and dead grass, and lay there all alone, very 



still, with the new feeling trembling all over _ 



him. A long hour passed ; a second cub was /yj#J T 



laid beside him, and the mother vanished as 



before ; another hour, and the wolf cubs were 



all together again with the mother feeding 



them. Nor did any of them know where 



they were, nor why they had come, nor the 



long, long way that led back to where the 



trail began. 



Next day when they were called out to 

 play they saw a different and more gloomy 

 landscape, a chaos of granite rocks, a forest 

 of evergreen, the white plunge and rolling 

 mist of a mountain torrent ; but no silver sea 

 with fishing-boats drifting over it, like clouds 

 in the sea over their heads, and no gray hut 

 with children running about like ants on 

 the distant shore. And as they played they 

 began for the first time to imitate the old 

 mother keeping guard over them, sitting up 

 often to watch and listen and sift the winds, 

 trying to understand what fear was, and why 

 they had been taken away from the sunny 

 hillside where the world was so much bigger 



