STEPPING-STONES 23 



of the times to a miserable wasted four, led by 

 Apukwa, the tailless. 



Apukwa had not always been tailless. She lost 

 her fine brush in a domestic jar, a mere trifling 

 squabble, illustrating all that is best and most char- 

 acteristic in wolf family life. For weeks she hoped 

 that the ornament would grow again, and for 

 minutes at a time stood over a little backwater 

 looking down at her reflection in the gleaming 

 surface, waiting expectantly for that once magnifi- 

 cent tail to sprout in all its glory. But it never came, 

 it never came ! Before long she began to make a 

 beauty of her disfigurement, to feel proud of being 

 distinguished above her kind. Apukwa the tailless ! 

 It was a title worth having. 



It seemed to the wolf, in those days of trouble, 

 that rabbits were the hub on which the wild world 

 turned. She had never thought much about them 

 before, preferring larger game ; but she realized now 

 that the larger game depended indirectly for life 

 on the insignificant rabbit. Indeed, few creatures 

 but the moose, the caribou, and the bear, seemed 

 able to organize existence without the rabbit. 

 Even the wolves, fearless and desperate hunters, 

 had not the strength to go moose-hunting unless 



