om the windfall that night in his hunt. When he returned he
brought a rabbit.

Came then the night when from the darkest corner of the windfall Gray
Wolf warned him back with a low snarl. He stood in the opening, a rabbit
between his jaws. He took no offense at the snarl, but stood for a
moment, gazing into the gloom where Gray Wolf had hidden herself. Then
he dropped the rabbit and lay down squarely in the opening. After a
little he rose restlessly and went outside. But he did not leave the
windfall. It was day when he reentered. He sniffed, as he had sniffed
once before a long time ago, between the boulders at the top of the Sun
Rock. That which was in the air was no longer a mystery to him. He came
nearer and Gray Wolf did not snarl. She whined coaxingly as he touched
her. Then his muzzle found something else. It was soft and warm and made
a queer little sniffling sound. There was a responsive whine in his
throat, and in the darkness came the quick soft caress of Gray Wolf's
tongue. Kazan returned to the sunshine and stretched himself out before
the door of the windfall. His jaws dropped open, for he was filled with
a strange contentment.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EDUCATION OF BA-REE

Robbed once of the joys of parenthood by the murder on the Sun Rock,
both Gray Wolf and Kazan were different from what they would have been
had the big gray lynx not come into their lives at that time. As if it
were but yesterday they remembered the moonlit night when the lynx
brought blindness to Gray Wolf and destroyed her young, and when Kazan
had avenged himself and his mate in his terrible fight to the death with
their enemy. And now, with that soft little handful of life snuggling
close up against her, Gray Wolf saw through her blind eyes the tragic
picture of that night more vividly than ever and she quivered at every
sound, ready to leap in the face of an unseen foe, to rend all flesh
that was not the flesh of Kazan. And ceaselessly, the slightest sound
bringing him to his feet, Kazan watched and guarded. He mistrusted the
moving shadows. The snapping of a twig drew back his upper lip. His
fangs gleamed menacingly when the soft air brought a strange scent. In
him, too, the memory of the Sun Rock, the death of their first young and
the blinding of Gray Wolf, had given birth to a new instinct. Not for an
instant was he off his guard. As surely as one expects the sun to rise
so did he expect that sooner or later their deadly