Part 1 (2/2)
After that he slept When he awoke he was startled by opening his eyes full into the glare of a great blaze of fire Yesterday he had seen the sun, golden and shi+ and far away But this was the first tie of the world on a springin the Northland It was as red as blood, and as he stared it rose steadily and swiftly until the flat side of it rounded out and it was a huge ball of SOMETHING At first he thought it was Life--so up over the forest toward them--and he turned with a whine of enquiry to hishead was turned toward it, and she was blinking her eyes in sole waran to purr in the glow of it Froold, and the whole valley was transforlory of life
For teeks after this first sunrise in Neewa's life Noozak reh Then came the day, when Neeas eleven weeks old, that she turned her nose toward the distant black forests and began the surination Neewa's feet had lost their tenderness, and he weighed a good six pounds This was pretty good considering that he had only weighed twelve ounces at birth
Fro TREK Neewa's real adventures began In the dark and mysterious caverns of the forests there were places where the snow still lay unsoftened by the sun, and for two days Neewa yearned and whined for the sunlit valley They passed the waterfall, where Neewa looked for the first tune on a rushi+ng torrent of water Deeper and darker and gloo In this forest Neewa received his first lessons in hunting Noozak was noell in the ”bottoms” between the Jackson's Knee and Sharound for bears in the early spring When awake she was tireless in her quest for food, and was constantly digging in the earth, or turning over stones and tearing rotting logs and sturay wood-mice were her piece de resistance, small as they were, and it amazed Neewa to see how quick his clumsy old mother could be when one of these little creatures was revealed There were times when Noozak captured a whole fas and toads, still partly somnambulent; s; and occasional bumble-bees, wasps, and hornets Now and then Neewa took a nibble at these things
On the third day Noozak uncovered a solid e as a man's two fists, and frozen solid Neewa ate a quantity of these, and the sweet, vinegary flavour of theressed, and living things began to crawl out fros and rocks, Neewa discovered the thrill and excite on his own account He encountered a second beetle, and killed it He killed his first wood- in hi old father, who lived three or four valleys to the north of their own, and who never ht At foure, and there wasn't a yellow streak in him from the tip of his saucy little nose to the end of his stubby tail He weighed nine pounds at this date and was as black as a tar-baby
It was early in June that the exciting event occurred which brought about the beginning of the big change in Neewa's life, and it was on a day so warht after dinner to take her afternoon nap They were out of the lower tih which a shallow strealed and twisted around white sand-bars and between pebbly shores
Neeas sleepless He had less desire than ever to waste a glorious afternoon in napping With his little round eyes he looked out on a wonderful world, and found it calling to him He looked at his mother, and whined Experience told him that she was dead to the world for hours to come, unless he tickled her foot or nipped her ear, and then she would only rouse herself enough to growl at hi , and with his mind suddenlyworld of green and golden colours he was a little black ball nearly as wide as he was long He went down to the creek, and looked back He could still see hisbar that edged the shore, and he forgot Noozak He went to the end of the bar, and turned up on the green shore where the young grass was like velvet under his paws Here he began turning over small stones for ants He chased a chipmunk that ran a close and furious race with hiot up al leaps Wapoos disappeared in a thicket Neerinkled up his nose and emitted a squeaky snarl Never had Sooet hold of so for a scrap He was like a sloves and no opponent He sat down and looked about hi defiantly He had the whole world beaten He knew that Everything was afraid of his --this lack of soht After all, the world was rather tae of a huge rock, and suddenly stopped
Froe hind paw For a fewanticipation
This tiood!
He would rouse her to the beauty and the opportunities of this day if there was any rouse in him! So he advanced slowly and cautiously, picked out a nice bare spot on the paw, and sank his little teeth in it to the gums
There followed a roar that shook the earth Now it happened that the paw did not belong to Noozak, but was the personal property of Makoos, an old he-bear of unlovely disposition and rouchiness that was not at all like the grandmotherly peculiarities of old Noozak Makoos was on his feet fairly before Neewa realized that he had rouchy bear, but he was also a hater of cubs
More than once in his day he had committed the crime of cannibalism He hat the Indian hunter calls uchan--a bad bear, an eater of his own kind, and the instant his enraged eyes caught sight of Neewa he let out another roar
At that Neewa gathered his fat little legs under his belly and was off like a shot Never before in his life had he run as he ran now
Instinct told hi which was not afraid of him, and that he was in deadly peril He made no choice of direction, for now that he had made this mistake he had no idea where he would find hisafter hi that was filled with a wild and agonizing prayer for help That cry reached the faithful old Noozak In an instant she was on her feet--and just in tiun Neewa sped past the rock where she had been sleeping, and ten jumps behind him came Makoos Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother, but his momentum carried him past her In that moment Noozak leapt into action As a football player makes a tackle she rushed out just in tiht full broadside in the ribs, and the two old bears rolled over and over in what to Neeas an exciting and glorious ed out like shi+ning little onions as he took in the scene of battle He had longed for a fight but what he sa fairly paralyzed hi each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earth in their deadly clinch In this first round Noozak had the best of it
She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, and noith her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashi+ng him with her sharp hind claws until the blood streamed fro bull Neewa knew that it was his pursuer as getting the worst of it, and with a squeaky cry for his mother to lae of the arena, his nose crinkled and his teeth glea in a ferocious snarl He danced about excitedly a dozen feet fro for the fray and yet he was afraid
Then so joy of hisa he-bear, was of necessity skilled in fighting, and all at once he freed himself froan ripping the hide off old Noozak's carcass in such quantities that she let out an agonized bawling that turned Neewa's little heart into stone
It is aconjecture what a s licked If there is an axe handy he is liable to use it The most cataclysmic catastrophe that cam come into his is to have a father who President of the United States the average small boy treasures the desire to possess a parent who can whip any other two-legged creature that wears trousers And there were a lot of hus about Neewa The louder his mother bawled theabout hie her voice, at least, was still unimpaired, and such a spasm of outcry as she emitted could have been heard at least half a e, he darted in It was chance that closed his vicious little jaws on a toe that belonged to Makoos, and his teeth sank into the flesh like ts of ivory needles
Makoos gave a tug, but Neewa held on, and bit deeper Then Makoos drew up his leg and sent it out like a catapault, and in spite of his deterh the air He landed against a rock twenty feet frohters with a force that knocked the wind out of hiht or ten seconds after that he wobbled dizzily in his efforts to stand up
Then his vision and his senses returned and he gazed on a scene that brought all the blood pounding back into his body again
Makoos was no longer fighting, but was RUNNING AWAY--and there was a decided li on her feet, facing the retreating eneape Her tongue lolled out, and blood was dripping in little trickles frohly and efficiently mauled She was beyond the shadow of a doubt a whipped bear Yet in that glorious flight of the ene of Noozak's defeat Their enemy was RUNNING AWAY! Therefore, he hipped And with excited little squeaks of joy Neewa ran to his mother