he 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 rocks, and the wary, magnificent
wanderer of the broad caribou barrens; but they understood each other,
and neither wolf nor caribou had any fear or hostile intent one for the
other. And this is not strange at all, as might be supposed by those who
think animals are governed by fear on one hand and savage cruelty on the
other, but is one of the commonest things to be found by those who
follow faithfully the northern trails.

Wayeeses had chosen her den well, on the edge of the untrodden
solitudes--sixty miles as the crow flies--that stretch northward from
Harbor Weal to Harbor Woe. It was just under the ridge, in a sunny
hollow among the rocks, on the southern slope of the great mountains.
The earliest sunshine found the place and warmed it, bringing forth the
bluebells for a carpet, while in every dark hollow the snow lingered all
summer long, making dazzling white patches on the mountain; and under
the high waterfalls, that looked from the harbor like bits of silver
ribbon stretched over the green woods, the ice clung to the rocks in
fantastic knobs and gargoyles, making cold, deep pools for the trout to
play in. So it was both cool and warm there, and whatever the weather
the gaunt old mother wolf could always find just the right spot to sleep
away the afternoon. Best of all it was perfectly safe; for though from
the door of her den she could look down on the old Indian's cabin, like
a pebble on the shore, so steep were the billowing hills and so
impassable the ravines that no human foot ever trod the place, not even
in autumn when the fishermen left their boats at anchor in Harbor Weal
and camped inland on the paths of the big caribou herds.

Whether or not the father wolf ever knew where his cubs were hidden only
he himself could tell. He was an enormous brute, powerful and cunning
beyond measure, that haunted the lonely thickets and ponds bordering the
great caribou barrens over the ridge, and that kept a silent watch,
within howling d