30 
Northern Trails. Book I 
as savage and bloodthirsty brutes, when in truth they 
are but shy, peace-loving animals, whose only motive 
toward man, except when crazed by wounds or hunger, 
is one of childish curiosity. All these ferocious animal 
stories have their origin in other centuries and in dis¬ 
tant lands, where they may possibly have been true, but 
more probably are just as false to animal nature; for 
they seem to reflect not the shy animal that men 
glimpsed in the woods, but rather the boastings of some 
hunter, who always magnifies his own praise by increas¬ 
ing the ferocity of the game he has killed, or else the 
pure imagination of some ancient nurse who tried to 
increase her scant authority by frightening her children 
with terrible tales. Here certainly the Indian attitude 
of kinship, gained by long centuries of living near to 
the animals and watching them closely, comes nearer 
to the truth of things. That is why little Mooka and 
Noel could listen for hours to Old Tomah’s animal 
stories and then go away to bed and happy dreams, 
longing for the light so that they might be off again to 
watch at the wolfs den. 
One thing only disturbed them for a moment. Even 
these children had wolf memories and vied with Old 
Tomah in eagerness of telling. They remembered one 
fearful winter, years ago, when most of the families of 
the little fishing village on the East Harbor had moved 
far inland to sheltered cabins in the deep woods to 
