racing swift and silent over the ice straight at the fire which he had
barely time to kindle; how he shot two, and the others, seizing the fish
he had just caught through the ice for his own supper, vanished over the
bank; and he could not say even now whether they meant him harm or no.
Again, as he talked and the grim old face lighted up at the memory, they
saw him crouched with his sledge-dogs by a blazing fire all the long
winter night, and around him in the darkness blazing points of light,
the eyes of wolves flashing back the firelight, and gaunt white forms
flitting about like shadows, drawing nearer and nearer with ever-growing
boldness till they seized his largest dog--though the brute lay so near
the fire that his hair singed--and whisked it away with an appalling
outcry. And still again, when Tomah was lost three days in the interior,
they saw him wandering with his pack over endless barrens and through
gloomy spruce woods, and near him all the time a young wolf that
followed his steps quietly, with half-friendly interest, and came no
nearer day or night.

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