he stream where the brown water talked with a wet
tongue. It was crossed by tiny trails of wood and water folk that had
furtive scurrying movements and were very hard to catch. Kiopo's small
wolf-eyes had the keenest possible sight, and what his eyes did not tell
him about the little furtive folk, he found out by experiments with his
paws, mouth and nose. Sometimes his curiosity got him into trouble, as
upon the day when, pouncing upon an immense green grasshopper close to
the water's edge, he lost his balance, and rolled head-over-heels into
the stream. Fortunately the water was shallow, but the scrambling and
spluttering and yelping were so tremendous that the commotion brought
the big brother racing to the rescue. After that experience Kiopo learnt
the lesson that however tempting game may be, it is best to look beyond
it before you make your spring.

It was not long before he became a mighty hunter of mice. Between the
grass bents and the stalks of the prairie plants, their runways ran like
little roads down which they scurried in the early morning or late
afternoon, doing a hundred miles of mouse geography to their
watering-places at the stream. No cunning wolf-mother taught Kiopo to
nose these narrow water-trails, and lie down beside them very craftily,
with his head between his paws. Yet the ancient hunting-craft of wolf
ancestors who had made their kills years beyond memory in the grey
backwards of the moons, woke in his blood when the time arrived and
showed him what to do. And Dusty Star, observing how, after countless
failures, his cub gained mastery over the mice, admired his tireless
perseverance, and loved the little hunter with all his Indian heart.

CHAPTER III

RUNNING WOLF MOVES

Running Wolf was like his name. He was always on the move. Ever since
Dusty Star could remember anything at all, his father had been going and
coming, disappearing without warning, and re-appearing unexpectedly, as
if the feet of many wolves went hunting in his blood.

It was in the Red Moon, the moon of the harvest, that he now made up his
mind to pay a visit to his tribe, and see how the world wagged itself
where great Chiefs and Medicine-men smoked the medicine-pipe together in
the wonderful painted lodges very far south. But as the journey was a
long one, and the cold weather would follow the geese, before he could
return, he decided that the whole family should travel with him, and
take up their winter quarte