to any hungry prowlers that might follow 
 his trail to share the feast. 
 
 Once since then a guide told me of follow . 
 
 ing a black cat . s trai]> and filing where he 
 crept up on a porcupine and tunneled under 
 'him and gripped the throat, while his own 
 body was safe from attack under the snow. 
 And I have no doubt the habit is a more or 
 less common one, and may be witnessed 
 again if one will but follow patiently Pe- 
 quam's cunning trail. Where fishers increase 
 deer grow scarce, for Pequam kills them 
 easily on the crust ; and these two facts the 
 crusted deer and the outwitted porcupine 
 undoubtedly explain why Pequam is often 
 fat even in the gaunt month of March, and 
 why he sleeps well-fed and warm for days at 
 a time while larger or faster animals must 
 wander all night long through the hungry 
 woods. 
 
 Many other things were seen or read on 
 the trail of the Cunning One, while Newell 
 followed his lonely saple line, and the little 
 hunting camp on the Dungarvon waited 
 with its warm welcome to tired hunters in
 
 the twilight. Those were good days; and 
 no hunting ever paid better in happiness 
 than that which followed the trails without 
 a thought of harm, and was content to let 
 the snow tell its own stories. But, like all 
 good times, they did not last very long. 
 Work called me away; and I like to think 
 that the solitary old Indian sometimes missed 
 his queer hunting companion, who used 
 to go out for caribou and leave his rifle at 
 home, and who always came back satisfied 
 at nightfall. 
 
 The door of the little hunting camp now 
 hangs open on its hinges, and within are 
 only mice and squirrels. Newell is far away, 
 following other trails. The birch logs that 
 sang to us the woods' songs are now ashes, 
 and the wind has scattered them to the forest 
 again; but Pequam's coat, still glossy and 
 soft and warm, curls itself into a great muff 
 about a little girl's fingers. The winter wind 
 rufHes it, and it starts and gleams and 
 quivers nervously, as ..*-'; 
 if it heard a footfall 
 on its track; and 

 
 when you put your face down in it to keep 
 your nose warm, as Pequam used to do 
 when he went to sleep, there is a subtle, 
 woodsy fragrance which speaks of fir balsam 
 and birch smoke, and the still, white woods, 
 and of a warm hollow log under the snow at 
 the end of the crooked trail.
 
 273
 
 THE sun was setting gloriously behind 
 the bleak western headlands as our lit- 
 tle schooner doubled Goose Cape, nodding 
 a solemn good-night with her jib-boom to 
 the row of solemn seals on the ice floe, and 
 then headed up slowly into the great silent 
 bay to her night's anchorage. 
 
 Between us and the unknown waters 
 towered the icebergs, some grounded fast 
 in a hundred fathoms, others drifting majes- "2 
 tically in the slow currents, with the long 
 ocean swells racing and breaking over the 
 wide green shelves of ice and boom-booming 
 their hollow thunder in the deep caverns. 
 
 2 7S
 
 Like a row of mighty sentinels they stretched 
 clear across our course, from the black rocks 
 of Maiden's Arm to the towering cliffs of 
 Bouleaux Cove, forbidding all entrance to 
 the lonely lands and waters beyond. Every 
 crevice and great hollow on their shining 
 sides seemed to be poured full of molten 
 color, while the sunset caught their glitter- 
 ing pinnacles and broke into a glory beyond 
 all words. 
 
 Hundreds of sea-birds, gulls and penguins 
 and " hagdowns " and unknown fishers of the 
 deep, had settled upon the icebergs and folded 
 the great wings that were weary with the long 
 day's flight. Here they clustered in a dense 
 mass in some great hollow, like a mother's 
 shoulder, talking softly to one another ; more 
 often they settled one by one in an endless 
 line upon the topmost shining ridges, where 
 they stood out like delicate ebony carvings 
 against the rugged roof line of the icebergs. 
 In the whole stupendous scene, rock cliffs and 
 ice mountains and boundless sea and burning 
 sky, the eye came back again and again and 
 rested on these tiny dots against the sunset.
 
 The ear heard not the crash of falling ice, nor 
 the roar of the smitten sea, nor the hollow 
 boom of breakers in the caverns ; it listened 
 for a low chatter, soft as the talk of birds in 
 their sleep, which spoke of life and the glad- 
 ness of life in the midst of the vast solitude. 
 
 Behind us, as we watched the scene and 
 the Wild Duck wore away to find a safe 
 opening between tfre bergs, the dusk came 
 creeping up over the ocean's brim. In front 
 a marvelous light of sunset and ice and 
 colored sea beckoned yet repelled us by its 
 awful glory. All around us was silence, vast, 
 profound, palpable, a silence of bygone ages, 
 which hushed the sea-birds' chatter and which 
 was only deepened and intensified by the far- 
 off surge of breakers on the shoal and the 
 nearer roll of thunder in the ice caves. Then 
 out of the silence a groan, an awful sound in 
 the primeval stillness of the place, rumbled 
 over the startled sea. It was as if the abyss 
 itself, silent for untold ages, had at last found 
 voice, and the voice was a moan of pain. 
 
 The man at the wheel, a grizzled old fish- 
 erman of St. Barbes, who took sublimity and
 
 2 7 8 
 
 Outofffie 
 
 cod traps, storm and sunshine, roaring sea 
 and the sweet rest of snug harbors all alike 
 in seasoned indifference, whirled sharply and 
 swept the sea with a glance like a needle 
 thrust. Joe the cook tumbled up from the 
 forecastle, his mouth open to take every- 
 thing in. 
 
 " What 's that, boy ? " he demanded of the 
 skipper with the freedom of Newfoundland 
 fishermen ; but the skipper only shook his 
 head, and looked seaward whence the sound 
 had come. 
 
 " Breakers on Brehaut Shoal," said the 
 man at the wheel doubtfully at last. " Air 
 ; in the ice caves," echoed Jack ; but at the 
 word the low sound rumbled on our ears 
 again and we all knew instantly that it came 
 from some living creature. 
 
 Noel the Indian pointed suddenly to wind- 
 ward, where a hump of water separated itself 
 from the sea and swirled and bubbled like 
 soup in a pot. A huge whale broke the 
 surface; something flashed beside it; then 
 another surge and the whale was gone; but 
 the awful moan was in our ears again. On
 
 the instant all discipline was lost in a great 
 curiosity as I grabbed the wheel from the 
 grizzled old fisherman, while he and Noel 
 tugged at the main-sheet, and the skipper 
 jumped for the jibs, and the cook ran for 
 the skipper's glass, and the little Wild Duck 
 whirled up to the wind and went poking her 
 jib-boom at the soapy lather where the whale 
 had disappeared. 
 
 Now a whale is so big that puny men may 
 be pardoned the supposition that he has no 
 ordinary feelings. All the way up the West 
 Coast and through the Straits, where we had 
 struggled against tide and gale and fog and 
 ice and the deadly monotony of cramped 
 limbs and close quarters, my friend had 
 amused himself by shooting bullets at the 
 whales that crossed our course, as one would 
 chuck peas at an elephant. Since we could 
 rarely get near enough to study the huge 
 creatures it was fun to stir them up, and 
 watch the sea "seethe like a pot" when 
 they went down in a hurry. A repeating 
 rifle was usually standing by the foremast,
 
 with which we sometimes added a dish to 
 
 2oO 
 
 our fare of cod and lobsters, and which served 
 
 Noel well in bagging a young seal for its oil 
 and skin. As the schooner lay balanced for 
 hours at a time between wind and tide, and 
 we saw with weariness another day without 
 gain and another salmon river unexplored, 
 there would be a sudden whoosh, like the 
 breath of forty locomotives, and a great 
 black back would come plunging up out of 
 the depths. Then the weariness would van- 
 ish, and all watched intently as somebody 
 grabbed the rifle and sent the bullets skip- 
 ping. Invariably they did no harm at all, 
 but only waked us up; for the huge black 
 back would go ponderously on its way, ris- 
 ing and sinking, with bullets skipping like 
 hornets athwart its path and lighting every- 
 where except on the shining hump. When 
 the magazine was exhausted Noel would 
 chuckle silently and go to sleep again. 
 
 The whales were about us continually in 
 all shapes and sizes, only a few of which 
 were familiar; the rest plunged into sound- 
 less deeps or followed their own endless trails
 
 into the fog, like strange steamers, unknown 
 and unnamed. Now a shoal of playing dol- 
 phins would go rushing, rolling past with a 
 purring roar of smitten water like the low 
 surge of breakers on the beach; while over 
 the mad stampede single individuals hurled 
 themselves into the air in sheer exuberance 
 of life and animal spirits. Again a troop of 
 little whales of some unknown species would 
 gather silently around the fishing punts, spy- 
 ing and peeking, as inquisitive as so many 
 blue jays. Once a stray right-\vhale, and again 
 an unmeasured monster a sulphur-bottom, 
 I judged, from his enormous length and his 
 high spouting steamed past like an express 
 train, making the Wild Duck seem of no 
 size or consequence whatever. Sometimes a 
 dozen of the leviathans would be in sight at 
 once; again a solitary rorqual would cross 
 our bows ponderously, always alone, yet 
 maintaining apparently a secret communi- 
 cation with others of his kind scattered over 
 twenty miles of ocean; for, though I never 
 saw them approach each other, they always 
 appeared and vanished, turning to east 
 
 Outo/ffie
 
 282 
 
 or west all together, as if a single impulse 
 were leading them. Knowing little about 
 the uncouth creatures, I contented myself 
 with classifying them all, as sailors do, into 
 big ones and little ones, and would watch 
 for hours in the hope of getting near enough 
 to one to observe him closely. Meanwhile 
 my friend and the sailors were rapidly and 
 harmlessly going through the supply of 
 cartridges. 
 
 One day, when from an enormous depth a 
 big whale shot his length up out of the sea 
 and fell back with a resounding splash and 
 shot the air out of his lungs with a whoosh to 
 waken the seven sleepers, I grabbed the rifle 
 thoughtlessly having jibed at the others for 
 their poor shooting and took a quick crack 
 at the monster before he had fairly settled 
 down to travel. The steel-jacketed bullet 
 caught him fair on the hump, glanced 
 through, and went skipping out exultingly 
 over the sea. Then, so quick that it made 
 one rub his eyes, the huge form had dis- 
 appeared and the sea thereabouts looked like 
 a basin of soap-suds. " B 'ys, b'ys, but that
 
 tickled his backbone ! " cried the skipper ; 
 but for me, at least, one problem was solved 
 effectually. The whale has feelings, no doubt 
 about that; and for the rest of the trip the 
 rifle was kept in the cabin and we began to 
 watch the huge creatures with a less barbaric 
 interest. 
 
 Another day, towards twilight, while the 
 schooner loafed along in no hurry whatever 
 to reach an anchorage, I was standing at the 
 bow watching the shoals of fish and the cir- 
 cling gulls, when a whale broke water and 
 lay resting on the sea. Close about him were 
 some black rocks, breaking the surface as 
 the tide fell ; and as Leviathan scratched him- 
 self leisurely, like a huge sea-pig, against the 
 rough surfaces to rid his skin of the clinging 
 barnacles, or lay quiet with his black hump 
 above the water-line, he might easily have 
 been mistaken for one of the rocks, about 
 which the tide w r as swirling and ebbing. A 
 big herring gull, heavy and sleepy with too 
 much feeding, came flapping along. As he 
 saw the inviting rock he set his broad wings 
 and dropped his heavy feet to alight. The
 
 284 
 
 toes had barely touched the huge back when 
 --. plunge! kuk-kuk ! There was a lightning 
 swirl and a smother of soapy water. The 
 whale was gone ; and a frightened and wide- 
 awake gull was jumping upward, humping 
 his back and threshing the air and kukku- 
 king his astonishment at the disappearance 
 of his late landing-place. 
 
 Here were more feelings, delicate enough 
 to feel the touch of a bird's toes on a back 
 so big that, judging by what the whalemen 
 had told me of the whale's insensibility while 
 being lanced, I had supposed its nerves must 
 be arranged about as plentifully as telegraph 
 wires in the country. The whole proceed- 
 ing was like the lightning jump of a sleep- 
 ing wolf when a twig cracks, or a leaf drops 
 close to his ear. 
 
 One day, while the schooner lay becalmed, 
 I jumped into the dory with Noel and pulled 
 inshore to see what the herring boats were 
 doing, and to collect some of the queer, 
 unknown fish that were brought up in the 
 nets. As we moved among the boats I caught 
 sight of a big whale gliding in towards us
 
 with all the cautiousness of a coyote approach- 
 ing a sleeping camp. He would stop here 
 and there and pick up something, and glide n J- 
 
 forward again to left or right, like a fox 
 quartering towards a quail roost. As he drew 
 near I saw that he was after the scattered 
 herring which had fallen from the nets, and 
 which were now floating astern on the sur- 
 face as the tide drifted them away. Closer 
 and closer he came, while we all stopped our 
 work to W 7 atch. The huge bulk would glide 
 softly up to a tiny dct of silver floating on 
 the ocean's blue; the great mouth would 
 open, wide enough to take in a fisherman, 
 and close gently over one small herring. 
 Then he would swallow his tidbit and back 
 away slowly to watch the boats awhile before 
 picking up another morsel. He always turned 
 side wise so as to look at us with one eye, as 
 a chicken does ; for he seemed unable to see 
 straight in front of him. But he had other 
 senses to depend upon, and also that unknown 
 feeling of danger w r hen ordinary senses are 
 useless, which the whalemen tell us is so 
 strongly developed in this uncouth monster.
 
