All these things and many more the children heard from Old Tomah, and among all his hunting experiences and the stories and legends which he told them there was not one to make them afraid.  For the horrible story of Red Riding Hood is not known among the Indians, who know well how untrue the tale is to wolf nature, and how foolish it is to frighten children with false stories of wolves and bears, misrepresenting them as savage and bloodthirsty brutes, when in truth they are but shy, peace-loving animals, whose only motive toward man, except when crazed by wounds or hunger, is one of childish curiosity.  All these ferocious animal stories have their origin in other centuries and in distant lands, where they may possibly have been true, but more probably are just as false to animal nature; for they seem to reflect not the shy animal that men glimpsed in the woods, but rather the boastings of some hunter, who always magnifies his own praise by increasing the ferocity of the game he has killed, or else the pure imagination of some ancient nurse who tried to increase her scant authority by frightening her children with terrible tales.  Here certainly the Indian attitude of kinship, gained by long centuries of living near to the animals and watching them closely, comes nearer to the truth of things.  That is why little Mooka and Noel could listen for hours to Old Tomah’s animal stories and then go away to bed and happy dreams, longing for the light so that they might be off again to watch at the wolf’s den.

One thing only disturbed them for a moment.  Even these children had wolf memories and vied with Old Tomah in eagerness of telling.  They remembered one fearful winter, years ago, when most of the families of the little fishing village on the East Harbor had moved far inland to sheltered cabins in the deep woods to escape the cold and the fearful blizzards of the coast.  One still moonlit night, when the snow lay deep and the cold was intense and all the trees were cracking like pistols in the frost, a mournful howling rose all around their little cabin.  Light footfalls sounded on the crust; there were scratchings at the very door and hoarse breathings at every crack; while the dogs, with hackles up straight and stiff on their necks, fled howling under beds and tables.  And when Mooka and Noel went fearfully with their mother to the little window—­for the men were far away on a caribou hunt—­there were gaunt white wolves, five or six of them, flitting restlessly about in the moonlight, scratching at the cracks and even raising themselves on their hind legs to look in at the little windows.