202 STUBBS THE BADGER 
sapling, and began, with great satisfaction, to chisel 
off strips of bark, for he was proud of his claws. 
He grunted contentedly, and rubbed his shaggy 
sides up and down and, the next minute, heavy 
as he was, he was sent flying head over heels ; for 
Father Badger had come along, and was wroth 
to find his place usurped. For the first time he 
realised that, during the Big Sleep, the cub 
had become a full-grown badger almost as strong 
as himself. Therefore he challenged ; and it was 
a sign that Stubbs had arrived at adult badger 
estate that he accepted his father's challenge. 
They ran at one another, growling ferociously, but 
they did not use their teeth, only thrust with their 
snouts ; for it is the law of the Fur Folk that two 
of a kind shall not fight to the death, and it is a law 
that is not often broken. However, Father Badger 
was the older and the heavier, and, although a year 
later Stubbs would have been fully his match, he 
drove his son away . After that Stubbs did not return 
to the ' earth ' among the elder trees, but led a 
nomadic life in the woods for some weeks, sleeping 
in a dry drain or old rabbit-hole, and at night wander- 
ing miles abroad over the countryside. In those 
days there was a drouth in Knockdane, and the 
streams dried up. It was serious for the badger 
people, for they were often obliged to search very 
