ong and
tireless; nothing can get away from him, not even the great moose. And
Mooween the bear sleeps all winter, when game is scarce, and in summer
eats everything,--roots and mice and berries and dead fish and meat
and honey and red ants. So he is always full and happy. But my eyes
are no good; they are bright, like Cheplahgan the eagle's, yet they
cannot see anything unless it moves; for you have made every creature
that hides just like the place he hides in. My nose is worse; it
cannot smell Seksagadagee the grouse, though I walk over him asleep
in the snow. And my feet make a noise in the leaves, so that Moktaques
the rabbit hears me, and hides, and laughs behind me when I go to
catch him. And I am always hungry. Make me now like the shadows that
play, in order that nothing may notice me when I go hunting."

So Clote Scarpe, the great chief who was kind to all animals, gave
Upweekis a soft gray coat that is almost invisible in the woods,
summer or winter, and made his feet large, and padded them with soft
fur; so that indeed he is like the shadows that play, for you can
neither see nor hear him. But Clote Scarpe remembered Moktaques the
rabbit also, and gave him two coats, a brown one for summer and a
white one for winter. Consequently he is harder than ever to see when
he is quiet; and Upweekis must still depend upon his wits to catch
him. As Upweekis has few wits to spare, Moktaques often sees him close
at hand, and chuckles in his form under the brown ferns, or sits up
straight under the snow-covered hemlock tips, and watches the big lynx
at his hunting.

Sometimes, on a winter night, when you camp in the wilderness, and the
snow is sifting down into your fire, and the woods are all still, a
fierce screech breaks suddenly out of the darkness just behind your
wind-break of boughs. You jump to your feet and grab your rifle; but
Simmo, who is down on his knees before the fire frying pork, only
turns his head to listen a moment, and says: "Upweekis catch-um rabbit
dat time." Then he gets closer to the fire, for the screech was not
pleasant, and goes on with his cooking.

You are more curious than he, or you want the big cat's skin to take
home with you. You steal away towards the cry, past the little
_commoosie_, or shelter, that you made hastily at sundown when the
trail ended. There, with your back to the fire and the _commoosie_
between, the light does not dazzle your eyes; you can trace the
shadows creeping