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 /j *n r 



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, 



