YOUTHFUL EXPERIENCES 53 



depend their every hour of Hfe, menaced as they 

 are on all sides by beasts of prey. The moose had 

 nothing to fear from any animal save man. Her 

 region was little hunted, therefore she moved care- 

 lessly. 



Holding up a snowy-tipped tail as a danger 

 signal, a white-banded, black-patched, glossy skunk 

 minced by confidingly on plantigrade feet. Though 

 so small — hardly so big as a rabbit — he travelled as 

 he listed, secure in the knowledge that with his 

 warning coloration and notorious character, foolish 

 indeed would be the creature who contested the 

 right-of-way. His nightly hunting over, he was 

 going home, full fed, to a hollow in a stony upcrop 

 near the river. 



A wolverine next, glutton of the bush, shadiest 

 of criminals. 



" A malicious beast I" the moose cow called 

 him. " Wicked as he is clever, and sagacious 

 and cunning beyond all other of the wilderness 

 people." 



He lived in the ex-home of a bear near by, and 

 no sound heralded his coming — such thickly haired 

 soles made for silence. Something like a bear he 

 was, too, a bear-cub provided with a thick, bushy 



