g constantly hunted with long-range repeaters.
Judging from these sorts of wild animals, it certainly seems that the
brute creation has been sadly maligned. The bear cubs lick each other's
paws with an amatory singing that is something between the purr of a cat
and the grunt of a pig. The old polars wrestle like boys out of school,
flounder in grotesque gambols that are laughably clumsy, good-naturedly
dance on their hind legs, and even eat from their keeper's hand. And all
the deer family can be seen nosing one another with the affection of
turtle-doves. Surely the worst that can be said of these animals is that
they shun the presence of man. Perhaps some kindly sentimentalist
wonders if things hadn't gone so badly out of gear in a certain historic
garden long ago, whether mankind would not be on as friendly relations
with the animal world as little boys and girls are with bears and
baboons in the fairy books. And the scientist goes a step further, and
soberly asks whether these wild things of the woods are not kindred of
man after all; for have not man and beast ascended the same scale of
life? Across the centuries, modern evolution shakes hands with
old-fashioned transmigration.

To be sure, members of the deer family sometimes kill their mates in
fits of blind rage, and the innocent bear cubs fall to mauling their
keeper, and the old bears have been known to eat their young. These
things are set down as freaks in the animal world, and in nowise allowed
to upset the influences drawn from animals living in unnatural
surroundings, behind iron bars, or in haunts where long-range rifles
have put the fear of man in the animal heart.

Now the trapper studies animal life where there is neither a pen to keep
the animal from doing what it wants to do, nor any rifle but his own to
teach wild creatures fear. Knowing nothing of science and sentiment, he
never clips facts to suit his theory. On the truthfulness of his eyes
depends his own life, so that he never blinks his eyes to disagreeable
facts.

Looking out on the life of the wilds clear-visioned as his mountain air,
the trapper sees a world beautiful as a dream but cruel as death. He
sees a world where to be weak, to be stupid, to be dull, to be slow, to
be simple, to be rash are the unpardonable crimes; where the weak must
grow strong, keen of eye and ear and instinct, sharp, wary, swift, wise,
and cautious; where in a word the weak must grow fit to survive
or--perish!