he Northland. It was as red as blood, and as he stared it rose
steadily and swiftly until the flat side of it rounded out and it was a
huge ball of SOMETHING. At first he thought it was Life--some monstrous
creature sailing up over the forest toward them--and he turned with a
whine of enquiry to his mother. Whatever it was, Noozak was unafraid.
Her big head was turned toward it, and she was blinking her eyes in
solemn comfort. It was then that Neewa began to feel the pleasing
warmth of the red thing, and in spite of his nervousness he began to
purr in the glow of it. From red the sun turned swiftly to gold, and
the whole valley was transformed once more into a warm and pulsating
glory of life.

For two weeks after this first sunrise in Neewa's life Noozak remained
near the ridge and the slough. Then came the day, when Neewa was eleven
weeks old, that she turned her nose toward the distant black forests
and began the summer's peregrination. Neewa's feet had lost their
tenderness, and he weighed a good six pounds. This was pretty good
considering that he had only weighed twelve ounces at birth.

From the day when Noozak set off on her wandering TREK Neewa's real
adventures began. In the dark and mysterious caverns of the forests
there were places where the snow still lay unsoftened by the sun, and
for two days Neewa yearned and whined for the sunlit valley. They
passed the waterfall, where Neewa looked for the first tune on a
rushing torrent of water. Deeper and darker and gloomier grew the
forest Noozak was penetrating. In this forest Neewa received his first
lessons in hunting. Noozak was now well in the "bottoms" between the
Jackson's Knee and Shamattawa waterway divides, a great hunting ground
for bears in the early spring. When awake she was tireless in her quest
for food, and was constantly digging in the earth, or turning over
stones and tearing rotting logs and stumps into pieces. The little gray
wood-mice were her piece de resistance, small as they were, and it
amazed Neewa to see how quick his clumsy old mother could be when one
of these little creatures was revealed. There were times when Noozak
captured a whole family before they could escape. And to these were
added frogs and toads, still partly somnambulent; many ants, curled up
as if dead, in the heart of rotting logs; and occasional bumble-bees,
wasps, and hornets. Now and then Neewa took a nibble at these things.
On the third day Noozak uncovered a solid