After that the wood mice were safe so far as I was concerned. Not
a trout, though he were big as a salmon, would ever taste them,
unless they chose to go swimming of their own accord; and I kept
their table better supplied than before. I saw much of their
visiting back and forth, and have understood better what those
tunnels mean that one finds in the spring when the last snows are
melting. In a corner of the woods, where the drifts lay, you will
often find a score of tunnels coming in from all directions to a
central chamber. They speak of Tookhees' sociable nature, of his
long visits with his fellows, undisturbed by swoop or snap, when
the packed snow above has swept the summer fear away and made him
safe from hawk and owl and fox and wildcat, and when no open
water tempts him to go swimming where Skooktum the big trout lies
waiting, mouse hungry, under his eddy.


The weeks passed all too quickly, as wilderness weeks do, and the
sad task of breaking camp lay just before us. But one thing
troubled me--the little Tookhees, who knew no fear, but tried to
make a nest in the sleeve of my flannel shirt. His simple
confidence touched me more than the curious ways of all the other
mice. Every day he came and took his crumbs, not from the common
table, but from my, hand, evidently enjoying its warmth while he
ate, and always getting the choicest morsels. But I knew that he
would be the first one caught by the owl after I left; for it is
fear only that saves the wild things. Occasionally one finds
animals of various kinds in which the instinct of fear is
lacking--a frog, a young partridge, a moose calf--and wonders
what golden age that knew no fear, or what glorious vision of