test goose of the flock, too. How do I know he ate
it all? Look in the grass and leaves and you will find enough bones to make
the complete frame of a goose, and every bone is picked clean. Wild animals
might have gleaned on them, you say? No. Here is the trail of a wolf that
came to the dip after the Great Bear had gone, drawn by the savory odors,
but he turned back. He never really entered the dip. Why? When he stood at
the edge his acute and delicate senses told him no meat was left on the
bones, and a wolf neither makes idle exertion, nor takes foolish risk. He
went back at once. And if the wolf had not come, there is another reason
why I knew the Great Bear ate all the goose. He would not have thrown away
any of the bones with flesh still on them. He is too wise a man to waste.
He would have taken with him what was left of the goose. Having finished
his most excellent dinner, the Great Bear looked for a brook."

"Why a brook?"

"Because he was thirsty. Everyone is thirsty after a heavy meal. He turned
to the right, as the ground slopes down in that direction. Even you,
Dagaeoga, know that one is more likely to find a brook in a valley than on
a hilltop. Here is the brook, a fine, clear little stream with a sandy
bottom, and here is where the Great Bear knelt and drank of the cool water.
The prints of his strong knees show like carving on a wall. Finding that he
was still thirsty he came back for another drink, because the second prints
are a little distance from the first.

"Then, after rejoicing over the tender goose and his renewed strength, he
suddenly became very cautious. The danger from the warriors, which he had
forgotten or overlooked in his hunger, returned in acute form to his mind.
He came to the brook a third time, but not to drink. He intended to wade in
the stream that he might hide his trail, which, as you well know, Dagaeoga,
is the oldest and best of all forest devices for such purposes. How many
millions of times must the people of the wilderness have used it!

"Now the Great Bear had two ways to go in the water, up the stream or down
the stream, and you and I, Dagaeoga, think he went down the stream, because
the current leads on the whole eastward, which was the way in which he
wished to go. At least, we will choose that direction and I will take one
side of the bank and you the other."

They followed the brook more than a mile with questing eyes, and Tayoga
detected the point at which Willet