Roy J. Snell

“ Mother!" he called tumbling into his home under the great rock, "Tdariuk is dead!"
"Tdariuk dead!" cried Madam White Fox. "Who could have been mean enough to kill him?"
"I don't know who killed him, but he's dead, I know that," said Little White Fox, the tears running down his cheeks.
"It must have been Old Man Gray Wolf, or Omnok, the hunter," said Madam [4] White Fox, wiping her eyes with her paw. "For my part, I could easily wish them both dead themselves. None of us is safe as long as they are about. But who told you Tdariuk was dead?" ”

“ 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! ”

“ These seven little black sea parrots all stood up stiffly in a row, and not one word did they say, either to Little White Fox or to one another. But Little White Fox felt that they were looking at him, and he didn't like it a bit. "What business is it of theirs if I walk around here and see what I can see?" he thought to himself. "They are very ugly little people, anyway. Look at their faces! They are nearly all nose! ”

“ CHAPTER XI BIG WHITE BEAR MEETS HUSKIE
"Now, I'll tell you," Omnok said to Huskie, "Big White Bear is a great big bully. He likes to fight all the little folks of the tundra and sea because he is so big. It would be a good thing if we could show him that he isn't so awfully big, after all. Wouldn't it?"
"Ki, yi, yiyi," said Huskie, which meant he thought it would.
"Well, then, this is what you must do. Go running about on the ocean ice everywhere and hunt for him. I will be hunting [75] too. If you find him first, run away, then call me. I will shoot him. Do you see?" ”

“ Little White Fox slipped behind the muckluck grass and listened. His relatives were quarrelling over who should have the extra egg. You see here were eight little Foxes and nine eggs, so the question was who should take the extra egg? [29]
"We should have the egg," said the Silver Fox twins boastfully, "because we belong to the most aristocratic branch of the family. Our mother's coat alone is worth three hundred dollars."
"You have no more right to hold up your heads than we have," one of the Black Fox triplets answered him. ”

“ Little White Fox just tumbled a back somersault away from the little house and ran as fast as ever he could, for there, right behind him, was Big White Bear! It's one thing to be looking for some one very much larger than yourself, but quite another thing for that big person to be looking at you. ”

“ It came down quickly too, and it hit Little Black Bear square on his nose. He spun about and tumbled down in the snow, and at first he had a notion to be angry.
When the thing had stopped swinging, he stood on his tiptoes and smelled of it. "E-ee-ee! How good it smells," he cried. "I just believe that is Omnok's 'pooksack' of seal oil which mother has been talking [64] about!" Little Black Bear's mouth began to water and water, for his mother had told him there was nothing half so good in the world as fine, rich seal oil. ”

“ When Little White Fox saw that he had really found out about Tdariuk, the reindeer, all by himself, he became very wise. The next time one of his friends disappeared from the tundra, he didn't say a word about it to his mother, but went searching, searching, everywhere, every day.
This time it was Little Miss Ptarmigan who had disappeared. Probably you don't know Miss Ptarmigan, for she lives only in cold lands where there is plenty of snow. But she is a very interesting young person. [10] She is a bit larger than Madam Partridge and not quite so large as Madam Prairie Hen. ”

“ Huskie ran up and down, in and out among the ice piles, until his feet were sore. He was very anxious to find Big White Bear. Whenever a little fellow has a chance to harm a big fellow he thinks is a bully, he always wants to do it. ”

“ Indeed, they have long claws and are great fighters. But my nearest relative, Tusks, the Walrus, is no fighter at all, and believe me, neither am I." [80]
But Huskie was a very quarrelsome and suspicious fellow.
"That will do to tell," said he; "but I know it is not true. As for those claws of yours, I can guess how that is. They look very harmless now. But when you want to fight, you run them out like a cat's."
"It's no such thing," said Big White Bear.
"Oh, yes, it is. Omnok says it is. I am going to tell him now, and he'll fix you!" Vain boast! Huskie had forgotten himself. ”

“ Little White Fox put his head out of the door. Then you should have seen him get out of that tunnel! I don't believe Little White Fox ever went faster in the world. When he was out on the snow, he looked around and felt foolish, for Mr. Lemming was not coming after him at all.
That night Mr. Lemming closed up the tunnel to his house and made a new one under a rock, where he thought Little White Fox would not be able to find it. ”

“ I am tired!"
"But," said Little White Fox, when they were both comfortably seated, "you look very much like Little Brown Seal."
"Yes," said the other, "he is my cousin, so is Spotted Seal and Oogrook, the big seal, and Little Light Brown Seal, and goodness knows how many more! We are a large family. I am told that we have cousins living down in the Aleutian Islands who are very aristocratic indeed. They go by the name of Hair Seal. Why, their coats, I am told, are so valuable that Omnok, the hunter, would risk his life to get one of them! ”

“ They all stood in a row, and each was as straight up and down as the big whalebone over the grave Omnok, the hunter, had made for his father. Little White Fox had seen some of these strange folks when he was with his mother a few days before. She had told him that they belonged to the Sea Parrot family. "There is a very large family of them," she had said. "They [21] live almost anywhere on the ocean most of the year, but they make Alaska their summer home." ”

“ I found it out for myself," boasted Little White Fox proudly, quite forgetting his sorrow in thinking what a wise young chap he was.
"You found it out!" exclaimed his mother. "Pray, tell me how?"
"Why, you see," explained Little White Fox, with an air of deep mystery, "I was down on the tundra, at the foot of Saw Tooth Mountain, looking all around to see what I could see. And all of a sudden I came right on one of Tdariuk's great, fine antlers lying there in the snow. Now, what [5] do you think of that? ”

“ You will have a surprise for him some day! When he comes to look for [73] you some cold, cold time, won't he be surprised to find you snugly tucked away in bed and sleeping all day and all night? Won't he, though? ”