e over the
caribou. In a moment they had torn the carcass apart and were
crouched, each one over his piece, gnarling like a cat over a rat, and
stuffing themselves greedily in utter forgetfulness of the mother
lynx, which lay under a bush some distance away and watched them.

In a half hour the savage meal was over. The little ones sat up,
licked their chops, and began to tongue their broad paws. The mother
had been blinking sleepily; now she rose and came to her young. A
change had come over the family. The kittens ran to meet the dam as if
they had not seen her before, rubbing softly against her legs, or
sitting up to rub their whiskers against hers--a tardy thanks for the
breakfast she had provided. The fierce old mother too seemed
altogether different. She arched her back against the roots, purring
loudly, while the little ones arched and purred against her sides.
Then she bent her savage head and licked them fondly with her tongue,
while they rubbed as close to her as they could get, passing between
her legs as under a bridge, and trying to lick her face in return;
till all their tongues were going at once and the family lay down
together.

It was time to kill them now. The rifle lay ready. But a change had
come over the watcher too. Hitherto he had seen Upweekis as a
ferocious brute, whom it was good to kill. This was altogether
different. Upweekis could be gentle also, it seemed, and give herself
for her little ones. And a bit of tenderness, like that which lay so
unconscious under my eyes, gets hold of a man, and spikes his guns
better than moralizing. So the watcher stole away, making as little
noise as he could, following his compass of twigs to where the canoes
lay ready and Simmo was waiting.

Sometime, I hope, Simmo and I will camp there again, in winter. And
then I shall listen with a new interest for a cry in the night which
tells me that Moktaques the rabbit is hiding close at hand in the
snow, where a young lynx of my acquaintance cannot find him.

VIII. HUKWEEM THE NIGHT VOICE.

[Illustration: Hukweem]

Hukweem the loon must go through the world crying for what he never
gets, and searching for one whom he never finds; for he is the
hunting-dog of Clote Scarpe. So said Simmo to me one night in
explaining why the loon's cry is so wild and sad.

Clote Scarpe, by the way, is the legendary hero, the Hiawatha of the
northern Indians. Long ago he lived on the Wollastook, and ruled the
animal