 286 
 
 Out of me 
 
 While he was nosing after two or three her- 
 ring I motioned Noel to be quiet, and slipping 
 an oar over the stern began to scull gently 
 towards him. Hardly had the bow of my 
 dory cleared the line of punts when he sank 
 from sight; and when he came up again he 
 was far away and heading straight out to sea. 
 Farther up the coast, where the Straits 
 began to be ice choked, another curious fact 
 came out, namely, that some of these warm- 
 blooded monsters, though they live amid the 
 icebergs, are unwilling to come close to even 
 a small cake of floating ice. The water there 
 is always chilled, and Leviathan avoids it abso- 
 lutely. More than that, though he is gener- 
 ally set down as a stupid creature, he showed 
 some small degree of intelligence in taking 
 care of himself. Here on the West Coast, 
 especially under the influence of strong south- 
 erly winds, the tide will often set for days in 
 the same direction without turning. Levia- 
 than knows this, though many a skipper 
 loses his vessel in the fog because of his 
 ignorance of this steady eastward set of the 
 tide. At such times the loose ice drifts away
 
 and the whales enter many of the narrow ~ 
 bays to feed abundantly on the shoaling fish. 
 But when the tide turns at last, and the ice 
 comes drifting back, the huge creatures leave 
 the bays, fearing to be shut in by a bar- 
 rier of ice to the whalemen's mercies. And 
 though there be a dozen whales in the bay, 
 as many miles apart, they generally turn all 
 at the same instant, as if at command, and 
 head swiftly out to the open sea and safety. 
 
 Where the Straits grew narrow and the 
 floating ice threatened to block our way alto- 
 gether, we saw another curious bit of Levia- 
 than's precaution. He would stand straight 
 up on end, appearing like a huge black spile 
 rising ten or fifteen feet above the water, and 
 look far ahead over the nearer ice floes to 
 see if the Straits were blocked. And if the 
 survey were unsatisfactory, he would dive 
 deep and come up with a terrific rush, breach- 
 ing his entire length out of water, for one 
 swift look far ahead to see whether his course 
 were clear. 
 
 Still later, when we had at last doubled 
 Cape Bauld with its fog and ice and were
 
 heading southward, I saw, one day, a mother 
 whale lying on the sea suckling her little 
 one. They were resting inshore, close beside 
 our course, and I had an excellent chance 
 to watch them through my glasses ere the 
 mother took alarm and disappeared silently, 
 as a mother moose might have done, leading 
 her ungainly offspring. To my wonder she 
 did not lie sleepily quiet, as other mothers 
 do, that w T ould have been fatal to the little 
 fellow, but kept up a rhythmic rolling from 
 side to side ; now dipping the calf deep from 
 sight, now lifting his head above the top of 
 the waves as he clung to her side, so as to 
 give him free chance to breathe as he fed 
 greedily from his mother's great breast. And 
 as \ve drew nearer there was a faint, low 
 mumbling, whether the rare voice of the 
 whale, or an audible breathing through the 
 blow-holes, or made in some other way, I 
 could not tell, full of a deep, uncouth ten- 
 derness as she talked in her own way to 
 her little one, telling the world also that 
 even here, in the cold, ice-choked wastes of 
 ^_^^^-g=- desolation, life was good, for love was not
 
 lacking. Indeed, the tenderness and rare 
 devotion of these huge monsters for their 
 little ones is the most fascinating thing 
 about them. 
 
 Here were feelings cf an entirely different 
 sort ; and now the heart of man was touched 
 in the thought that there was something in 
 the huge creatures of our sport that was, 
 after all, akin to ourselves. At first our in- 
 terest had been largely barbaric, to stir up 
 Leviathan with the fear of man, and to see 
 how quickly, like the oily flash of a dolphin, 
 he could make his bulk disappear. The 
 scientific stage followed, in which we spoke 
 of unclassified varieties, hoping to make 
 a discovery, and babbled of Denticete (the 
 presence of teeth being more important 
 than habits of life) and Bal&nidce and Phy- 
 seteridce, especially Physeter macrocephalus, 
 and Orcinus gladiator in six varieties 
 
 " Wat 's that ? " demanded the grizzled old 
 fisherman, who could stand it no longer. 
 
 " That 's a killer-whale," I told him. 
 
 "Oh," said he, "sh'ld think 'twould kill 
 ye to remember it." 
 
 Outofffie
 
 So we gave up trying to name these mon- 
 sters of the abyss with names sufficiently 
 uncouth to be scientific, and brought back 
 the crew to life by lowering a boat to see 
 what kind of squid or fish or tiny mollusk 
 they were eating. For we had been told 
 that, in certain species, the throat of one of 
 these huge whales is so small that a pippin 
 would choke him. 
 
 Soon the sporting interest awoke. One 
 who knew the whalemen well talked of har- 
 poons and ambergris, and told the story of 
 the Nantucket ship that had been charged, 
 and battered and sunk, by a fighting old 
 bull. Whereupon the grizzled fisherman of 
 St. Barbes put in with an account of what he 
 had seen last summer, when a whale blun- 
 dered into the fishermen's nets during a 
 storm. Three days he lay in the trap; now 
 pushing his head into a net and drawing 
 back in afright at the queer thing; now 
 breaching clear of the water to see if there 
 were any way out, and falling back heavily 
 again as if discouraged in his quest. Then 
 he evidently made up what he would call his
 
 ' A long snaky body leaped clear 
 of the water"
 
 mind, and the whole fleet of boats stood by 
 and cursed impotently while the hopes of 
 a dozen families went whirling blindly out 
 to sea on the flukes of a bewildered rorqual. 
 But all these stages were passed; and our 
 interest was purely human as we stood now 
 in a close group at the weather rail of the 
 schooner, scholar and fisherman alike, to 
 learn what hidden grief or pain had added a 
 new voice to the world of waters. 
 
 The whale rolled up again, nearer this 
 time. There was a wriggle and flash beside 
 him ; a long snaky body leaped clear of the 
 water, doubling itself like a steel spring, and 
 struck down a terrific blow at the whale's 
 head. "Thresher!" cried the skipper excit- 
 edly. The creature leaped and struck again, 
 and a heavy thud rolled over the ocean, like 
 the blow of a giant flail. Before I could see 
 plainly all that happened something struck 
 the whale from below, and he rolled under 
 in a smother of foam, while the ocean itself 
 seemed to bellow forth its rage and pain. 
 But whether the strange sound were indeed 
 
 293 
 
 Outofffie
 
 294 
 
 the rare voice of the whale, or the reverbera- 
 tion of smitten water, or the vibration of great 
 volumes of air driven out of the laboring 
 lungs through the blow-holes, we could not 
 tell; nor had the fishermen ever heard it 
 save when a whale was fighting for his life. 
 While the whale was gone and we watched 
 breathless for him to come to the surface 
 again, the skipper and the old fisherman 
 answered my hurried questions. Yes, they 
 had seen the threshers, or fox-sharks, before, 
 and had sometimes caught them in their 
 nets. Once they had seen three or four of 
 them fighting a whale as they were jigging 
 cod on the shoals. They w 7 ere from twelve 
 to twenty feet long, the skipper said, in- 
 cluding the prolonged upper lobe of the tail, 
 which they could use with terrific force as 
 a weapon of offense. Then the scholar 
 brought out of the cabin the skull of a fox- 
 shark that we had found in the hut of a 
 Labrador fisherman, a skull that was chiefly 
 a pair of long, pointed, cruel jaws with rows 
 of hooked ivory fangs fitting together like 
 the teeth of a bear trap. "That's it, a
 
 thresher," said the skipper. " He'll gouge 
 them jaws into a whale or porp'se with a 
 twist o' his tail, and rip out a bite that would 
 fill a bucket. There he is ! " 
 
 The whale shot out of the depths and 
 breached clear of the water in his upward 
 rush. As he fell back there was the same 
 flash and wriggle beside him, the same leap 
 as of a bent spring, the same heavy blow and 
 moan. Then something else appeared, dart- 
 ing up like a ray of light, and the long blade 
 of a swordfish ripped through the whale's 
 side. The force of his attack brought the 
 big fish to the surface, where we saw his 
 shoulders plainly and caught the flash of 
 light on his terrible weapon as he turned to 
 dive beneath his victim. The whale sounded 
 again, turning fair on end, with the thresher 
 leaping over him, or standing on his head 
 to strike down a last terrible blow, as the 
 huge victim sought blindly for an abyss deep 
 enough to escape the lash and sting of his 
 enemies. 
 
 The schooner fell away in the light evening 
 
 wind, and the rush of the uncouth tragedy = 
 
 295 
 
 Outofffie
 
 carried it swiftly away where no man watched 
 the end of it. But this much seemed clear: 
 the two strangely assorted bandits, savage 
 monsters of the savage sea, were working 
 together to destroy their great and help- 
 less victim, the thresher lashing him down 
 to the swordfish with flail-like blows of his 
 flukes, and the swordfish driving him up on 
 the point of his lance to the thresher again. 
 What started the fight, or how it ended, no 
 man can say. Here and there, between the 
 ship and the rim of dusk, there would be a 
 sudden turmoil, a flash and a whirl of foam. 
 As the turmoil sank, a low moan shivered on 
 the sea. So they passed out into the deeps 
 and were gone.
 
 297
 
 MATWOCK, the huge polar bear, 
 drifted down from the Arctic on an 
 iceberg and landed, one spring night in 
 the fog, at Little Harbor Home on the east 
 Newfoundland coast. 
 
 It seemed at first a colossal fatality, that 
 iceberg. The fishermen had just brought 
 their families back from the winter lodge in 
 the woods, and had made their boats ready 
 to go out to the Hook-and-Line Grounds for 
 a few fresh cod to keep themselves alive. 
 Then a heavy fog shut in, and in the midst 
 
 of the fog the iceberg came blundering into 
 
 299
 
 the tickle, as if there were no other place in 
 300 
 
 a thousand leagues of sea and rock-bound 
 
 tW hundred fathoms of 
 water at the harbor mouth, and the great 
 
 berg touched bottom softly, yet with a ter- 
 rific impact which sent huge masses of ice 
 crashing down on the black rocks on either 
 side. It might stay a month, or it might 
 drift away on the next tide. Meanwhile the 
 fishermen were helpless as flies in a bottle ; 
 for the iceberg corked the harbor mouth 
 and not even a punt could get out or in. 
 
 Old Tomah came that same day from 
 his hunting camp far away in the interior. 
 Grown tired of eating beaver meat and 
 smoking willow bark, he had brought some 
 otter skins to trade for a little pork and 
 tobacco, with a few warm stockings thrown 
 in for good measure. But the trading 
 schooner, for which the islanders watch in 
 spring as a lost man watches for morning, 
 had not yet come, and the fishermen were 
 themselves at the point of starvation. For a 
 month they had tasted nothing but a little 
 dried fish and doughballs. Hunting was
 
 out of the question ; for their dogs were all 
 dead, and their few guns were out with the 
 young men, who before the advent of the 
 iceberg had taken their lives in their hands 
 and gone up the coast sealing in a stout 
 little schooner. So Tomah, taking his otter 
 skins, started back for his own camp. 
 
 As his custom was in a strange place, 
 Tomah first climbed the highest hill in the 
 neighborhood to get his bearings. The blun- 
 dering iceberg seemed to him a grim joke, 
 more grim than the joke on himself which 
 had left him after a forty-mile tramp without 
 pork or tobacco or warm stockings. He was 
 watching the berg with silent, Indian intent- 
 ness when a mass of overhanging ice crashed 
 down on the rocks. Something stirred in 
 a deep cave suddenly laid open; the next 
 instant his keen eyes made out the figure 
 of a huge white bear standing in the cave, 
 rocking his head up and down as the smell 
 of the village drifted out of the harbor into 
 his hungry nostrils. 
 
 Tomah came down ^,..^ 
 
 from the hill to leave S ,''-' ' 
 
 fflp- A^ s -' -
 
 a warning at the little store. " Bes' look 
 out," he said. " Bear over dere on dat hice, 
 big, oh, big one ! He come here to-night, 
 soon 's dark, see wat he kin find. He hun- 
 gry, an' oh, cross; don't 'fraid noting. Bes' 
 set um trap, ketch um plenty meat." Then, 
 because he had left his own gun behind and 
 could borrow none in the village, he started 
 inland on his long tramp. 
 
 Matwock the bear landed from his iceberg 
 as soon as it was dark, as Tomah had said, 
 and headed straight for the village. For a 
 month he had been adrift in the open sea 
 without food; because the seals, which had 
 first enticed him away till fifty miles of open 
 water stretched between him and his native 
 haunts, had now returned to the coast to 
 rear their young on the rocks and grounded 
 ice-floes. Meanwhile the great berg to which 
 he clung, as a mariner to a floating spar, 
 drifted steadily southward over the mist- 
 shrouded ocean with its base a thou- 
 sand feet deep in a powerful current. 
 Most of the time he had slept, going 
 back to the old bear habit of
 
 hibernation to save his strength ; but when 
 the berg grounded, and the wind from the 
 harbor brought the smell of fish and of living 
 animals to his nostrils, he sprang up raven- 
 ously hungry. Never having seen men, he 
 had no fear. Straight and swift he followed 
 his nose, ready to seize the first food, living 
 or dead, that lay in his path. 
 
