I whistled a little tune softly, which always rouses the wood folk's curiosity; but as he lay quiet, listening, his ears shot back and forth nervously at a score of sounds that I could not hear, as if above the music he caught faint echoes of the last fearful chase. Then I brought out my lunch and, nibbling a bit myself, pushed a slice of black bread over the crust towards him with a long stick.
It was curious and intensely interesting to watch the struggle. At first he pulled away, as if I would poison him. Then a new rich odor began to steal up into his hungry nostrils. For weeks he had not fed full; he had been running hard since daylight, and was faint and exhausted. And in all his life he had never smelled anything so good. He turned his head to question me with his eyes. Slowly his nose came down, searching for the bread. "If he would only eat!-that is a truce which I would never break," I kept thinking over and over, and stopped eating in my eagerness to have him share with me the hunter's crust. His nose touched it; then through his hunger came the smell of the man—the danger smell that had followed him day after day in the beautiful October woods, and over white winter trails when he fled for his life, and still the man followed. The remembrance was too much. He raised his head with an effort and bounded away.
I followed slowly, keeping well out to one side of his trail, and sitting quietly within sight whenever he rested in the snow. Wild animals soon lose their fear in the presence of man if one avoids all excitement, even of interest, and is quiet in his motions. His fear was gone now, but the old wild freedom and the intense desire for life—a life which he had resigned when I appeared suddenly before him, and the pack broke out behind—were coming back with renewed force. His bounds grew longer, firmer, his stops less frequent, till he broke at last into a deer path and shook himself, as if to throw off all memory of the experience.
From a thicket of fir a doe, that had been listening in hiding to the sounds of his coming and to the faint unknown click, which was the voice of my snowshoes, came out to meet him. Together they trotted down the path, turning often to look and listen, and vanished at last, like gray shadows, into the gray stillness of the March woods.
GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES
Cheokhes, the mink.
Ch'geegee-lokh, the chickadee.
Cheplahgan, the bald eagle.
Chigwooltz, the bullfrog.
Clote Scarpe, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern
Indians. Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap,
etc.
Deedeeaskh, the blue jay.
Hukweem, the great northern diver, or loon.
Ismaques, the fish-hawk.
Kagax, the weasel.
Kakagos, the raven.
Keeokuskh, the muskrat.
Keeonekh, the otter.
Killooleet, the white-throated sparrow.
Kookooskoos, the great horned owl.
Koskomenos, the kingfisher.
Kupkawis, the barred owl.
Kwaseekho, the sheldrake.
Lhoks, the panther.
Malsun, the wolf.
Meeko,the red squirrel.
Megaleep, the caribou.
Milicete, the name of an Indian tribe; written also Malicete.
Mitches, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse.
Moktaques, the hare.
Mooween, the black bear.
Musquash, the muskrat.
Nemox, the fisher.
Pekquam, the fisher.
Seksagadagee, the Canada grouse, or spruce partridge.
Skooktum, the trout.
Tookhees, the wood grouse.
Upweekis, the Canada lynx.