“Long ’go, O long time ’go,” so says Simmo the Indian, Upweekis the lynx came to Clote Scarpe one day with a complaint.  “See,” he said, “you are good to everybody but me.  Pekquam the fisher is cunning and patient; he can catch what he will.  Lhoks the panther is strong 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 in and out stealthily among the underbrush.  But if Upweekis is there—­and he probably is—­you do not see him.  He is a shadow among the shadows.  Only there is this difference:  shadows move no bushes.  As you watch, a fir-tip stirs; a bit of