43 
The Way of the Wolf 
never before ventured beyond sight of the den, it was a 
long journey indeed that followed, — miles and miles 
beside roaring brooks and mist-filled ravines, through 
gloomy woods where no light entered, and over bare 
ridges where the big stars sparkled just over his ears 
as he hung, limp as a rabbit skin, from his mothers 
great jaws. An owl hooted dismally, whoo-hooo! and 
though he knew the sound well in his peaceful nights, it 
brought now a certain shiver. The wind went sniffing 
suspiciously among the spruce branches; a startled bird 
chirped and whirred away out of their path; the brook 
roared among the rocks; a big salmon jumped and 
tumbled back with resounding splash, and jumped again 
as if the otter were after him. There was a sudden sharp 
cry, the first and last voice of a hare when the weasel 
rises up in front of him; then silence, and the fitful 
rustle of his mother’s pads moving steadily, swiftly over 
dry leaves. And all these sounds of the wilderness night 
spoke to the little cub of some new thing, of swift feet 
that follow and of something unknown and terrible that 
waits for all unwary wild things. So fear was born. 
The long journey ended at last before a dark hole in 
the hillside; and the smell of his mother, the only famil¬ 
iar thing in his first strange pilgrimage, greeted the cub 
from the rocks on either side as he passed in out of the 
starlight. He was dropped without a sound in a larger 
den, on some fresh-gathered leaves and dead grass, and 
