47 
The Way of the Wolf 
exciting as a stag hunt to the pack, as full of surprises 
as the wild chase through the soft snow after a litter 
of lynx kittens. And though they knew it not, they 
were learning things every hour of the sunny, playful 
afternoons that they would remember and find useful all 
the days of their life. 
So the funny little hunt went on, the mother watch¬ 
ing gravely under a bush where she was inconspicuous, 
and the cubs, full of zest and inexperience, missing the 
flying tidbits more often than they swallowed them, until 
they learned at last to locate all game accurately before 
chasing or alarming it; and that is the rule, learned 
from hunting grasshoppers, which a wolf follows ever 
afterward. Even after they knew just where the grass¬ 
hopper was hiding, watching them after a jump, and 
leaped upon him swiftly from a distance, he often got 
away when they lifted their paws to eat him. For the 
grasshopper was not dead under the light paw, as they 
supposed, but only pressed into the moss waiting for 
his chance to jump. Then the cubs learned another 
lesson: to hold their game down with both paws pressed 
closely together, inserting their noses like a wedge and 
keeping every crack of escape shut tight until they had 
the slippery morsel safe under their back teeth. And 
even then it was deliciously funny to watch their 
expression as they chewed, opening their jaws wide 
as if swallowing a rabbit, snapping them shut again 