 On the outskirts of the village he came 
 upon a huge deadfall which the men had 
 made hurriedly at Tomah's suggestion, partly 
 to get meat, of which they were in sore need, 
 but more to protect themselves and their lit- 
 tle ones from the savage prowler which knew 
 no fear. The bait was a lot of offal, bones, 
 and fish-skins tied together with cod-line ; and 
 the fall log was the stump of a big mast, 
 water-logged and heavy as lead, which had 
 come ashore years ago from a wreck, and 
 which they made heavier still by rocks lashed 
 on with cables. Matwock entered the pen 
 swiftly, grabbed the bait, and thud! down 
 came the weighted log on his shoulders. 
 
 Now a black bear would have been caught 
 across the small of the back and his spine 
 
 MafwocA: of
 
 cracked like an egg-shell by the fearful blow. 
 But Matwock was altogether too big, and 
 the pen altogether too small. With a roar 
 of rage he hurled the log aside, smashed 
 the pen into fragments, and charged straight 
 through the village, knocking to pieces with 
 blows of his terrible paws the pens and fish- 
 flakes that stood across his path. More than 
 one man jumped from his bed at the uproar 
 to see the huge white brute rush past, and to 
 bless himself that he was safe within doors. 
 
 Matwock went back to his cave in the 
 iceberg, angry and sore, yet with a strange 
 timidity at heart from this first experience 
 in the abodes of men. What the abominable 
 thing was that had fallen on his back he 
 had, of course, no idea; but he had learned 
 in a minute that he could not prowl here 
 with the power and authority that marked 
 him in the vast snowy solitudes where no 
 man dwells. He was licking a wound that 
 a chain had torn in his shaggy white coat, 
 when a faint scratching and grunting, amid 
 
 ^A^^.^<- the ceaseless roar of 
 
 breakers and booming
 
 of waves in the ice caverns, came to his sen- 
 sitive ears and made him steal out instantly 
 to investigate. 
 
 Down on a shelf of ice, on the seaward 
 side of the great berg, two bull seals had 
 floundered out, fat and heavy with food, to 
 sleep and bask in the sun, which was just 
 then rising. A glance told the bear that the 
 big seals had chosen the spot well, where no 
 danger could approach save from the open 
 sea out of which they had just come. Of 
 the berg itself they had no fear whatever; 
 for it rose behind them a hundred feet in a 
 sharp incline to where a score of glistening 
 spires and minarets began, on which the sea- 
 birds were resting. So they stretched their 
 fat bulks comfortably on the narrow shelf of 
 ice, watching the open sea, blinking sleepily 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 Slowly, cautiously, Matwock circled the 
 berg, creeping upward along a great crevice 
 to reach another shelf over the basking seals. 
 His great feet were padded thickly with fur, 
 which clung to the ice like wool ; and where 
 the ascent was most ticklish the muscles of
 
 MafwocX or 
 
 his fore legs contracted strongly, driving his 
 claws like steel hooks into the ice. So he 
 
 gained the high shelf at last and lay down 
 w j tn omv ^- s ears and eves s h ow mg over 
 
 the edge as he looked down hungrily at his 
 game. 
 
 Below him was a dizzy incline, steep as a 
 mountain top, polished and glistening with 
 the frost and storms of the centuries, at the 
 foot of which the unconscious seals were 
 basking. Very deliberately Matwock chose 
 his position over the larger seal ; then with 
 his hind legs he pushed himself steadily over 
 the edge, crouching low on his belly with his 
 nose on his fore paws, which were stretched 
 straight out in front of him. Like a flash of 
 light he glanced down over the slope, strik- 
 ing the seal a terrific blow and knocking 
 him end over end as the bear shot over him 
 into the sea. There was a terrible commotion 
 for an instant, which set the sea-birds flap- 
 ping and clamoring wildly; then out of the 
 turmoil Matwock's head arose, gripping the 
 big seal by the neck. He laid his game 
 carefully on the ice shelf, kicked himself up
 
 after it, and ate it there, where a moment 
 before it had been blinking sleepily in the 
 morning sun. 
 
 The presence of his favorite game in the 
 strange land turned Matwock's thoughts 
 from the village of men into which he had 
 blundered with the iceberg. No boats came 
 out or in to disturb him, so he kept his 
 abode in the ice cavern, which was safe and 
 warm, and out of which he wandered daily 
 up and down the rocky coast. 
 
 A few mother seals had their young here, 
 hidden on the great ice-floes, which were 
 fast anchored to the rocks and shoals. The 
 little seals are snow-white at first for kind 
 Nature forgets none of her helpless children 
 the better to hide on the white ice on 
 which they are born. Only their eyes and 
 the tips of their noses are black, and at 
 the first alarm they close their eyes and lie 
 very still, so that it is almost impossible to 
 see them. Even w r hen you stand over them 
 they look like rough lumps of snow-ice. If 
 they have time they even hide the black tips 
 of their noses in their white fur coats; and 
 
 307 
 
 JfafwocJc of
 
 if you appear suddenly they simply close 
 their eyes, and the black nose tip looks like 
 
 or a stray pebble? or a tiny bit of bark left by 
 
 t j ie uneas y w i n ds that sweep over the ice- 
 floes. As they grow larger and begin to fish 
 for themselves they gradually turn dark and 
 sleek, like their mothers, the better to slip 
 unseen through the dark waters in which 
 they hunt. 
 
 Like all bears, Matwock had poor eyes, 
 and depended chiefly on his nose in scout- 
 ing. He would swim swiftly, mile after mile, 
 along the edges of the floes, raising his head 
 to sniff every breeze, trying to locate where 
 the young seals were hiding. But the little 
 ones give out almost no scent at such times, 
 besides being invisible, and Matwock rarely 
 dined on a nest of young seals. The only 
 way he could catch them was by a cunning 
 bit of bear strategy. He would swim far out 
 from the edge of the floes and drift about 
 among the floating ice, looking himself like 
 an ice cake ; or else he would crouch on an 
 ice-field and watch for hours till he saw a 
 big seal clamber out, and knew from her
 
 actions that she was feeding her young. 
 Then he would head straight and swift for 
 
 8 
 
 the spot and nose all over it till he found 
 what he was seeking. 
 
 When the big bull seals came ashore to 
 bask in the sun, resting on a rock or the 
 edge of an ice-floe whence they could slip 
 instantly into deep water, Matwock invented 
 a new style of still-hunting. He would slip 
 silently far down to leeward for the seal's 
 nose is almost as keen as his own 
 and there begin his cautious stalk up-wind. 
 Sinking his enormous weight deep in the 
 water till only his nose and the top of his 
 head appeared, he would glide slowly along 
 the edge of the floe, looking exactly like a 
 bit of loose ice drifting along in the tide. 
 When near the game he would disappear 
 entirely and, like an otter, not a ripple 
 marked the spot where he went down. 
 
 The big seal would be blinking sleepily 
 on the edge of the ice-floe, raising himself 
 on his flippers to stretch like a \volf, or turn- 
 ing leisurely to warm both sides at the sun, 
 when the huge head and shoulders of a bear
 
 3 io 
 
 MaftrocA of 
 
 would shoot up out of the water directly in 
 front of him. One swift, crushing blow of 
 the terrible paw, and the seal would be dead 
 without a thought of what had happened 
 to him. 
 
 So Matwock lived and hunted for a week, 
 growing fat and contented again. Then 
 the seals vanished on one of their sudden 
 migrations following the fish, no doubt 
 and for a week more he hunted without a 
 mouthful. One night, when he returned late 
 to his cave, the great iceberg had broken its 
 anchorage and drifted well out of the tickle, 
 and from the harbor the smell of fresh fish 
 drifted into his hungry nostrils. For the day 
 had been sunny and calm, and the starving 
 fishermen had slipped out to the Hook-and- 
 Line Grounds and brought back exultingly 
 the first cod of the season. 
 
 Again Matwock came ashore, tired as 
 he was after an all-day's swim, and headed 
 straight for the good smell in the village. The 
 big deadfall was set in his path, baited with 
 fresh offal, and the log was weighted twice 
 :^: g-f* r^ as heavily as
 
 before. But the bear had learned cunning 
 and entered the trap from the rear, tearing 
 the heavy pen to pieces as if it were made 
 of straws. The fall came down again with 
 a thud that made the ground shiver; but it 
 fell harmlessly on the bed log, and Mat- 
 wock ate the bait greedily to the last scrap. 
 Then he entered the village, rummaging the 
 wharves and sheds boldly, and leaving his 
 great footprints at every door. When he had 
 eaten everything in sight he headed down 
 the Long Arm of the harbor, drawn still by 
 the smell of fish that floated up in the still 
 night air. 
 
 Late that night Old Tomah appeared with 
 his otter skins and a haunch of caribou at 
 Daddy Crummet's cabin, on the edge of 
 the woods far down at the bottom of Long 
 Arm. All winter Daddy Crummet had been 
 sick, chiefly from rheumatism and lack of 
 food ; and Tomah, taking pity on the lonely 
 old man, blundered around in the dark to 
 find wood to make a stew of the savory 
 meat which he had brought with him all 
 the way from his camp in the interior. At 

 
 312 
 
 Mafwocfi: of 
 
 twilight a fisherman kind-hearted and 
 generous, as they all are had come to leave 
 a couple of fresh cod and hurry away again 
 on his long, weary pull up the Arm. Daddy 
 meant to cook the fish, but was too weak 
 when the time came, and left them in a bar- 
 rel in his little shed. Then came Tomah 
 with his stew, and the old man ate and felt 
 better. It was midnight when they had 
 smoked a pipe of Tomah's dried willow bark 
 and traded the scant news from the two ends 
 of the wilderness and turned in to sleep. 
 
 A terrible racket in the shed roused them 
 whack ! bang ! thump ! Something was 
 out there knocking everything to pieces. 
 Daddy, under the bedclothes, began to 
 shiver and wail that the devil himself had 
 come to fetch him. Tomah tumbled out of 
 his caribou skins and jumped up like a jack- 
 in-a-box, just as a barrel was flung against 
 the door with a crash that made it shiver. In 
 the appalling silence that followed they 
 heard the fichap, p'chap of some huge beast 
 crunching the codfish between his jaws. 
 
 Tomah had brought his gun this time.
 
 He grabbed it from behind the stove, pulled 
 the big hammer back, and felt with his fin- 
 gers to be sure that the cap was ready on **&*&&& Of 
 the nipple. He stole to the door and opened 
 it cautiously, pushing the gun -barrel out 
 ahead of him. A huge white beast turned 
 swiftly as the door squeaked. Tomah, mak- 
 ing out what seemed to him a great head in 
 the darkness, poked the muzzle of the gun 
 into it and pulled the trigger. There was a 
 deafening roar; the door was slammed back 
 in the face of the old Indian with a force 
 that sent him sprawling on his back. Daddy 
 with a last terrible groan lay still, as if it 
 were all over. 
 
 When Tomah scrambled to his feet, his 
 ears ringing, his nose filled with pungent 
 powder smoke, there lay Matwock at the 
 end of his long trail. He was lying as if 
 asleep, his great paws outspread across the 
 threshold, his head resting heavily between 
 them. The tail of the last codfish stuck out 
 of a corner of his mouth, and his lips were 
 parted in a ferocious grin, as if to the end 
 it were all a huge joke.
 
 " Py cosh ! " said Tomah, rubbing his scalp 
 and looking down in a puzzled way at the 
 , great beast, "why I go lug um dat caribou 
 
 me/cel>er& forty mile? huh? Plenty meat here oh, 
 
 plenty!" he added, as he dragged the great 
 head aside, and shut the door, and rolled up 
 in his caribou skins for another nap.
 
 A GLORIOUS salmon 
 river, unnamed but not 
 unknown to the few New- 
 foundland fishermen who have 
 explored the rugged East Coast, 
 comes singing and shouting down 
 through the woods and leaps hila- 
 riously over Kopswaugan, the jumping place. 
 Below the falls the river roars and tumbles 
 among the great rocks ; spreads a little into 
 numerous channels of rushing white water; 
 gathers again into a strong, even, rippling 
 current, full of crinkly yellow lights; rolls 
 317
 
 Me 
 
 through a huge pool sedately; and then goes 
 shouting down the rapids to another fall. 
 
 Birds are s } ng i n g to tne swe iii n g buds ; the 
 
 wind rust i es amon g t he new leaves and hums 
 steadily in the spruce tops; the air quivers 
 to the rhythmic throbbing of the falls ; a deep 
 organ peal rolls up from the rapids; but all 
 these sounds and subtle harmonies are but 
 dreams of the sleeping woods, for listen! 
 over all broods the unbroken silence of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 Just below the falls, where the torrent 
 spreads into hurrying white channels, a man 
 with a salmon rod is standing on a flat rock 
 that juts into the current. All the bright 
 sunny morning he has been standing there, 
 his ears full of bird and river music, his eyes 
 full of the rushing foam and sunlight of the 
 river, his heart brimful of all that is 
 "- good in the wilderness. A couple 
 of salmon, little nine-pounders, lie 
 on a shaded mossy bank, where 
 Noel sits smoking his pipe. Now 
 and then the Indian quietly 
 advises trying a pool lower
 
 down ; and the advice is good, because the 
 river is full of salmon, and down below, 
 where they have not seen the fly, they will 
 come up with a rush at anything. Here they 
 have already grown shy from seeing the little 
 Jock Scott sweeping over the foam, followed 
 by the terrific rushes of two captured salmon 
 and of three more that broke away gloriously. 
 But it is only a small part of fishing to catch 
 fish, and the man finds it perfect where he 
 is, thinking it better fun to locate one good 
 salmon and entice him to rise, rather than 
 go below and catch or lose a dozen. So he 
 Stands quietly on the jutting rock, watching 
 the river, listening to the music. 
 
