hich he
told them there was not one to make them afraid. For the horrible story
of Red Riding Hood is not known among the Indians, who know well how
untrue the tale is to wolf nature, and how foolish it is to frighten
children with false stories of wolves and bears, misrepresenting them 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 distant
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 increasing 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 wolf's 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 escape the cold and the fearful
blizzards of the coast. One still moonlit night, when the snow lay deep
and the cold was intense and all the trees were cracking like pistols in
the frost, a mournful howling rose all around their little cabin. Light
footfalls sounded on the crust; there were scratchings at the very door
and hoarse breathings at every crack; while the dogs, with hackles up
straight and stiff on their necks, fled howling under beds and tables.
And when Mooka and Noel went fearfully with their mother to the little
window--for the men were far away on a caribou hunt--there were gaunt
white wolves, five or six of them, flitting restlessly about in the
moonlight, scratching at the cracks and even raising themselves on their
hind legs to