ned deliberately and took the right fork. The footprint was
much larger than the one his own feet made, and he knew that in the wake
of such a trail there was little meat for him.

Half a mile up the right fork, his quick ears caught the sound of gnawing
teeth. He stalked the quarry and found it to be a porcupine, standing
upright against a tree and trying his teeth on the bark. One Eye
approached carefully but hopelessly. He knew the breed, though he had
never met it so far north before; and never in his long life had
porcupine served him for a meal. But he had long since learned that
there was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued to
draw near. There was never any telling what might happen, for with live
things events were somehow always happening differently.

The porcupine rolled itself into a ball, radiating long, sharp needles in
all directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed
too near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail
flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his
muzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it
finally worked out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching position,
his nose fully a foot away, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he
waited, keeping perfectly quiet. There was no telling. Something might
happen. The porcupine might unroll. There might be opportunity for a
deft and ripping thrust of paw into the tender, unguarded belly.

But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled wrathfully at the
motionless ball, and trotted on. He had waited too often and futilely in
the past for porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. He continued
up the right fork. The day wore along, and nothing rewarded his hunt.

The urge of his awakened instinct of fatherhood was strong upon him. He
must find meat. In the afternoon he blundered upon a ptarmigan. He came
out of a thicket and found himself face to face with the slow-witted
bird. It was sitting on a log, not a foot beyond the end of his nose.
Each saw the other. The bird made a startled rise, but he struck it with
his paw, and smashed it down to earth, then pounced upon it, and caught
it in his teeth as it scuttled across the snow trying to rise in the air
again. As his teeth crunched through the tender flesh and fragile bones,
he began naturally to eat. Then he remembered, and, turning on the back-
track, start