22 THE MOOSE 



of which he had heard so much ? And could all 

 wolves turn at will into dogs ? 



The soft-eyed cow meditated awhile before she 

 answered. It is so hard to explain to the young, 

 who will have the gaps of everything filled, and the 

 old know that there are always rifts somewhere, 

 that some things must unravel themselves. The 

 story of the dogs that once were wolves, best known 

 of all the bush stories, won't bear to searching an 

 investigation — its pitfalls are too many. 



At last, using the world-old formula, " Once 

 upon a time," because she knew that no tale is 

 really worth while without the magic " Open 

 Sesame," the cow began the familiar story of the 

 bad year, the rabbit plague year, that recurring 

 seventh year in which all the rabbits die off. 



No, it was not possible for her to explain why 

 the rabbits die off each seventh year. It must be 

 accepted as a tragic and undeniable bush truth. It 

 is Nature's method, perhaps, of keeping the prolific 

 rabbits under. 



Famine stalked the wilderness, with death and 

 destruction at his heels, and on none of the bush 

 people did hunger press so heavily as the wolves, 

 whose numbers had thinned down under the stress 