 So long has he stood there, following the 
 swing and jump of his little fly in the boil- 
 ing current, that the rushing movement has 
 got into his eyes, producing a curious illu- 
 sion that every salmon fisher will recognize. 
 Not only the river, but the shores themselves 
 seem sweeping along to keep pace with the 
 hurrying flood. The big log that bridges 
 the stream below the falls is running swiftly 
 away, and after it come the white sheet and
 
 320 
 
 Wfrere ffie 
 
 thunder of the waterfall trying to catch it. 
 The green banks and bushes scud away like 
 clouds before the wind. Even the great solid 
 
 rock under foot j oins the swift? unsteady pro . 
 
 cession; and down we all go, trees, rocks, and 
 river, swaying, jumping, singing, and shout- 
 ing together on a glorious chase through the 
 wilderness. 
 
 In the midst of the rush and tumult the 
 clear, sweet song of Killooleet, the white- 
 throated sparrow, follows us, as if he were say- 
 ing, Good-by, Friend Fisherman, Fisherman, 
 Fisherman. And, spite of all the apparent 
 uproar of rocks and river, the exquisite little 
 melody sounds in our ears as clearly as if 
 Killooleet were singing behind our tent in 
 the twilight stillness. 
 
 The man's head grows dizzy with 
 the delusion. His foothold, at best, 
 is none too steady over the rush- 
 ing torrent; so he closes his eyes 
 to bring back the reality of 
 things. And the reality 
 must be good indeed, 
 judging by the way
 
 his soul, like a wind-touched harp, is thrilling 
 
 to the melody of woods and waters. ^, 
 
 As he opens his eyes again there is a Where I//C 
 sudden plunge on the edge of the farthest 
 white rush of water. A huge salmon tumbles 
 into sight, showing head and shoulders and 
 a foot of broad blue back that makes the 
 man's nine-pounders look like smelts in a 
 cod trap. 
 
 "Das de feller; big, oh, big one!" says 
 Noel, straightening his back, and instantly 
 the slender rod gets into action. The fly 
 falls softly across the current; swings down 
 with the flood and fetches up beautifully 
 at the end of a straight leader, just over 
 the spot where the water humped itself as 
 the big salmon went down. Like a flash 
 he boils up at the lure, throwing his big 
 shoulders out of the foam in his rush; but 
 the fly swings nearer and hangs skittering 
 on the surface. 
 
 " Miss um, dat time," says Noel with im- 
 mense disappointment; and the man draws 
 in his line and sits down on the rock to let 
 the big salmon settle into his sunken eddy
 
 and forget what he saw when his head came 
 out of water. 
 
 while we are waiting for him to grow 
 qu i et _ res ting him," the salmon fishermen 
 call it let us find out, if we can, what he is 
 doing here, and why he halts so long in the 
 midst of all this turmoil, while his instincts 
 are calling him steadily up the river to the 
 quiet shallows where his life began. 
 
 First, look down into the water there at 
 your feet, where the rwer is running swiftly 
 but smoothly over the yellow pebbles near 
 shore. Nothing but smiles, dimples, and 
 crinkly yellow lights, whirling and chan- 
 ging ceaselessly, as if the river here were 
 full of liquid sunshine. Look again; curve 
 a hand on either side of your eyes to shut 
 out the side-lights, and look steadily just 
 below that round yellow stone under its 
 three feet of crinkly sunshine. At first you 
 see nothing, your eyes being full of the flash- 
 ing surfaces and the dimpling lights and 
 shadows of the yellow flood. Suddenly, as 
 if a window were opened in the river, you 
 see a vague quivering outline. " Did he just
 
 come ? Is he gone again ? " Not at all ; he 
 is right there ; look again. 
 
 Another long look; again the impression 
 of a window opened, and now you see a 
 salmon plainly. He is lying there, with his 
 nose in a sunken eddy, resting quietly while 
 the river rolls on over him. You see his shin- 
 ing silver sides, the blue tint on his back, the 
 black line of a net on his head, the tail sway- 
 ing rhythmically, every line of the splen- 
 did fish as in a clear photograph. Then, as 
 if the window were suddenly shut, you see 
 nothing but dancing yellow lights. The fish 
 has vanished utterly, and you must look 
 again and again, waiting till the lights and 
 dimples run away together; and there is 
 your salmon, lying just where he was before; 
 nor has he moved, except for the lazy sway- 
 ing of his broad tail and the balancing of his 
 fins, while the lights above hid him from 
 your eyes. 
 
 When looking for salmon, as with <g^ 
 other good things in life, the C^^ 11 ^ 
 eye is easily confused by a ^--^ 
 multitude of little, unimportant '^t^^^
 
 things close at hand. Standing on the same 
 rock Noel will point out a score of salmon 
 fflC wner e you see no thing but changing lights 
 and dimp i es . It i s not because his eyes are 
 stronger or keener than yours for they 
 would fail in a week if they had your work 
 to do but simply because he has learned 
 to look through the intermediate superficial- 
 ities for the better thing that he is seek- 
 ing. Where your eye sees only ripples and 
 flashes, his eye disregards these things and 
 finds the big salmon lying just below them. 
 Climb into the tree there, the big spruce 
 leaning out over the water. Now the surface 
 lights have lost their power over your eyes, 
 and you can see clearly to the river's bed. 
 There, close beside the one salmon that you 
 glimpsed for a moment, a dozen more are 
 lying. Above and below they sprinkle the 
 river, each one lying with his nose behind 
 a stone and catching the current's force on 
 his fins in such a way that the flood, which 
 would sweep him away, is made to hold him 
 in position without conscious effort, just as 
 a sea-gull soars against the wind.
 
 Look out now at the white rush where 
 the big salmon just plunged at my fly. He 
 is not there, and you wonder if the shining 
 leader or the sight of the swaying rod has 
 scared him away. Now let your eye follow 
 the current a little way. There, ten feet be- 
 low where the foam ceases, a monster salmon 
 is lying behind a stone under a smooth 
 run of water. As you look he darts forward 
 like a ray of light; you lose him for an 
 instant; then he plunges out just where you 
 saw his first great rise. In a moment he 
 sweeps back again and rounds up into his 
 own eddy, lightly, gracefully, as a sloop 
 rounds up to her mooring. There is some- 
 thing in his mouth, a leaf perhaps, or a 
 big black and yellow butter- 
 fly, but the next moment 
 he shoots it out, as one would 
 blow a cloud of smoke. The 
 current seizes, crumples it, and 
 sends it down, spreading and 
 quivering like a 
 living thing, into 
 the next eddy. 
 
 325
 
 326 
 
 Wfrere Jfte 
 
 Instantly another salmon flashes into sight, 
 catches the leaf with a whirl and plunge, 
 holds it in his mouth a moment and then 
 blows it out again. 
 
 That 's what they are doing, just playing 
 with pretty little things that come skipping 
 and dancing down the river, as your fly 
 came at the end of its invisible leader. Half 
 an hour ago they were asleep, or utterly 
 indifferent to all your flies and delicate cast- 
 ing ; now the queer mood is on them again, 
 and they will take anything you offer. But 
 wait a moment ; here comes a fish-hawk. 
 Ismaques, on set wings, comes sailing 
 gently down the river. He 
 sheers off with a sharp cliwee ! 
 and circles twice as he notices us in the 
 tree-top ; but in a moment he is scanning 
 the water again. From his height his keen 
 eyes see every fish in the river ; but they are 
 all too large and too deep under the swift 
 water. Later, when the run of grilse comes 
 in, he will be able to pick up a careless one ; 
 but now he just looks over the river, as if it 
 were his own preserve, and circles back to
 
 the lake where his nest is. When he brings 
 his little ones down here to fish, you will see 
 
 them at first whirling low over the water, all 
 
 excitement at seeing so many big salmon for 5d/mQn Jump 
 
 the first time. But the ripples and the dan- 
 
 cing lights bother their eyes, just as they 
 
 do yours ; and then you will hear Ismaques 
 
 whistling them up higher where they can 
 
 see better. 
 
 As we stand on the rock once more and 
 the fly goes sweeping down the current, there 
 is the same swift rush of our big salmon 
 in the same spot, and another miss. He is 
 rising short, that is, behind the fly; which 
 shows that he is a bit suspicious, and that 
 our lure is too large. As we change it lei- 
 surely for a smaller one of the same kind, 
 the heavy plunge of a fish draws your atten- 
 tion up-stream, where a salmon is jumping 
 repeatedly high out of water just below the 
 falls. "What is he jumping there for?" 
 You will laugh when I tell you that he is 
 trying to get a good look at the falls; but 
 that is true, nevertheless. Come up to the 
 fallen spruce that bridges the river, and let
 
 us watch him there for a while. Our big 
 salmon will keep ; he is in a rising mood ; 
 
 an( j _ w j ien we g e t \i[ m , fishing is over for the 
 
 day? for we have en ou g h. 
 
 Below the falls, which are here some ten 
 or twelve feet high, salmon are jumping 
 continually. As you watch the heavy white 
 rush of water other salmon poke their heads 
 out of the foam, look at the falls a moment, 
 and disappear. Then a silver gleam flashes 
 through some black water ; a salmon springs 
 out, flies in a great arc up to the rim of the 
 falls, just touches the falling sheet of water, 
 plunges over the brim, and disappears with 
 a victorious flash of his broad tail into the 
 swift water above. He has done it, jumped 
 the falls, and though the whole thing was 
 swift as light, you have the impression that 
 at last you know just how it was done. 
 
 Down yonder are some lower falls, and 
 there you can see the salmon leaping clear 
 over them in a single spring, rising out of 
 the foam below and disappearing into the 
 swift, clear stream above, without even touch- 
 ing the falling sheet of water; but here it is
 
 "A salmon springs 
 out "
 
 different. Salmon after salmon springs out, 
 lands on his tail against the falling water 
 just below the brim of the falls, and then 
 plunges up and over, as his tail, like a bent 
 spring, recoils from under him. 
 
 Now throw a stone or two into the falls, 
 just where that last salmon struck. There ! 
 you hit it with a big one ; and in a flash you 
 see and hear that the sheet of falling water 
 is thinnest there, and that the face of the 
 rock lies close beneath. Here is a suggestion 
 which may explain why and how the salmon 
 jump. 
 
 Down on the still reaches of the river they 
 jump continually, especially in the late after- 
 noon. That is partly for fun and play, no 
 doubt; but it is also for practice, to accus- 
 tom themselves to high jumps, and to learn 
 how to land on head or tail as they please. 
 Here under the falls they jump out of water, 
 and again hold their heads above the foam, 
 as you see them, to study the place and see 
 where they must strike in order to succeed. 
 There to the left is a spot where the falls are 
 a foot lower than the average; but though
 
 332 
 
 ftftere ffie 
 
 you watch all day you will not see a single 
 salmon jump there, where you would natu- 
 rally expect him to try. The river pours 
 
 swiftly through this notch> worn in the softer 
 
 rock, and spurts far out from the face of 
 the wall beneath. Were a salmon to strike 
 there, he would find no solid purchase from 
 which to finish his leap, but would be over- 
 whelmed in a flash by the force of 
 the cataract. 
 
 To the right of this notch are two 
 places which seem to be favorites 
 with the salmon. Again and again, 
 in days of watching, you will see 
 them land on their bent tails in these 
 two spots. As they land their tails 
 strike down through the falling water, 
 touch the rock beneath, and recoil 
 like steel springs; and the salmon 
 bound up, like rubber balls, and van- 
 ish over the brim. Occasionally they 
 fail, and you have a confused impression 
 of a big silver fish hurled into the tur- 
 moil below. Look! there in the shallow 
 eddy, beside that rock on the shore.
 
 There is a fat, eighteen-pound salmon strug- 
 gling to hold his place. The cruel gash in 
 his side shows all too plainly that he failed 
 in his jump and was hurled back upon the 
 rocks. 
 
 To stay here now is death to Kopseep; 
 for even should he escape the bear and otter 
 and eagle, a multitude of parasites, plant and 
 animal, would fasten upon the wound and 
 suck his life away. That is what his slime 
 is for, to oil his silver sides and keep away 
 these deadly fungi that swarm in fresh water. 
 Once the scales are scraped away and the 
 tender flesh laid bare Kopseep has no pro- 
 tection, and to stay in the river is sui- 
 cide. But even here Nature is not unkind; 
 nor does she ever forget a creature's needs. 
 Other salmon eat nothing while they are 
 moving up the rivers to their spawning beds, 
 and appetite itself vanishes ; but the wounded 
 fish there suddenly feels within him the need 
 of recuperation, and takes to feeding greedily 
 upon whatever the river brings him. Toss 
 in a worm, a bit of meat, a fly, anything 
 eatable, and he rises to it swiftly. In a few
 
 hours he feels better, and whirls in the current 
 334 
 
 and goes speeding back to the sea, where the 
 
 galt water Destroys the parasites and heals his 
 
 wound and makes him strong again> But he 
 
 will not come back to the river again this year. 
 
 A half-mile above there is another fall, 
 higher than this one. Let us go up, and 
 find there the most difficult problem of all 
 to answer. 
 
