. He raised the morsel to his mouth
the second time, when the tree creaked again.

"Why," he exclaimed, "I can not eat when I hear such a noise. Stop,
stop!" he said to the tree. He put it down, exclaiming--"I can not eat
with such a noise;" and starting away he climbed the tree, and was
pulling at the limb which had offended him, when his fore-paw was caught
between the branches so that he could not free himself.

While thus held fast, he saw a pack of wolves advancing through the
wood in the direction of his meat. He suspected them to be the old wolf
and his cubs, but night was coming on and he could not make them out.

"Go the other way, go the other way!" he cried out; "what would you come
to get here?"

The wolves stopped for a while and talked among themselves, and said:

"Manabozho must have something there, or he would not tell us to go
another way."

"I begin to know him," said an old wolf, "and all his tricks. Let us go
forward and see."

They came on; and finding the moose, they soon made away with it.
Manabozho looked wistfully on to see them eat till they were fully
satisfied, when they scampered off in high spirits.

A heavy blast of wind opened the branches and released Manabozho, who
found that the wolves had left nothing but the bare bones. He made for
home, where, when he related his mishap, the old wolf, taking him by the
fore-paw, condoled with him deeply on his ill-luck. A tear even started
to his eye as he added:

"My brother, this should teach us not to meddle with points of ceremony
when we have good meat to eat."

The winter having by this time drawn fairly to a close, on a bright
morning in the early spring, the old wolf addressed Manabozho: "My
brother, I am obliged to leave you; and although I have sometimes been
merry at your expense, I will show that I care for your comfort. I shall
leave one of the boys behind me to be your hunter, and to keep you
company through the long summer afternoons."

The old wolf galloped off with his five young ones; and as they
disappeared from view, Manabozho was disenchanted in a moment, and
returned to his mortal shape.

Although he had been sometimes vexed and imposed upon, he had,
altogether, passed a pleasant winter with the cunning old wolf, and now
that he was gone, Manabozho was downcast and low in spirit. But as the
days grew brighter he recovered by degrees his air of cheerful
confidence, and was ready to try his hand upon any new adven