gs. Together they ate the rabbit. Not
until the last bit of flesh and the last tender bone were gone did the
feast end, and then Neewa sat back on his round bottom and stuck out
his little red tongue for the first time since he had lost his mother.
It was the cub sign of a full stomach and a blissful mind. He could see
nothing to be more desired at the present time than a nap, and
stretching himself languidly he began looking about for a tree.

Miki, on the other hand, was inspired to new action by the pleasurable
sensation of being comfortably filled. Inasmuch as Neewa chewed his
food very carefully, while Miki, paying small attention to mastication,
swallowed it in chunks, the pup had succeeded in getting away with
about four fifths of the rabbit. So he was no longer hungry. But he was
more keenly alive to his changed environment than at any time since he
and Neewa had fallen out of Challoner's canoe into the rapids. For the
first time he had killed, and for the first time he had tasted warm
blood, and the combination added to his existence an excitement that
was greater than any desire he might have possessed to lie down in a
sunny spot and sleep. Now that he had learned the game, the hunting
instinct trembled in every fibre of his small being. He would have gone
on hunting until his legs gave way under him if Neewa had not found a
napping-place.

Astonished half out of his wits he watched Neewa as he leisurely
climbed the trunk of a big poplar. He had seen squirrels climb
trees--just as he had seen birds fly--but Neewa's performance held him
breathless; and not until the cub had stretched himself out comfortably
in a crotch did Miki express himself. Then he gave an incredulous yelp,
sniffed at the butt of the tree, and made a half-hearted experiment at
the thing himself. One flop on his back convinced him that Neewa was
the tree-climber of the partnership. Chagrined, he wandered back
fifteen or twenty feet and sat down to study the situation. He could
not perceive that Neewa had any special business up the tree. Certainly
he was not hunting for bugs. He yelped half a dozen times, but Neewa
made no answer. At last he gave it up and flopped himself down with a
disconsolate whine.

But it was not to sleep. He was ready and anxious to go on. He wanted
to explore still further the mysterious and fascinating depths of the
forest. He no longer felt the strange fear that had been upon him
before he killed the rabbit. In