appeared and dodged back again,
as if frightened, it was not because he had seen them, but just because
he always appears that way. So they crouched and hid, like a cat, and
when a gray streak shot over the gray moss and vanished in a tuft of
grass they leaped for the spot--and always found it vacant. For Tookhees
always doubles on his trail, or burrows for a distance under the moss,
and never hides where he disappears. It took the cubs a long while to
find that out; and then they would creep and watch and listen till they
could locate the game by a stir under the moss, and pounce upon it and
nose it out from between their 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 across a bit of snow and dive back to cover under the
moss again, as if he enjoyed the feeling of the cold snow under his feet
in the summer sunshine. He has tunnels there, too, going down to solid
ice, where he hides things to keep which would spoil if left in the heat
of his den under the mossy stone, and when food is scarce he draws upon
these cold-storage rooms; but most of his summer snow