journeys, if one
may judge from watching him and from following his tracks, are taken for
play or comfort, just as the bull caribou comes up to lie in the snow,
with the strong sea wind in his face, to escape the flies which swarm in
the thickets below. Owl and hawk, fox and weasel and wildcat,--all the
prowlers of the day and night have long since discovered these good
hunting-grounds and leave the prints of wing and claw over the records
of the wood-mice; but still Tookhees returns, led by his love of the
snow-fields, and thrives and multiplies spite of all his enemies.

One moonlit night the old wolf took her cubs to the edge of one of these
snow-fields, where the eager eyes soon noticed dark streaks shooting
hither and yon over the bare white surface. At first they chased them
wildly; but one might as well try to catch a moonbeam, which has not so
many places to hide as a wood-mouse. Then, remembering the grasshoppers,
they crouched and crept and so caught a few. Meanwhile old mother wolf
lay still in hiding, contenting herself with snapping up the game that
came to her, instead of chasing it wildly all over the snow-field. The
example was not lost; for imitation is strong among intelligent animals,
and most of what they learn is due simply to following the mother. Soon
the cubs were still, one lying here under shadow of a bush, another
there by a gray rock that lifted its head out of the snow. As a dark
streak moved nervously by one of these hiding-places there would be a
rush, a snap, the _pchap pchap_ of jaws crunching a delicious morsel;
then all quiet again, with only gray, innocent-looking shadows resting
softly on the snow. So they moved gradually along the edges of the great
white field; and next morning the tracks were all there, plain as
daylight, telling their silent story of good hunting.

To vary their diet the mother now took them down to the shore to hunt
among the rocks for ducks' eggs. They were there by the hundreds,
scattered along the lonely bays just above high-water line, where the
eiders had their nests.

At first old mother wolf showed them where to look, and when she had
found a clutch of eggs would divide them fairly, keeping the hungry cubs
in order at a little distance and bringing each one his share, which he
ate without interference. Then when they understood the thing they
scattered nimbly to hunt for themselves, and the real fun began.

Now a cub, poking his nose industriously int