“THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE” 33 
the previous winter, had attended to them. With 
a great hatred for all dogs in his heart, Swiftfoot 
grew bold, sometimes even reckless, in running a 
lone dog when he picked up the trail in the woods, 
or even in the half-abandoned fields which ran in 
and out of the broken hill country in which he 
now found himself. All his savagery he vented 
on these dogs, killing sometimes merely for the 
sport of it, for the zest of battle, and licking his 
own wounds well for a day or two thereafter, in 
some nest of leaves under a mountain rock. 
But he encountered no wolves, and no sign of 
wolves. He was alone, in a strange land. 
Then, suddenly, as he was trotting along 
through a young forest of spruce, having earlier 
that night skirted the hills to the east of a strange 
light which seemed to steam up from a bow] in the 
hills (it was a city) and crossed a railroad track, 
he came on familiar tracks which he had not seen 
nor smelled since he left his far northern home. 
One, two, three tracks, a bull moose and two 
cows! Moose meat! His tongue lolled out, and 
drops of saliva trickled from his jaws! Oh, for a 
pack to help him hunt! Alone, he was helpless. 
