Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/124

106 in these woods that can stand against a wolf pack in its full strength."

"Except man, of course."

"A strong man, with an accurate rifle, of course, and except possibly in the starving times in winter he'd never have to fight them. All the beasts of prey are out to-night. You see, Dan, when the moon shines, the deer feed at night instead of in the twilights and the dawn. And of course the wolves and the cougars hunt the deer. It may be that they are running cattle, or even sheep."

But Dan's imagination was afire. He was n't content yet. "They could n't be—hunting man?" he asked.

"No. If it was midwinter and the pack was starving, we'd have to listen better. It always looked to me as if the wild creatures had a law against killing men, just as humans have. They 've learned it does n't pay—something the wolves and bear of Europe and Asia have n't found out. The naturalists say that the reason is rather simple—that the European peasant, his soul scared out of him by the government he lived under, has always fled from wild beasts. They were tillers of the soil, and they carried hoes instead of guns. They never put the fear of God into the animals and as a result there are quite a number of true