corroborate his belief
he narrated several stories of similar happenings. Wabigoon listened
courteously to him, which is the way of the Indian. Then he said:

"Such stories as those are false, Rod. When I spent my year at school
with you I read dozens of stories about wild animals, and very few of
them were true. All sorts of people write about the wilderness, and
yet not one out of a hundred of those same people have ever been in
the real wilderness. And it is wonderful what some of them make wild
animals do!"

Rod straightened himself with a jerk.

"I have been here only a few months, Wabi, and yet I have seen more
wonderful things about animals than I have ever read in print," he
declared.

"Of course you have," agreed his companion. "And there is just the
point I want to make clear. Wild animals are the most wonderful
creatures in existence, and if some of their actual habits and
adventures were told they would be laughed at down where you came
from. Where your writers make their mistake is in bringing them into
too close association with human beings, and making them half human.
Wolf remained with us because he knew no better. We caught him when he
was a whelp, and as he grew older both Mukoki and I could see that at
times he was filled with a wild longing to join his people. We knew
that it was coming. He will never return to us."

Mukoki made a soft sound deep down in his throat, and Rod turned
suddenly toward him.

"You believe that, Mukoki?"

"Wolf gone!"

"But animals think, don't they?" persisted Rod, to whom the discussion
was of absorbing interest. "They reason, they remember!"

"They do all of that," replied Wabi, "and more. I have read certain
so-called natural history stories which ridiculed the idea of wild
animals possessing mental abilities, and which ascribed pretty nearly
all their actions to instinct. Such stories are as wrong as those
which give wild animals human endowments. Animals do think. Don't you
suppose that mother moose was thinking when she stopped out there in
the plain? Wasn't she turning the situation over in her mind, if you
want to speak of it as that, and mentally figuring just where the
danger lay, and in which direction she ought to take flight? And
besides reason wild animals have instinct. One proof of this is their
sixth sense; the sense of--of--what do you call it?"

"Orientation?" assisted Rod.

"Yes; that's it. Orientation. A bear, for instance, doesn't carry