mass of hibernating vinegar
ants as large as a man's two fists, and frozen solid. Neewa ate a
quantity of these, and the sweet, vinegary flavour of them was
delicious to his palate.

As the days progressed, and living things began to crawl out from under
logs and rocks, Neewa discovered the thrill and excitement of hunting
on his own account. He encountered a second beetle, and killed it. He
killed his first wood-mouse. Swiftly there were developing in him the
instincts of Soominitik, his scrap-loving old father, who lived three
or four valleys to the north of their own, and who never missed an
opportunity to get into a fight. At four months of age, which was late
in May, Neewa was eating many things that would have killed most cubs
of his age, and there wasn't a yellow streak in him from the tip of his
saucy little nose to the end of his stubby tail. He weighed nine pounds
at this date and was as black as a tar-baby.

It was early in June that the exciting event occurred which brought
about the beginning of the big change in Neewa's life, and it was on a
day so warm and mellow with sunshine that Noozak started in right after
dinner to take her afternoon nap. They were out of the lower timber
country now, and were in a valley through which a shallow stream
wriggled and twisted around white sand-bars and between pebbly shores.
Neewa was sleepless. He had less desire than ever to waste a glorious
afternoon in napping. With his little round eyes he looked out on a
wonderful world, and found it calling to him. He looked at his mother,
and whined. Experience told him that she was dead to the world for
hours to come, unless he tickled her foot or nipped her ear, and then
she would only rouse herself enough to growl at him. He was tired of
that. He yearned for something more exciting, and with his mind
suddenly made up he set off in quest of adventure.

In that big world of green and golden colours he was a little black
ball nearly as wide as he was long. He went down to the creek, and
looked back. He could still see his mother. Then his feet paddled in
the soft white sand of a long bar that edged the shore, and he forgot
Noozak. He went to the end of the bar, and turned up on the green shore
where the young grass was like velvet under his paws. Here he began
turning over small stones for ants. He chased a chipmunk that ran a
close and furious race with him for twenty seconds. A little later a
huge snow-shoe rabbit got up