 A single glance at the falls tells you in- 
 stantly that they are too high for any salmon 
 to leap. Other rivers with a fall no higher 
 than this one are barred to the salmon, 
 which run up only as far as the falls and 
 then turn back to the sea, or else spawn 
 at the mouths of shallow brooks along the 
 way. But the salmon in this river go clear 
 to the head waters. You can see them jump- 
 ing and catch a dozen above the falls. Here, 
 just below the cataract, they are springing 
 high out of water, or poking their heads out 
 of the foam, just as they did at the lower 
 falls, in order to study the difficult place. 
 
 As you watch, a big salmon flashes up in 
 a great arc and tumbles into the sheet of
 
 falling water, not half-way up to the top. 
 
 Soon another follows him, striking in the 
 
 same place. You watch closely but see ^ , , 
 
 nothing more; they have simply vanished X 
 
 into the falls. A dead salmon floats past 
 
 you ; another is gasping in a shallow eddy ; 
 
 a third lies half eaten by an otter under the 
 
 shelving bank. Here is a place, evidently, 
 
 where many fail. Now 
 
 watch the topmost rim 
 
 of the waterfall. 
 
 Ten minutes pass 
 slowly while you keep 
 your eyes on the line 
 where the yellow flood 
 breaks over the brim 
 of the falls. There ! a 
 flash of living silver 
 breaks the uneven 
 line ; a broad tail 
 cuts the air in a 
 curving sweep as 
 a salmon plunges 
 safely over the '. -. 
 top into the swift 

 
 water above. That is probably the fish that 
 you saw vanish into the falls, ten feet below. 
 
 we must f ]] ow him, ^ we are to j earn 
 anything more of his methods. 
 
 For twenty years ever since I first fished 
 the Saevogle I had wondered how it was 
 possible for salmon to get up a waterfall 
 which was plainly impossible to leap; and 
 on reading the books I found that almost 
 every salmon fisherman for two centuries 
 had puzzled over the same problem. Stand- 
 ing under these falls, one day, and throwing 
 stones at the spots in the falling sheet of 
 water where the salmon were plunging in, 
 it occurred to me suddenly that it might be 
 possible to go in myself and find out what 
 they were doing. On two rivers I had tried 
 it unsuccessfully, and though I had glimpses 
 of salmon lying on the wet rocks inside the 
 falls, I was almost swept away in the cata- 
 ract. Here the task proved unexpectedly 
 easy; for on one side the swift flood shot 
 far out from the face of the rock, and the 
 falling sheet of water was not heavy enough 
 to knock one off his feet. So, if you don't
 
 mind a soaking, which will do no harm 
 here in the deep wilderness, where there 
 are no microbes to give you a cold, let 
 us after our salmon. 
 
 With rubber coats falling down over wad- 
 ers, we slip through and under the edge of 
 the broad sheet of falling water and stand 
 close against the rocky wall. It is cool and 
 wet here; the hollows in the rough face of 
 the rock are brimming over; the air is full 
 of heavy mist; but the flood pours over 
 our heads without touching us. A 
 salmon is kicking violently among 
 the stones, and you brush him with 
 your foot out into the cataract. As 
 we move along to the middle of the 
 stream, pressing close against 
 the wall, with the thunder of 
 the falls pouring over us 
 harmlessly, we come sud- 
 denly upon salmon every- 
 where : on the stones, in 
 deep hollows of the rock, 
 struggling up the scarred 
 and pitted face of the cliff 
 
 337 
 
 Mtere Jfie 
 Salmon Jump
 
 itself. Push on a little farther, and now you 
 ^_ see a great crevice slanting diagonally up the 
 
 tr/tere ine wall almost to the brim O f the fall over your 
 head A thin stream of water runs through 
 
 it, making a fall within a fall. This crevice 
 is full of salmon ; some dead, some lying and 
 resting quietly in the hollows, others kicking, 
 flapping, sliding upward over the wet stone 
 and the slippery bodies of their fellows to the 
 life above. 
 
 Your first visit may solve the problem, 
 for this river at least; or you may have to 
 return again and again before you see the 
 thing accomplished from beginning to end. 
 This is the time, for the river is just begin- 
 ning to rise after the rains, and great runs of 
 salmon are moving up from the pools below; 
 while those that were here, resting below 
 the falls for the great effort, feel the on- 
 ward movement and start upward to the 
 spawning-grounds at the head of the river. 
 
 As you stand here salmon after salmon 
 comes flying in through the falling sheet 
 of white water. Some strike fair against 
 the wall, rebound, and are swept away like
 
 smoke; others, as if they knew the spot, 
 plunge into a wet hollow, rest an instant 
 
 from the shock, then wriggle and leap to 
 
 the hollows above. Here is one that dashes 5d/mOf} Jump 
 
 in and lights fairly in the great crevice at 
 
 your shoulder, on the bodies of three or four 
 
 other salmon that are lying there gasping and 
 
 struggling feebly. In an instant his broad tail 
 
 is threshing violently, pushing him upward in 
 
 desperate flappings and wrigglings, up over 
 
 the rock, over the bodies of his fellows ; rest- 
 
 ing here, leaping boldly there over a little 
 
 ridge, up and up, till with one last effort he 
 
 plunges over the brim and is gone. 
 
 However it may be on other rivers, the 
 problem here is an amazingly simple one. 
 The salmon simply leap into the falls, trust- 
 ing to luck or instinct, or more probably to 
 knowledge gained from previous experience, 
 to break through the sheet of falling water 
 and land in one of the numerous hollows 
 or crevices in the face of the rock. Then, 
 if not stunned or swept away in the first 
 effort, they struggle up the side of the rock 
 itself, and over the bodies of their less
 
 successful fellows, till near enough to the 
 
 340 
 
 top to leap over. 
 
 Wftere ffie j as indeed in most falls> one may 
 
 not i ce a curious rhythmic movement of the 
 water. It rarely pours over the falls in an 
 even flood, but rather in a succession of 
 spurts, with slower and lighter movements 
 between; so that, both by eye and ear, one 
 gets the impression of throbbing in the water's 
 movement, as if the river were only one of 
 many arteries, and somewhere behind them 
 all a great heart were beating and driving 
 the waters onward in slow, regular, mighty 
 pulsations. Undoubtedly the salmon make 
 use of this fact, resting near the top of the 
 rock for a slower and lighter movement of 
 the wate/, when they throw themselves over 
 the brim of the falls and so avoid being swept 
 away after accomplishing the most difficult 
 and dangerous part of their journey. 
 
 Desperate as it is, this is probably the 
 method used on other rivers where salmon 
 surmount a waterfall which is plainly too 
 high to leap. Dr. Elwood Worcester, of Bos- 
 ton, writes me that while salmon fishing on
 
 White Bay his guides told him of a place 
 where the salmon climbed the cliff behind 
 a fall, and where the fishermen collected 
 barrels of fish for winter use every season. 
 He went with them behind the fall, and 
 watched for hours as the salmon plunged in 
 and then began the almost impossible task 
 of leaping up the rock. There, as here, only 
 a fraction of the struggling fish ever reached 
 the top. Some of the unsuccessful ones 
 tried again; others sped away to heal their 
 wounds ; the rest lay quiet among the rocks 
 awaiting the poor fishermen, or floated away 
 to feed the mink and the eagle. Nature 
 called the many in order to choose a few, 
 and the whole process was accompanied by 
 that apparent waste and perfect economy 
 with which Nature always accomplishes her 
 object. 
 
 As we go down-stream and take up our 
 position on the flat rock again, a heavy 
 plunge out on the edge of the white current 
 shows that our big salmon is still there and 
 in a rising mood. He will take our fly now; 
 and the rest is a matter of skill, with a large
 
 342 
 
 ffte 
 
 element of luck, which is all in the salmon's 
 favor. But our glimpse under the falls has 
 aroused a new interest in the hidden life of 
 the big fish, resting and playing there in the 
 turmoil ; so let us hear his story before we 
 catch him.
 
 343
 
 2 ~ 
 
 rt>c-^ 
 
 ONE late autumn, a few years ago, a big 
 salmon came up to the head waters of 
 the river and sought out a place for herself 
 where she might hide her eggs. All sum- 
 mer long she had journeyed slowly up the 
 river, resting below the falls and rapids to 
 gather her strength, and choosing the bright 
 moonlit nights to hurry up through the rif- 
 fles, where Moo ween the bear was waiting 
 to catch her as she passed. Now, with most 
 of the danger and all the effort behind her, 
 she came straight to the shallows at the 
 mouth of a cold brook where the bottcm 
 
 345
 
 346 
 
 was covered with sand and yellow pebbles. 
 Where the current rippled evenly over its 
 
 Tne ofory bed of golden gravel she found the place she 
 
 was see king, and like fish-hawks returning in 
 the spring, her first care was to repair the 
 nest that had been used for centuries by 
 other salmon. Her broad tail fanned away 
 the coating of mud that had settled over the 
 pebbles, and the current swept it away down- 
 stream. Bits of rotten wood and twigs and 
 leaves that had jammed among the stones 
 she took up in her mouth and carried to one 
 side, leaving the rest all white and clean. As 
 she worked a great male fish, with a kipper 
 hook on his lower jaw, came surging up and 
 chose her for his mate, and then began cir- 
 cling about her, fighting the other salmon 
 and chasing away the trout that swarmed 
 hungrily about, waiting for the feast of 
 salmon eggs that was to follow. 
 
 When the nest was at last ready, the 
 big male fish came and plowed long fur- 
 rows through it with the beak that had been 
 growing on the point of his lower jaw for 
 this purpose ever since he entered fresh
 
 347 
 
 water. These furrows were fanned clean 
 
 with tails and fins, and then his mate set- ^- 
 
 tling upon the nest began depositing her - ' 
 
 eggs, thousands and thousands of them; so 
 
 many that, had they all hatched and grown, 
 
 the river must have been full of salmon. 
 
 That was a busy time for the old male 
 with the hooked jaw. As the eggs were laid 
 he covered them hurriedly with gravel to 
 keep the current from washing them away, 
 and to hide them from the little trout and 
 parrs that flashed about like sunbeams, and 
 that, spite of his fierce snaps and rushes, 
 would dart in to grab a mouthful and scud 
 away to eat it under the banks or stones 
 where he could not follow them. At times 
 the little bandits seemed to hunt in packs, .. 
 like wolves; and while the big salmon was 
 chasing one of their number, the others 
 would flash in and gobble up all the uncov- 
 ered tidbits. They would even steal under 
 the mother salmon and snatch away the 
 eggs as they were laid, till the old male 
 came surging back and scattered them like 
 a puff of smoke into their unseen dens.
 
 343 
 
 The Sfory 
 
 At last, however, the eggs were all laid, 
 and covered up safely where even the parrs 
 could not find them ; and spite of all losses, 
 there were thousands enough left in every 
 nest to warrant a full supply of young salmon. 
 Then scores of the great fish, which had 
 grown lank and dingy and faint from their 
 five months' fast and their tremendous efforts 
 in running up the river, rested awhile, lying 
 like logs over all the shallows, until the nights 
 grew intensely still and over the quiet pools 
 the ice began to tinkle its winter warning. 
 A subtle command ran along the river, which 
 our salmon, like all other fish, seemed to 
 obey without knowing why or how they did 
 so. One morning they all turned in the cur- 
 rent at the same moment and went speeding 
 back to the sea, leaving to the little brook 
 the task of hatching their offspring. And 
 the little brook, which was used to such 
 things, at once took up the work, singing to 
 itself the same glad little song that it had 
 crooned for a thousand years over the hid- 
 den cradles of all the young salmon it had 
 ever brooded.
 
 The winter passed slowly ; a current of 
 fresh water passed continually over the hid- 
 den treasures; and when the ice broke up 
 in the spring there was a general breaking 
 up down among the eggs in the gravel nest. 
 Something stirred vigorously within an egg 
 lodged between two white pebbles ; the cov- 
 ering broke and out glided Kopseep, a tiny 
 male salmon. Beginning his life with hun- 
 ger, he had first eaten all that was left in the 
 egg besides himself, and was nibbling at the 
 shell when it broke and let him out. In an 
 instant, following his instinct, he had settled 
 in the tiny eddy behind one of the pebbles 
 that had sheltered him. As the egg covering 
 wavered on his tail he whirled like a wink 
 and swallowed it. Then he settled behind 
 his pebble again and took his first look at 
 the world. 
 
 All around him the tiny salmon were 
 making their way out of the nest. As they 
 emerged the current seemed to sweep them 
 away like mist; but in reality each one 
 darted for the nearest stone or cover, and 
 vanished as if the bed of the river had opened 
 
 349 
 
 TfieSfory 
 Mopseep
 
 350 
 
 The Story 
 
 to swallow him. Quick as they were, a score 
 of them were seized by the hungry little trout 
 and parrs that swarmed in the shallows, each 
 one hiding under a stone and watching like 
 a hawk for food. But Kopseep was safe un- 
 der a root, whither he had darted from the 
 shelter of his first pebble, and his struggle 
 with the world had begun. 
 
 For a year he lived in the shallows as a 
 little parr, hiding from his enemies and eat- 
 ing of the insect life that swarmed in the 
 water. Then, as he grew in strength and 
 quickness, he took to chasing and catching 
 the tiny eels that squirmed in the mud un- 
 der the still reaches of the brook, and would 
 flash up from the bottom and out into the 
 sunshine to catch and pull down a passing 
 fly. After every sortie he would whirl and 
 dart like a sunbeam under his root again. 
 No need to look for enemies ; they were all 
 about him, and he always took it for granted 
 that they were waiting to catch him, and 
 that his safety lay in getting back to the cover 
 of his own den before they had noticed his 
 movements.
 
