45 
The Way of the Wolf 
and watched over it and put her nose to every ridge and 
ravine and brook-side, day after day, till she was sure 
that no* foot save that of the wild things had touched 
the soil within miles of the place. They felt only a 
greater wildness, a deeper solitude; and they never for¬ 
got, though they were unmolested, the strange feeling 
that was born in them on that first terrifying night 
journey in their mother’s jaws. 
Soon the food that was brought home at dawn—the 
rabbit or grouse, or the bunch of rats hanging by their 
tails, with which the mother supplemented their midday 
drink of milk — became altogether too scant to satisfy 
their clamorous appetites; and in the bright afternoons 
and the long summer twilights the mother led them 
forth on short journeys to hunt for themselves. No big 
caribou or cunning fox cub, as one might suppose, but 
“ rats and mice and such small deer ” were the limit of 
the mother’s ambition for her little ones. They began 
on stupid grubs that one could find asleep under stones 
and roots, and then on beetles that scrambled away 
briskly at the first alarm, and then, when the sunshine 
was brightest, on grasshoppers, — lively, wary fellows 
that zipped and buzzed away just when you were sure 
you had them, and that generally landed from an 
astounding jump facing in a different direction, like a 
flea, so as to be ready for your next move. 
