26 
Northern Trails . Book I 
how he watched and played peekaboo with anything 
which he could not smell, and how in a snowstorm — 
Noel was off now like a brook, babbling a deal of 
caribou lore which he had learned from Old Tomah the 
hunter, when Mooka, whose restless black eyes were 
always wandering, seized his arm. 
“ Hush, brother, and look, oh, look! there on the 
big rock! ” 
Noel’s eyes had already caught the Indian trick of 
seeing only what they look for, and so of separating an 
animal instantly from his surroundings, however well 
he hides. That is why the whole hillside seemed sud¬ 
denly to vanish, spruces and harebells, snow-fields and 
drifting white clouds all grouping themselves, like the 
unnoticed frame of a picture, around a great gray rock 
with a huge shaggy she-wolf keeping watch over it, 
silent, alert, motionless. 
Something stirred in the shadow of the old wolf’s 
watch-tower, tossing and eddying and growing sud¬ 
denly quiet, as if the wind were playing among dead 
oak leaves. The keen young eyes saw it instantly, 
dilating with surprise and excitement. The next in¬ 
stant they had clutched each other’s arms. 
“ Ooooo! ” from Mooka. 
“ Cubs; keep still! ” from Noel. 
And shrinking close to the rock under a friendly 
dwarf spruce they lay still as two rabbits, watching 