 Occasionally, spite of his lightning dash, a 
 little trout would spy him and dart between 
 him and his sheltering root ; and then Kop- 
 seep would make use of a trick which every 
 little salmon seems to know by instinct. He 
 would dart away, with the troutlet after him, 
 to where the bottom was softest and whirl up 
 a muddy cloud into which his enemy dashed 
 headlong. Then, before the troutlet could 
 find him, Kopseep was hidden under an inch 
 of soft mud ; or else, fearing the big eels, he 
 would scoot back under cover of the muddy 
 screen to his own root, whither no enemy 
 ever followed him. 
 
 As for the troutlet, he had speedily his 
 own troubles to attend to. Besides the larger 
 fish, which always chased all smaller ones 
 that dared show themselves in open water, 
 the mink was gliding in and out like a 
 shadow. Kingfishers dropped in like plum- 
 mets, getting a fish at almost every plunge; 
 and the sheldrakes, that had a nest just above, 
 were frightfully destructive, eating scores of 
 trout in every day's fishing. So the troutlet, 
 after one confused instant in the mud cloud, 
 
 TfieSfory
 
 352 
 
 Tfie Sfor 
 
 would forget our little samlet and flash away 
 to his own den, thankful if he had himself 
 escaped being seen and chased while he was 
 chasing somebody else. 
 
 In the midst of all these dangers the parr 
 lived and throve mightily, and if one can 
 judge from his play, for he had already 
 begun to leap out of still water and tumble 
 back with resounding splash in the quiet 
 afternoons, he reveled in the strength and 
 gladness of life and in the abundance of good 
 things to be had for the chasing. In his first 
 autumn the big salmon appeared again in 
 the shallows to spawn, and Kopseep joined 
 his fellows in scooting about and stealing 
 the eggs whenever the big male with the 
 hooked jaw was occupied in covering the 
 furrows or chasing away the horde of active 
 little robbers that swarmed about him. 
 
 Kopseep was now nearly six inches long, 
 having increased a hundredfold in weight in 
 a few months. Catching a glimpse of him 
 as he flung himself out of water in vigorous 
 play, you would have seen a beautiful little 
 creature, his eyes bright as stars, his gleaming
 
 sides sprinkled with bright vermilion spots 
 and crossed with the dark blue bars or 
 finger-marks which indicate the parr state, 
 and with exquisite pearly shells covering 
 the deep red gills on either side. A trout, 
 you might have said, as he rose like a flash 
 to your fly; but another look would have 
 told you plainly that he was more graceful 
 and powerful, and likewise much more beau- 
 tiful, than any trout that ever came out of 
 the water. 
 
 All winter long he lay by his den, seeking 
 little food and growing strangely lazy. When 
 spring came a curious change crept over 
 him. When he ventured into still water and 
 looked in the wonderful mirror there (which 
 was the under surface of the pool, and which 
 you can see yourself by looking up obliquely 
 into a glass of water), he saw that all his 
 beautiful blue bars and vermilion spots were 
 slowly disappearing, being covered up by a 
 new growth of silver scales. By the middle 
 of May the new scales had covered all his 
 body. A curious uneasiness filled him as 
 Nature whispered that the new suit she had 
 
 353 
 
 Tfie Story
 
 given him was for a new life, and at the 
 % word Kopseep turned tail to the current and 
 went S p eec ii n g down the river, where he had 
 never been before. He was a smolt now, and 
 all his brothers from the same nest were 
 speeding down the river with him, leaving 
 their sisters, still in their bright parr coats, 
 playing and feeding about the shallows where 
 they were born. 
 
 It was a wonderful journey for our little 
 smolt, the more so because he had never 
 before ventured away from the home brook v 
 and he knew not why he went nor whither 
 he was going on the long rushing migration. 
 Down, down he hurried, now shooting eas- 
 ily through the dancing riffles, now whirled 
 along the rush and tumble of a boiling rapid, 
 and now caught up with irresistible force 
 and hurled outward into a white chaos where 
 all his universe seemed to be falling blindly 
 into space that roared and trembled beneath 
 him. But always his first instinct to keep 
 close to bottom was with him, and even in 
 the worst of rapids a turn of his tail would 
 send him down to where the water eddied
 
 355 
 
 7ft e Sfory 
 ifKopseep 
 
 and rolled leisurely among the stones, while 
 the rush and uproar went on harmlessly 
 overhead. And everywhere he went he had 
 a sense of comradeship, of hosts that w^ere 
 moving onward with him to the same end; 
 for the river was full of smolts, gliding, 
 dodging, flashing like silver everywhere in 
 the cool dark eddies, and all moving swiftly 
 downward to the sea. 
 
 So they passed from the hills to the low 
 marsh lands and lakes; and here they met 
 shoals of great silver fish, their own mothers, 
 beginning their long journey upward to the 
 shallows which the smolts had just left be- 
 hind them. 
 
 A new flavor came into the water as they 
 followed the slow current. It was the taste of \J^Xw 
 the sea, and a great thrill and tingle passed \ \ /I 
 through the shoal of smolts, making them ^/ 
 
 leap for joy and dash onward, down through ^ J 
 the first gentle surges of the tide, down faster i/?^ 
 and faster, till they scattered suddenly and 
 hid as another shoal of great salmon flashed 
 into sight, with a score of seals darting and 
 twisting after them like so many black 
 
 i^
 
 demons. Over the hidden smolts passed the 
 chase, like the rush of a tornado; then the 
 little fellows darted out of their hiding and 
 quivered onward till they passed deep under 
 the surge and thunder of the breakers and 
 vanished into the cool green forests of kelp 
 and seaweed that waved their soft arms every- 
 where on the ocean's floor, beckoning the 
 frightened little wanderers to rest and safety. 
 
 Here they waited a few days and fed 
 abundantly, and looked out with wonder from 
 their green coverts, as from a window-, at 
 the strange new life that passed by them, 
 hermit-crabs and starfish and sea-robins and 
 skates and stingarees and lobsters and dol- 
 phins and Peter Grunters, all with some 
 outlandish peculiarity, or some queer, crazy 
 way of flitting about, like dwarfs or hob- 
 goblins ; so that every day Wonderland itself 
 seemed to pass in procession before their 
 windows. But the fever of migration was still 
 upon them, and soon the shoal was moving 
 onward more eagerly than before. 
 
 New dangers met them with every mile. 
 Strange and savage monsters with goggle
 
 eyes and stickle backs and huge gaping 
 mouths surged out at them from coverts of 
 rock and kale and sea-moss; and from the 
 bottom itself, where they looked like bits of 
 innocent mud, flatfish and flounders leaped 
 up into the very midst of the passing shoal. 
 But their life in the quick waters of the 
 brooks had made these little smolts like 
 bundles of tempered steel springs. They 
 were quicker far than the big savage ban- 
 dits that looked so much more dangerous 
 than they really were ; and our own little 
 smolt found no difficulty in dodging them 
 and hiding under a frond of kelp till they 
 had surged by. So the shoal passed on, still 
 following the almost imperceptible flavor of 
 their own river, till they were nearly twenty 
 miles out at sea, and up from the bottom 
 rose a ridge of rocky hills covered with wav- 
 ing sea growth. Here the fever suddenly left 
 them and the shoal scattered, each to his own 
 little den, just as they had done in the shal- 
 lows far away in the green wilderness. 
 
 A new and wonderful life had begun for 
 Kopseep, and the very best thing about it 
 
 357 
 
 The Story
 
 j/Iu sJiUJjf 
 
 was the abundance of good things to eat. 
 * Millions of minute Crustacea, tender and 
 
 d e ii c i OUS) would swarm at times over his den, 
 
 fillin S the water ful1 of food and colorin g it 
 bright pink, like a tomato soup. He had only 
 
 to swim lazily through it once or twice with 
 his mouth open and come back gorged to 
 his den, as if he had been swimming around 
 in a rich pudding. In an hour he was hun- 
 gry and would roll up through his strange 
 food bath, filling himself again and again till 
 the swarm passed on with the tides. Then, 
 led by his perpetual hunger, he passed over 
 the rocky ridge to where the ocean's floor 
 slanted upward and spread out into broad 
 level plains. Here the cod had laid their 
 eggs in uncounted millions, and the codlings 
 covered the place like flies on a butcher's 
 block. The little gourmand would stuff him- 
 self till the tails stuck out of his mouth; 
 then with a wriggle he would spew them 
 out and begin all over again, just for the 
 delight of eating. 
 
 Naturally, with all this good feeding, Kop- 
 seep grew till his skin almost cracked to
 
 cover him. When he first came to the 
 ocean he was hardly as long as your hand, 
 and would weigh perhaps three ounces. In 
 a month he was a strong, shapely fish, a foot 
 long and weighing over a pound; and his 
 appetite, instead of diminishing, only grew 
 more and more voracious as he increased in 
 weight. No more Crustacea or codlings for 
 him now ; he had himself joined the bandits 
 that had at first frightened him, and was too 
 big to be satisfied with such small fry. But 
 when the shoals of brilliant caplin passed 
 over him, making the sea look as if a rain- 
 bow had broken into bits and fallen there, 
 his silver sides were seen flashing in and 
 out among them. And then, as he grew 
 bigger and the caplin passed on shoreward 
 with the tides, the herring came drifting in, 
 like great silver clouds, with the sea-birds 
 screaming over them; and these were the 
 best food of all. 
 
 So three months passed in the ocean and 
 our little smolt had now become a grilse, or 
 "gilsie," a beautiful fish of four pounds weight, 
 with his silver sides spotted like a trout; 
 
 359 
 
 The Story
 
 360 
 
 The Story 
 
 only the spots were large and black instead 
 of being small and red. As the summer 
 waned scores of small salmon began to 
 move uneasily along the rocky ridges where 
 the grilse were hiding. A fever seemed to 
 spread through the water, and salmon and 
 grilse alike stopped their ravenous feeding. 
 One morning the salmon moved off together, 
 as if at command, and Kopseep w r ith hun- 
 dreds of his fellow-grilse followed them, the 
 fever of motion growing stronger and stronger 
 as they followed up the well-known flavor of 
 their own river. 
 
 Near the shore they stopped for a few days, 
 waiting for the tides of full moon; and old 
 Daddy Grummet, who for weeks had not seen 
 a salmon, set his nets again and found them 
 each morning full to overflowing. Then when 
 the tide was highest the shoal surged into 
 the river's mouth, past the rocky point where 
 the seals were waiting and barking like hun- 
 gry dogs at the smell of meat. 
 
 With a rush our grilse shot past the 
 point, where the water boiled and flashed as 
 the shoal doubled away from their savage
 
 enemies. A lively young seal plunged after 
 Kopseep ; but the grilse was too quick, and 
 the seal turned aside after a large and lazier 
 fish. So he gained the fresh water safely, 
 and journeyed sw r iftly upward through the 
 lakes, jumping and playing in his strength, 
 till he came to the first swift run of water 
 below the little falls. Here he put his nose 
 \iown in an eddy behind a sunken rock, and 
 caught the current on his fins and tail in 
 such a way as to hold himself in place with- 
 out conscious effort, resting for his first leap 
 and for the hard rush through the rapids 
 above the falls. 
 
 While he waited here Kopseep felt his 
 stomach shrinking within him. There were 
 fish in the river, minnows and trout and 
 eels, and lazy chub that the mink and fish- 
 hawk were catching, but Kopseep watched 
 them indifferently and suffered them to go 
 their own ways unmolested. Strangely enough 
 all his voracious appetite of the past few 
 months had left him and lucky it was too ; 
 for otherwise a single run of salmon would 
 destroy every trout and frog and little fish 
 
 TheSfory 
 if Kopseep 
 
 s^ _ ^> * r^^t *
 
 in the river. And that is perhaps why 
 Nature takes away the salmon's appetite 
 and keeps it for him all the while that he 
 is going on a journey in fresh water. 
 
 As he lay in his eddy resting, or play- 
 ing with any bright-colored thing that the 
 current brought him, a troop of little silver 
 smolts went hurrying and flashing by on 
 their way to the sea. Though he knew it 
 not, they were the little sisters that he had 
 left as parr in the shallows when he went 
 away, four months ago. No wonder Kop- 
 seep did not recognize them ; for they were 
 hardly as big as the caplin that he had been 
 eating by scores for weeks past. He watched 
 them curiously as they darted past, wonder- 
 ing where they came from and why they 
 hurried so; then he moved up under the 
 falls and began to jump and poke his head 
 out of the foam to study the place, as the 
 salmon were doing, before he took his leap. 
 
 He tried it at last : flung himself headlong 
 into the falls and was promptly knocked end 
 over end, and in a wink found himself bruised 
 and quivering back by his own rock again.
 
 That seemed to teach him wisdom; for at 
 the next attempt he shot through a black 
 eddy from which all the salmon took their 
 leap, flung himself upward in a glorious arc, 
 struck fair in the swift water above the falls, 
 and in an instant was flashing and plunging 
 up through the rapids. Not till he reached 
 a great pool two or three miles above did he 
 halt, and then he settled down in another 
 eddy to rest for his next effort. 
 
 So he journeyed upwards for nearly two 
 months, tarrying below the worst rapids for 
 a fall of water, and waiting for the rains 
 wherever the river spread into broad shal- 
 lows that hardly covered the salmon as they 
 wriggled and splashed their way upward. 
 Here, one moonlit night, something like a 
 black stump stood squarely athwart Kop- 
 seep's path. He was splashing his way 
 toward it when a sudden alarm made him 
 halt behind a rock. A heedless fat salmon 
 went lumbering by; the stump suddenly 
 started into life; then the fat salmon went 
 flying out on shore from the sweep of a paw, 
 and Mooween the bear went humping and 
 
 363 
 
 TheSfo/y
 
 y//r JVC/Yjy 
 
 jumping after him to catch him before he 
 could scramble back into the river. 
 
