LITTLE WHITE FOX GOES HUNTING
Little White Fox went hunting for Big White Bear! And he didn't have a
gun or a spear or a bow and arrow! Now what do you think of that! You
see, it was this way. It was winter time, and food was becoming very
scarce on the hills and the tundra. All the delicious roots were frozen
hard in the earth, and the berries were all gone. Little White Fox was
very hungry, and he told Little Mrs. White Fox about it.
"Well," said his mother, "I guess we will have to go and find a Big
White Bear."
"Find a Big White Bear!" cried Little White Fox. "Why, he'd eat us!"
"But you mustn't let him do that," said Mrs. White Fox.
"But what do we want to find him for?" said Little White Fox, scratching
his head.
"Listen," said Mrs. White Fox very mysteriously. "Big White Bear is a
very wasteful fellow. He has a big, big kitchen, and he has the greatest
amount of food stored there. Oh! piles and piles of it! He doesn't like
to eat his food in his kitchen. He brings some out every day and always
leaves plenty. Now, if we can find him, we will just follow him about
until his dinner hour. When he is gone, we will have plenty to eat.
See?"
Little White Fox did see and, though he was half afraid of Big White
Bear, he was also very hungry, and so he was anxious to go on the hunt
right away.
"You go one way, and I'll go the other," said Madam White Fox. "When you
find Big White Bear, you come right back to this rock. I will come back
too, and we will follow him about for weeks and weeks and have plenty to
eat."
Away went Little White Fox, looking, looking everywhere for Big White
Bear! He looked behind the cliff on the mountain. But Big White Bear
wasn't there. He looked on the sand bars, but he wasn't there. He went
peering all around the little lakes, but he wasn't there.
And where do you think Big White Bear was? He wasn't in very good
business, I assure you. He was over on the other side of the mountain.
Tusks the Walrus had just climbed out of the water and had gone to sleep
on the beach close to the mountain. Tusks was a great, good natured
fellow, with a monstrous, heavy body and a pair of terrible looking
tusks, which were not really terrible at all, for Tusks never used them
except for digging clams. Big White Bear was up on the rocks, way, way
above Tusks, and he had a great rock in his powerful paws, as big a rock
as he could lift! He was going to throw it right down on Tusks and kill
him. He had plenty to eat at home, but he thought this would be a fine
chance to get some fresh meat.
Just when he was getting ready to throw it, something happened. Little
White Fox came round the corner of the hill, looking here, there, and
everywhere for Big White Bear. He came on round and round till he was
just above Big White Bear, and then all at once he saw him! He was so
glad he had found Big White Bear, that he stood right up on his two feet
and gave one big, big laugh, "Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha! Yak! Yak! Yak!" just like
that.
There was never a worse scared bear than Big White Bear in all the
world! He had a guilty conscience, for he knew it was not right to throw
a rock on poor, tired Tusks, and when he heard Little White Fox laugh,
he didn't know who it was. It might be some one very big and dangerous.
It might be Omnok, the hunter, with his terrible gun! Big White Bear
just trembled and trembled, and the rock fell from his powerful paws and
went splashing into the water without hurting Tusks at all. But when he
looked around to see who had laughed at him, he couldn't see any one at
all. Little White Fox knew a whole lot better than to let Big White Bear
see him just then! But just after that Little White Fox did a very
thoughtless thing. He was so hungry and wanted so much to see where Big
White Bear had his kitchen, that he forgot all about his mother telling
him to come back to the big rock, and away he went, after Big White Bear
all by himself.