Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him[22], he forgot that the unknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the things about him. He inspected the grass, the plants around, and the dead trunk. A squirrel, running around the trunk, gave him a great fright. He cowered down and snarled. But the squirrel was scared as well, so it ran up a tree.
This helped the cub’s courage. He met a woodpecker, and then a moose-bird. It pecked him on the end of his nose.
But the cub was learning. His little mind had already made an unconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive. Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive remained always in one place, but the live things moved about, and there was no telling what they might do. He must be prepared.
He travelled very awkwardly. Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped and stubbed his feet. Then there were the stones that turned under him when he stepped upon them; and from them he learnt that the things not alive were not all in the same state of stability. But with every mistake he was learning. The longer he walked, the better he walked.
He had the beginner’s luck[23]. Born to be a hunter (though he did not know it), he found meat just outside his own cave-door. It was a ptarmigan nest. He fell into it, in the midst of seven ptarmigan chicks.
They made noises, and at first he was frightened. Then he understood that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved. He placed his paw on one, and its movements were slowered. This was a source of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he felt hunger. His jaws closed together. There was a crunching of small bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it was good. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth and therefore better. So he ate all the ptarmigan. Then he licked his chops[24] in quite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.
There, the mother ptarmigan was in a fury and tried to hit him. He became angry. He no longer was afraid of anything. He was fighting. He had just destroyed little live things. He would now destroy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy to know that he was happy.
But he lost the battle with ptarmigan. She pecked on his nose, again and again. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. So he released his prey, turned tail and made an inglorious retreat. But, while he was lying in the bush, he saw a terrible hawk that caught the mother-ptarmigan and carried it away.
Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when they were large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small live things like ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptarmigan hens.
He came down a bank to the stream. He had never seen water before. The surface looked good. He stepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into the embrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly. The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air. Like every animal of the Wild, he had the instinct of death. To him it was the greatest of hurts.
He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth. He did not go down again. He fought frantically, going under water from time to time, but finally he reached the bank. He crawled from the water and lied down. He had learned some more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, it looked as stable as the earth, but was without any stability at all. His conclusion was that things were not always what they seemed to be.
One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had remembered that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world. Not only his body and brain were tired with the adventure. So he started out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling lonely and helpless.
He was going through some bushes, when he heard a sharp cry. He saw a weasel leaping away from him. It was a small live thing, and he had no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely small live thing, only several inches long, a young weasel, that, like himself, had disobediently gone out on an adventure. He turned it over with his paw. It made a strange noise. The next moment he received a sharp blow on the side of the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.
Then the mother-weasel leaped upon her young one and disappeared with it. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, but his feelings hurt more.
He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She approached cautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelike body. She came closer and closer. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth deep in his hair and flesh.
At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and this was only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, his fight—a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hung on, trying to press the great vein with her teeth. The weasel was a drinker of blood.
The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story to write about him, had not the she-wolf come through the bushes. Then her jaws closed on the lean, yellow body, and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.
His mother’s joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at being found. She caressed him and licked the cuts made in him by the weasel’s teeth. Then they ate the blood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.
Chapter V. THE LAW OF MEAT
The cub’s development was rapid. He rested for two days, and then went out from the cave again. But on this trip he did not get lost. When he grew tired, he found his way back to the cave and slept. And every day after that he was ranging a wider area.
He began to understand his strength and his weakness, and to know when to be bold and when to be cautious.
He never forgot and was always ready to revenge the hurts by the ptarmigan and or the weasel. He studied their habits.
In the matter of meat, his luck had been all in the beginning. The seven ptarmigan chicks and—later—the baby weasel were the sum of his killings. His desire to kill strengthened with the days. He wanted a squirrel. But as birds flew in the air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawl upon the squirrel when it was on the ground.
The cub had a great respect for his mother. She could get meat, and she never failed to bring him his share. She was unafraid of things. His mother represented power; besides, the older he grew the shorter grew her temper.
Once his mother brought strange meat. He didn’t know it was a lynx’s kitten, nor did he know the desperateness of what his mother did. He only knew it was meat.
With a full stomach, the cub lay in the cave, sleeping against his mother’s side. He was woken by her snarling. Possibly in her whole life it was the most terrible snarl she ever gave. There was reason for it, and none knew it better than she. In the afternoon light, crouching in the entrance of the cave, the cub saw the lynx-mother. He bristled.
Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx could not go in, and, when she tried to, the she-wolf sprang upon her and threw her down. The cub saw little of the battle. There was an awful snarling. The two animals fought, the lynx ripping and tearing with her claws and using her teeth as well, while the she-wolf used only her teeth.
Once, the cub sprang in and sank his teeth into the hind leg of the lynx. He clung on, growling savagely, and thus probably saved his mother. The lynx’s huge fore-paw ripped his shoulder open to the bone. The fight lasted so long that he had time to cry himself out and to experience a second burst of courage; and in the end he was again clinging to a hind-leg and furiously growling between his teeth.
The lynx was dead. But the she-wolf was very weak and sick. For a week she never left the cave, except for water, and then her movements were slow and painful. At the end of that time they ate the lynx, while the she-wolf’s wounds had healed.
The