13 
Where the Trail Begins 
world, and no wild mother ever lets that happen with¬ 
out first taking infinite precautions that her little ones 
be not molested nor made afraid. 
A faint breeze from the west strayed over the moun¬ 
tains and instantly the old wolf turned her sensitive 
nose to question it. There on her right, and just across 
a deep ravine where a torrent went leaping down to the 
sea in hundred-foot jumps, a great stag caribou was 
standing, still as a stone, on a lofty pinnacle, looking 
down over the marvelous panorama spread wide beneath 
his feet. Every day Megaleep came there to look, and 
the old wolf in her daily hunts often crossed the deep 
path which he had worn through the moss from the 
wide table-lands over the ridge to this sightly place 
where he could look down curiously at the comings and 
goings of men on the sea. But at this season when 
small game was abundant — and indeed at all seasons 
when not hunger-driven — the wolf was peaceable and 
the caribou were not molested. Indeed the big stag 
knew well where the old wolf denned. Every east wind 
brought her message to his nostrils; but secure in his 
own strength and in the general peace which prevails in 
the summer-time among all large animals of the north, he 
came daily to look down on the harbor and wag his ears 
at the fishing-boats, which he could never understand. 
Strange neighbors these, the grim, savage mother 
wolf of the mountains, hiding her young in dens of the 