 That was enough for our grilse. Ever 
 afterwards when he saw, on moonlit nights, 
 a black rock or stump in the shallows, he 
 watched awhile to see if it moved, before go- 
 ing through the dangerous place. And this 
 is the test which all salmon and trout apply 
 to every suspicious object : if it moves, it is 
 dangerous, whether on land or water. That 
 is why you catch only flashing glimpses of 
 them as you walk along the bank; while 
 on the other hand, if you sit very still on a 
 rock in the salmon pool and trail your toe or 
 finger or a single leaf in the current, you 
 may see a big salmon move up to examine 
 it leisurely; and sometimes he will spatter 
 water all over you as he plunges at the 
 object in play and whirls back to his eddy 
 again. 
 
 Late in October Kopseep found himself 
 once more on the shallows at the mouth of the 
 brook where he was born. He went straight 
 to the root under which he used to hide; but 
 the familiar place was grown so small that
 
 ' As if it were his own shadow that he wa 
 trying to escape "
 
 his head would not go into it ; and the eddy 
 there that used to hold him securely was now 
 of no' consequence whatever. So he took 
 to cruising leisurely around the tiny world 
 that had once seemed to him so big and full 
 of danger. Danger? why, this was a place 
 of absolute peace compared with the dragon- 
 haunted green forests under the sea. He was 
 so big now that 
 
 A thrill tingled all through Kopseep as he 
 darted aside, making the shallow water roll 
 and bubble, and whirled and doubled madly, 
 and flashed in and out of the startled river 
 with a long, black, snaky wake doubling after 
 him, as if it were his own shadow that he 
 was trying to escape. Like a flash he rose 
 and leaped back, a clear eight feet, over the 
 shadow, which doubled swiftly and seized 
 another grilse that was plowing furrows in 
 a gravel nest. Out of the troubled waters 
 slid first the head, then the long back and 
 tail of an otter, which climbed the bank and 
 stood mewing over her catch. Two more 
 shadows glided into the river at her call, 
 making our grilse jump and flash away and 
 
 367 
 
 The Story
 
 hide again ; but the new-comers were only 
 two otter cubs that as yet had learned to 
 catch onlv stupid c hub an d suc kers. In a 
 moment they were out on the bank, crouched 
 with their long backs arched like frightened 
 cats, nibbling daintily at the salmon; while 
 Kopseep, forgetting all about them, roamed 
 boldly over the shallows, looking for a little 
 salmon to be his mate. 
 
 He found her at last, preparing her nest 
 just below the mouth of the brook, and began 
 circling watchfully about her. Other grilse 
 were numerous, and in searching for a mate 
 they would enter his circle aggressively, as 
 if it were a chip that Kopseep was carrying 
 on his shoulder. Like a flash he would rush 
 at them, lock jaws, and tug and push and 
 bully them out of the circle. Then, when he 
 returned, he had to bite and gouge and drive 
 away the sea-trout huge fellows, some of 
 them, as big as himself that swarmed hun- 
 grily about, waiting for the feast of salmon 
 eggs. 
 
 It was late autumn; the banks were 
 strangely still and white, and ice had formed
 
 over all the still pools when Kopseep turned 
 down-stream again, leaving the eggs of his 
 mate safely covered in the new nest. He 
 was like a kelt, or black salmon, now, that 
 is, a dark fish that has grown thin and hungry 
 from tarrying and fasting too long in fresh 
 water. Down he went, through the rapids 
 and over the falls, in a desperate hurry that 
 made him speed faster than the swift river, 
 which had seemed so wonderful on his first 
 journey in the springtime. In a single day's 
 racing he covered the entire distance, snap- 
 ping up every little fish that crossed his swift 
 path, and the next day found him back in 
 his clen in the rocky ridge under the ocean. 
 This was the salmon's own foraging ground ; 
 and among the multitudes that swarmed there 
 Kopseep saw numerous fat young grilse, 
 almost as big as himself; but he knew not 
 that these were the same little sisters that he 
 had met coming down, and that had changed 
 rapidly from smolt to grilse while he was 
 fighting his hard way up the river. 
 
 The few rare fishermen who visit this part 
 of the coast wonder why in this river and 
 
 369 
 
 TfieSfoiy 
 ?/ Kopseep
 
 J 
 */ 
 
 indeed in many others they catch only 
 male grilse ; but the reason is probably a very 
 simple one. The females pass the grilse state 
 in -the ocean, growing steadily until the fol- 
 lowing spring, when males and females enter 
 the river together as fully developed salmon 
 of eight or ten pounds' weight. 
 
 All winter long our young grilse, famished 
 by his long fasting, gorged himself and grew 
 fat and doubled his weight. When the May 
 moon drew near her full the migratory fever 
 again ran along the rocky ridge under the 
 ocean ; for even down there, in the cold green 
 under-world, Nature comes with the same 
 message that sets the buds to swelling and 
 the birds to singing. The largest salmon felt 
 it first and drifted away in a dense shoal, fol- 
 lowing up the delicate flavor of their own river 
 as a dog follows an air scent, or else remem- 
 bering, as a mule does, every turn and wind- 
 ing of the trail that has once been followed. 
 A month later Kopseep, with hundreds of 
 his fellows, moved leisurely away after them. 
 
 He was a salmon now, and had to take 
 his chances with the seals that watched on
 
 the point of rocks and that neglected all 
 other fish when the first run of salmon came 
 plunging in through the breakers. He had 
 passed them safely, after a lively chase, and 
 was playing and jumping hilariously in the 
 pool at the head of the first lake, when a 
 curious accident sent him hurrying back to 
 the sea. And that was only the beginning 
 of a long chain of causes which made him 
 bigger than all his fellows. 
 
 On the lake were a pair of loons that had 
 a nest on a bog hard by, and that were always 
 fishing. Hukweem was deep under water 
 chasing a big trout, one day, which darted 
 into Kopseep's pool and vanished under a 
 root. As Hukweem sped noiselessly by, trail- 
 ing a great string of silver bubbles, the wav- 
 ing of a great tail caught his eye just beyond 
 the root, and like a flash he plunged at it, 
 driving his pointed bill deep into Kopseep's 
 side. Had it been a big trout the blow would 
 have stunned him on the spot; but at the 
 first touch the salmon tore himself free and 
 leaped clear of the water. Hukweem passed 
 on, seeing his mistake, and the next moment 
 
 The Story
 
 372 
 
 The 5tory 
 
 Kopseep was back in the pool, fanning the 
 water quietly as if nothing whatever had 
 happened. 
 
 Since entering fresh water Kopseep's 
 appetite had vanished; but now it began 
 suddenly to gnaw again. That was simply 
 Nature's way of telling him to go back to 
 the sea, where he might be healed. It was 
 not the pain of his wound ; for, like other 
 fish, he seemed to feel nothing of that kind. 
 Had he stayed in the fresh water the para- 
 sites would speedily have fastened on the raw 
 flesh and killed him; but of that he knew 
 nothing. He simply felt hungry, and remem- 
 bered that in the sea there was food in abun- 
 dance. Salmon fishermen have always noticed 
 how wounded fish suddenly begin feeding. 
 Sometimes when the wound is no more than 
 the mark of a net, which has split a fin or 
 brushed off a ring of scales around the head, 
 the marked salmon will plunge at a fly more 
 vigorously than any of his fellows in the 
 pool, and will even take worms or a shiner, 
 if your sportmanship allow you to offer them. 
 So Kopseep, feeling only the hunger, which
 
 was Nature's simple direction, without her 
 explanations, turned swiftly back to the 
 sea, and almost within the hour was resting 
 in his old den under the rocks again. 
 
 Here he stayed all summer long. While 
 other salmon moved off in successive shoals 
 and battled their way up the river, Kopseep, 
 whose migratory fever seemed to be cured 
 by the thrust of a loon's bill, gave himself 
 up to the unlimited abundance of the ocean, 
 and discovered for himself, one day, a new 
 and delicious food supply. It was late in the 
 summer, after the caplin had passed by, and 
 Kopseep, after his wont, was gliding in and 
 out of the green forest arches and poking 
 his hungry nose into every den among 
 the rocks. In a little arched doorway with 
 some waving green weeds for a curtain his 
 nose touched something soft, which instantly 
 shrank back closer to the sheltering rock. 
 Kopseep pulled it out promptly and found a 
 small lobster, which was hiding there waiting 
 for his new shell to grow. A delicious taste, 
 the most wonderful he had ever experienced, 
 filled his mouth as he bolted the morsel. 
 
 373 
 
 The Story 
 
 y*
 
 374 
 
 All excitement, after the manner of feeding 
 fish, Kopseep put his nose into another den 
 J and found another lobster, a bigger one, 
 that ff ered no resistance as he was dragged 
 out and eaten. 
 
 It was all so different from previous experi- 
 ence that the salmon knew not what to make 
 of it. He had often passed lobsters before, 
 crawling slowly along the bottom on the tip- 
 toes of their queer legs, or shooting back- 
 ward like winks and hiding in the mud when 
 frightened by a huge and hungry sea-bass. 
 Their shells were too hard for Kopseep to 
 think of cracking; and besides, each lobster 
 carried two pairs of big ugly jaws in front 
 of him as he yew-yawed along. These jaws 
 were always wide open, one pair armed with 
 little teeth for catching and holding things, 
 and the other with big teeth for crushing 
 whatever was caught. So Kopseep had wisely 
 let the lobsters alone, and had no idea that 
 they were good to eat. Now, however, the 
 hard shells had all split along the backs, 
 and the lobsters left the shoal water and 
 the fishermen's lobster-pots to seek out deep
 
 hidden caves among the rocks. There they 
 crawled out of the old shells and lay very 
 quiet in hiding, waiting for the new shells 
 to grow hard enough to make it safe for 
 them to venture into the world once more. 
 
 It was at this very time, when the lobsters 
 were most defenseless, that Kopseep found 
 them. There were hundreds of them, from 
 the size of your hand up to the big, shy fellow 
 that would fill a basket, each one hidden 
 away in his own den; and Kopseep left all 
 other game and took to lobster hunting. It 
 was a tingling kind of sport, gliding noise- 
 lessly with every sense on the alert through 
 the waving forests and over the rocks ; for 
 scores of hungry bandits monstrous sea- 
 bass and horse-mackerel and, worst of all, 
 dogfish had taken advantage of the new 
 food supply and were lurking in every covert, 
 ready to snap up the salmon and other fish 
 that came hunting for lobsters. So Kopseep 
 never knew, when he approached a den, 
 whether he would find a tidbit for himself or 
 an ogre to eat him up ; and his hunting was 
 very much as if you were prowling among 
 
 375 
 
 TfieSfo/y 
 if Kopseep 
 
 N^ , x ^>'* r^~> a *
 
 376 
 
 7ft e Story 
 
 the woods and mountain caves, expecting 
 game every moment, but not knowing whether 
 you would find a rabbit that you wanted, or 
 a big grizzly bear or a dragon that might 
 want you. 
 
 His method of hunting here never varied. 
 He would glide among the waving green 
 fronds, trying, as every other wild creature 
 does, to see everything without himself being 
 seen, until he spied a little cave or den that 
 might hide a soft-shelled lobster. Then he 
 would settle down where the sea growth hid 
 him and watch all the surroundings steadily. 
 If nothing stirred, and if no suspicious glint of 
 bronze or silver scales flickered in the waving 
 forest, he would glide up and peer into the 
 den. If the lobster were there, and not too 
 big, he dragged him out and ate him quickly ; 
 but at the first suspicious glint or movement 
 he would whirl like a flash, making the deli- 
 cate seaweeds roll and quiver violently to 
 hide his flight, and the next instant he was 
 fifty feet away and hidden so cunningly that 
 the big shark or sea-bass would drive straight 
 over his head without seeing him.
 
 Once, as he hunted in this way, he spied 
 
 
 a queer cave in the rocks with gleaming 
 white points reaching up from the bottom <3/Of,y 
 
 and down from the top, like stalactites and 
 stalagmites, and with just room enough for 
 him to swim in between them, a perfect 
 place, it looked, for a nice soft lobster to 
 be hiding. Kopseep lay in the weeds and 
 watched a few moments, then glided for- 
 ward to enter. Just then something began to 
 glow dull red over the cave ; and in a flash 
 Kopseep had whirled away, while the long 
 weeds swayed and rolled and hid him as he 
 darted aside. In a moment he was stealing -\. 
 back to watch the den from another hiding- 
 place. Suddenly the whole cave seemed to 
 move and tremble. The white points above 
 and below came slowly together, and there ^ 
 was no more an open doorway. Out from 
 the rocks glided a queer monster of a mouth- 
 fish, colored like the gray rocks, with dull 
 red eyes and a head like a Chinese dragon. 
 He looked around for a moment, backed into 
 his lair, opened his huge mouth, and there 
 was the cave again, looking just like a den
 
 378 
 
 in the rocks. But Kopseep was not looking 
 for any more lobsters in that neighborhood, 
 jf/t! <Jl ly anc j ^ was a w j ser anc j mO re wary fish as 
 
 he g lided awa Y on m " s solitary hunting. 
 
