50 
Northern Trails . Book I 
paws, just as they had done with the grasshoppers. And 
when they crunched it at last like a ripe plum under 
their teeth it was a delicious tidbit, worth all the trouble 
they had taken to get it. For your wolf, unlike the 
ferocious, grandmother-eating creature of the nursery, 
is at heart a peaceable fellow, most at home and most 
happy when mouse hunting. 
There was another kind of this mouse chasing which 
furnished better sport and more juicy mouthfuls to the 
young cubs. Here and there on the Newfoundland 
mountains the snow lingers all summer long. In every 
northern hollow of the hills you see, from a distance, 
white patches no bigger than your hat sparkling in the 
sun; but when you climb there, after bear or caribou, 
you find great snow-fields, acres in extent and from ten 
to a hundred feet deep, packed close and hard with the 
pressure of a thousand winters. Often when it rains in 
the valleys, and raises the salmon rivers to meet your 
expectations, a thin covering of new snow covers these 
white fields; and then, if you go there, you will find the 
new page written all over with the feet of birds and 
beasts. The mice especially love these snow-fields for 
some unknown reason. All along the edges you find 
the delicate, lacelike tracery which shows where little 
feet have gone on busy errands or played together in 
the moonlight; and if you watch there awhile you will 
surely see Tookhees come out of the moss and scamper 