 So the long summer passed by, and Kop- 
 seep grew daily larger wdth his comfortable 
 and lazy living. When his brothers and sisters 
 came down from the river they found him 
 more than twice their size and a full twenty 
 pounds in weight. By spring he had added 
 five pounds more, and when the first shoal 
 of big salmon moved riverward with the tides 
 of full moon Kopseep was among them. For 
 on this run, when the river is full and strong 
 with the spring floods, only the largest fish 
 are equal to the hard work of climbing the 
 falls and rapids. 
 
 So the years went by with little change in 
 Kopseep's methods of living. Only he grew 
 bigger and bigger, and his long summer in 
 the sea had made him even more full of 
 moods and whims than most salmon. Once, 
 when a flood had blocked the river 
 . with logs, so that the salmon 
 . could neither swim
 
 under nor jump over the obstacle, he had gone 
 down the coast with a few of his fellows and 
 run up a new stream, contrary to the habits 
 of all salmon, which in general run up only 
 the rivers in which they are born. Another 
 season, when he was heavier and lazier than 
 usual, he had ascended the river only as far 
 as the first rapids, just above tide-water. 
 There, with a dozen unusually large fish, he 
 spent a month playing idly and sleeping, 
 as salmon often do. And when you hooked 
 one of these big fellows he bolted headlong 
 down the river, and either smashed your 
 tackle, or, if you were quick enough to leap 
 into your canoe for they never stopped 
 or sulked like other salmon he took you 
 swiftly out through the breakers, and you 
 had the rare experience of playing a salmon 
 in the open sea. 
 
 This year Kopseep has come up leisurely 
 as far as the pool below the falls ; and this is 
 as far as he will ever get, if our tackle holds 
 and he still keeps on rising at pretty things 
 that the current sweeps over him. See ! there 
 he is, a monster salmon, plunging out of the 
 
 379 
 
 TfieSfory 
 if Kopseep
 
 380 
 
 Tfie Story 
 
 white rips, just where we left him when we 
 sat down by the river to hear his story. 
 
 We have "rested" him long enough now, 
 and have changed the number-six Jock Scott 
 to a number-eight of the same kind; and all 
 the while Kopseep is rising splendidly. A 
 subtile excitement creeps over you as the 
 long line shoots out from the springing tip, 
 farther and farther, till it falls straight across 
 the white turmoil below which the salmon is 
 lying. Swiftly the leader swings down and 
 straightens in the current ; the tiny fly whirls 
 up and dances for an instant in the very 
 spot where you saw Kopseep's rise. There ! 
 a swift rush, the flash of heavy shoulders as 
 he turns downward. Don't strike now, as 
 you would a trout; for the spring of your 
 tip against the heavy plunge of that big fish 
 will snap your leader as if it were made 
 of cobweb. A ponderous surge at the 
 end of your rod, a light pull to 
 set the hook fast; then your heart 
 jumps to your mouth, and all your 
 nerves thrill and tingle and shout
 
 hilariously as your reel screams at the first 
 terrific rush. Out of the river springs a huge 
 salmon, shooting up like a great jack-in-a- 
 box, and tumbles in and jumps out again, 
 here, there, everywhere at once, like a rooster 
 with his head cut off. Away he goes, zzzzim- 
 m-m-m ! leaping clear and throwing himself 
 broadside across ten feet of white water, shak- 
 ing his head like a dog with a woodchuck; 
 and then a headlong rush and tumble down 
 the first rapids with the reel screaming shrill 
 defiance after him at every plunge. 
 
 Noel has started to his feet at the first 
 rush and reaches instinctively for the long 
 gaff. " Py cosh ! oh, py cosh, beeg one ! " he 
 says, staring open-mouthed at the torrent, 
 not knowing where Kopseep will come up 
 next. Then he settles back and fills his pipe, 
 knowing well that a half-hour of delicate, 
 skillful work must follow before you will get 
 any glimpse of the big fish other than what 
 he chooses to give you by leaping clear of 
 the water, trying to strike the line with his 
 tail, or to shake himself free of the torment- 
 ing little thing that plucks him by the jaw 
 
 The Story
 
 77>f> Sforv 
 
 ' J 
 
 and that holds on spite of all his shaking 
 
 and J um P in s- 
 
 He is down in the pool below now, resting 
 
 for an instant in the edd Y under a bi g rock - 
 Three fourths of your line is already out of 
 the reel, and if he makes another rush down- 
 stream you must lose him. Down you go, 
 lively ! Scrambling over the rocks, flounder- 
 ing through the water, slipping, sliding, stum- 
 bling, down you go ; all the while with your 
 rod up and bent to keep a strain on the fish, 
 and with the reel singing its rhythmic zum, 
 zum, zum, as you hurriedly gather in the line. 
 Get below your salmon now, and stay be- 
 low him if you possibly can; for then he 
 will have to fight against the current as well 
 as against the spring of your rod. As you 
 carry out the cunning maneuver Kopseep 
 starts off in another series of wild leaps 
 and rushes, swings wide across the river, and 
 again darts below you. He lies quiet in one 
 deep spot where the pull of your rod will just 
 balance the push of the current. The line 
 stands straight up, humming steadily, while 
 a spurt of white water curls up beside it.
 
 All the while you feel a steady succession 
 of harsh tugs and jerks that threaten every 
 instant to part your tackle. 
 
 Kopseep is jigging; and that means that 
 he is hooked and probably lightly in 
 the lip, rather than in the mouth or tongue; 
 and that you must be extra careful if you 
 expect to get him. Could you see him now, 
 you would find that he is standing fair on 
 his head in the current, darting his jaw 
 with rapid jerks against the bottom, try- 
 ing to scrape off your fly or to break your 
 leader against the stones. Ten minutes pass 
 slowly, and though you are below him, pull- 
 ing his head sidewise as hard as you dare, 
 you have not budged him an inch. Then 
 Noel appears, gliding in and out like a 
 shadow among the trees on the bank. 
 
 "Some stones, Noel big ones," you call 
 to him ; and the Indian begins to hurl stones 
 at the spot where Kopseep is sulking. A 
 lucky one starts him at last and he is off like 
 a flash, rushing and jumping all over the 
 pool ; while you endeavor desperately to reel 
 in the bagging line and to keep Kopseep out 
 
 383 
 
 JfieSfory
 
 384 
 
 7ft e Story 
 
 of the strong rush of water against the farther 
 bank. Spite of you he surges into it; then, 
 feeling the full power of the flood, he starts 
 straight down like an express train for the 
 distant sea. After him you go, splashing like 
 a startled moose through the pools, jumping 
 the rocks like a goat, down, down through 
 the rapids, with a heavy side pull for you 
 are getting desperate at every turn of the 
 river, till with a sigh of immense satisfaction 
 you lead him out of the current into a still, 
 deep reach of the river. And here the fight 
 1 begins all over again. 
 
 Up to the present moment every chance 
 / in the unequal struggle was in the salmon's 
 / favor; but now you venture a wee, small 
 hope that you may get him. Down below 
 are some heavy rapids where you can neither 
 follow nor hold your fish ; so for half an hour 
 you coax and humor and bully him, letting 
 him have his own way when he is heading 
 where you want him to go, but straining 
 your light tackle to the breaking point to turn 
 him away from the rapids. Then a great 
 "= silver side rolls up
 
 heavily for an instant, showing that he is 
 weary enough to be led, and you begin 
 cautiously to reel him in to the bank. 
 
 Noel has disappeared, thinking, of course, 
 that you lost your fish in the second desper- 
 ate run through the rapids. You are half 
 glad, for now you have a chance to land a 
 salmon in the most sportsmanlike way of all, 
 by beaching him yourself without help from 
 the big gaff. There is only one possible spot 
 hereabouts for so delicate a landing, a little 
 shingly beach where the bank shelves gently 
 into the river. If you can lead him there 
 on his side, at the first touch of the bottom 
 he will flap his tail and kick himself out on 
 land, aided by the gentle pull of your line. 
 Just below the spot a broken stub leans far 
 out, only two or three feet above the water. 
 That is the danger point; but you must 
 either risk it or shout for Noel, and you are 
 glad, thinking of Kopseep, to give him the 
 one small chance. 
 
 Now you avoid the beginner's eagerness 
 and the mistake of being in too much of a 
 hurry, and play your salmon till he rolls up 
 
 385 
 
 The Story 
 tf Kopseep
 
 386 
 
 The Sfory 
 
 on his side and lies there fanning the water ; 
 then gently, very gently, you lead him towards 
 the shingle. He is almost yours ; you could 
 gaff him yourself as he swings past you, and 
 your nerves tingle as you see how big he is. 
 But at the first touch of the stones a new 
 strength quivers suddenly in Kopseep. He 
 turns on his belly, surges heavily down-stream, 
 and spite of the straining rod passes slowly, 
 powerfully under the leaning stub. You drop 
 your rod instantly to the horizontal, so that 
 your leader will not touch the wood, and 
 draw him out towards the middle of the river. 
 Again he rolls up on his side exhausted, and 
 lies for a moment just below the stub. His 
 eyes see it dimly, and with a last mighty 
 effort he turns and leaps clear over it up- 
 stream. The line doubles around the log; he 
 falls with all his weight on the taut leader; 
 there is a heavy splash. Then the salmon is 
 lying free in the shallows; the fly swings loose 
 under the leaning stub with a tiny white bit 
 of Kopseep's lip glistening on the barb. 
 
 On the instant you have dropped your rod, 
 and all the sportsman's calm vanishes in the
 
 fisherman's eagerness as you jump forward 
 to grab him. Your hands grip his broad 
 back; but his slippery sides seem to ooze 
 out between your fingers as he rolls away. A 
 swift plunge as he sees his big enemy ; then a 
 broad tail waves triumphantly over the flood 
 and the salmon vanishes into the deeps. 
 
 Good-by, Kopseep, and good luck 1 You 're 
 the biggest fish I have seen all summer, and 
 of course you got away. Up at Kopswaugan 
 the salmon are still rising ; but I have no more 
 heart for the little nine-pounders. Till next 
 summer 4 then, when I shall look for you again 
 in the same place under the falls. Meanwhile, 
 may the bear and the seal and the shark and 
 the net always miss you. The fisherman has 
 no regrets that your story is not yet ended. 
 
 387 
 
 TheSfory
 
 Cheokhes, che-ok-hts', the mink. 
 
 Cheplahgan, chep-lah'gan^ the bald eagle. 
 
 Ch'geegee-lokh-sis, cH gee-gee' lock-sis, the chickadee. 
 
 Chigwooltz, chig-wooltz? ', the bullfrog. 
 
 Cldte Scarpe, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the North- 
 ern Indians. Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Gros- 
 cap, Gluscap, etc. 
 
 Commoosie, com-moo-sie' , a little shelter, or hut, of boughs 
 and bark. 
 
 Deedeeaskh, dee-dee'ask, the blue jay. 
 
 Eleemos, el-ee'mos, the fox. 
 
 Hawahak, ha-wa-hdk' , the hawk. 
 
 Hetokh, hiedkh, the deer. 
 
 Hukweem, huh-weem', the great northern diver, or loon. 
 
 Ismaques, iss-ma-qties' , the fish-hawk. 
 
 Kagax, kag'ax, the weasel. 
 
 Kakagos, ka-ka-gos', the raven. 
 
 K'dunk, Vdunk', the toad. 
 
 Keeokuskh, kee-o-kusk', the muskrat. 
 
 Keeonekh, kee'o-nek, the otter. 
 
 Keesuolukh, kee-su-o'luk, the Great Mystery, i.e. God. 
 
 Killooleet, kil'loo-leet, the white-throated sparrow. 
 
 Kookooskoos, koo-koo-skoos', the great horned owl. 
 389
 
 Kopseep, kop'seep, the salmon. 
 39O Koskomenos, kos' kom-e-nos' , the kingfisher. 
 Kupkawis, cup-ka'wis, the barred owl. 
 Kwaseekho, kwa-seek'ho, the sheldrake.. 
 Lhoks, locks, the panther. 
 Malsun, mal'sun, the wolf. 
 Malsunsis, nidi-sun' sis, the little wolf cub. 
 Matwock, inat'wok, the white bear. 
 Meeko, meek'o, the red squirrel. 
 Megaleep, meg'd-leep, the caribou. 
 Milicete, mil'i-cete, the name of an Indian tribe; written 
 
 also Malicete. 
 
 Mitchegeesookh, mitcJi-e-gee'sook, the snowstorm. 
 Mitches, mit'ches, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse. 
 Moktaques, mok-ta'ques, the hare. 
 Mooween, moo-ween', the black bear. 
 Mooweesuk, moo-wee' 'suk, the coon. 
 Musquash, mus' quash, the muskrat. 
 Nemox, nlm'ox, the fisher. 
 Pekompf, pe-kompf, the wildcat. 
 Pekquam, pek-wairi ', the fisher. 
 Queokh, que'ok, the sea-gull. 
 Quoskh, quoskh, the blue heron. 
 Seksagadagee, sek'sa-ga-da'gee, the Canada grouse, or spruce 
 
 partridge. 
 
 Skooktum, shook' 'turn, the trout. 
 Tookhees, tok'hees, the wood-mouse. 
 Umquenawis, um-que-nd'tvis, the moose. 
 Unk Wunk, unk' wunk, the porcupine. 
 Upweekis, tip-week' iss, the Canada lynx. 
 Waptonk, wdp-tonk' ' , the wild goose. 
 Wayeesis, ivay-ee'sis, the white wolf, the strong one. 
 Whitooweek, whit-oo-week' ', the woodcock.
 
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