Part 4 (1/2)

A nu, but Neeas ahead of hied up his teeth and almost made him vomit because of its bitterness Between a snail and a stone he could find little difference, and as the one bug he tried happened to be that asafoetida-like creature known as a stink-bug he made no further efforts in that direction He also bit off a tender tip fro poplar it was Fox-bite, and shrivelled up his tongue for a quarter of an hour At last he arrived at the conclusion that, up to date, the one thing in Neewa's rass

In the face of his own starvation his coe collection in his storunting his satisfaction continually, especially as his bad eye was beginning to open and he could see things better Half a dozen times when he found fresh ant nests he invited Miki to the feast with excited little squeals Until noon Miki followed like a faithful satellite at his heels The end ca into a nest inhabited by four huge bumble-bees, smashed the i With the thought came a new thrill His eyes were fairly open now, and s The blood of his Mackenzie father and of his half Spitz and half Airedale mother rose up in hian to quest about for hie went up with a tres It startled hi under a pile of brush, he came face to face with his dinner

It was Wahboo, the baby rabbit Instantly Miki was at him, and had a fir the s of the rabbit, stopped catching ants and hustled toward the scene of action The squealing ceased quickly and Miki backed himself out and faced Neeith Wahboo held triuiven his last kick, and with a fierce show of growling Miki began tearing the fur off Neewa edged in, grunting affably Miki snarled more fiercely Neewa, undaunted, continued to express his overwhelrunts--and smelled the rabbit The snarl in Miki's throat died away He may have remembered that Neewa had invited hiether they ate the rabbit Not until the last bit of flesh and the last tender bone were gone did the feast end, and then Neewa sat back on his round bottoue for the first tin of a full sto to behi about for a tree

Miki, on the other hand, was inspired to new action by the pleasurable sensation of being comfortably filled Inasmuch as Neewa chewed his food very carefully, while Miki, paying small attention to mastication, sed it in chunks, the pup had succeeded in getting aith about four fifths of the rabbit So he was no longer hungry But he was ed environment than at any time since he and Neewa had fallen out of Challoner's canoe into the rapids For the first time he had killed, and for the first time he had tasted warm blood, and the coreater than any desire he ht have possessed to lie down in a sunny spot and sleep Now that he had learned the ga instinct treone on hunting until his legs gave way under hi-place

Astonished half out of his wits he watched Neewa as he leisurely cli poplar He had seen squirrels climb trees--just as he had seen birds fly--but Neewa's performance held him breathless; and not until the cub had stretched himself out coave an incredulous yelp, sniffed at the butt of the tree, andhimself One flop on his back convinced hirined, he wandered back fifteen or twenty feet and sat down to study the situation He could not perceive that Neewa had any special business up the tree Certainly he was not hunting for bugs He yelped half a dozen tiave it up and flopped himself doith a disconsolate whine

But it was not to sleep He was ready and anxious to go on He wanted to explore still further the er felt the strange fear that had been upon him before he killed the rabbit In two minutes under the brush-heap Nature had performed one of her miracles of education In those twopuppyhood to neer and understanding He had passed that elee which his coed He had KILLED, and the hot thrill of it set fire to every instinct that was in hi which he lay flat on his belly, his head alert and listening, while Neewa slept, he passed half way frodom He would never know that Hela, his Mackenzie hound father, was the htiest hunter in all the reaches of the Little Fox country, and that alone he had torn down a bull caribou But he FELT it There was so in the call And because he was answering that call, and listening eagerly to the whispering voices of the forest, his quick ears caught the low, chuckling monotone of Kawook, the porcupine

Miki lay very still Aof quills, and then Kawook came out in the open and stood up on his hind feet in a patch of sunlight

For thirteen years Kawook had lived undisturbed in this particular part of the wilderness, and in his old age he weighed thirty pounds if he weighed an ounce On this afternoon, co even ht at best was dim

Nature had never intended him to see very far, and had therefore quilted hi armour

Thirty feet away he was entirely oblivious of Miki, at least apparently so; and Miki hugged the ground closer, warned by the swiftly developing instinct within him that here was a creature it would be unwise to attack

For perhaps awithout any visible movement of his body He stood profile to Miki, like a fat aldered out in front like the half of a balloon, and over this stomach his hands were folded in a peculiarly human way, so that he looked more like an old she-porcupine than a master in his tribe

It was not until then that Miki observed Iskwasis, the young female porcupine, who had poked herself slyly out from under a bush near Kawook In spite of his years the red thrill of roone froive an exhibition of his good breeding and elegance He began with his ludicrous love- from one foot to the other until his fat sto louder than ever The charms of Iskwasis were indeed sufficient to turn the head of an older beau than Kawook She was a distinctive blonde; in other words, one of those unusual creatures of her kind, an albino Her nose was pink, the palms of her little feet were pink, and each of her pretty pink eyes was set in an iris of sky-blue It was evident that she did not regard old Kawook's passion-dance with favour and sensing this fact Kawook changed his tactics and falling on all four feet began to chase his spiky tail as if he had suddenly gone mad When he stopped, and looked to see what effect he had made he was clearly knocked out by the fact that Iskwasis had disappeared

For anothera sound Then to Miki's consternation he started straight for the tree in which Neeas sleeping As a an clian to stand on end He did not know that Kawook, like all his kind, was the best-natured fellow in the world, and had never har this knowledge he set up a sudden frenzy of barking to warn Neewa

Neewa roused hi into a spiky face that sent him into a convulsion of alar hiher up the tree Kaas not at all excited Now that Iskwasis was gone he was entirely absorbed in the anticipation of his dinner He continued to clamber slowly upward, and at this the horrified Neewa backed hiht have an unobstructed trail up the tree

Unfortunately for Neewa it was on this li himself out on it, still apparently oblivious of the fact that the cub was on the sa yelps fro unusual was going on He peered down at Miki asvain efforts to jump up the trunk of the tree; then he turned and, for the first tin of interest Neeas hugging the lis To retreat another foot on the branch that was already bending dangerously under his weight seean to scold fiercely With a final frantic yelp Miki sat back on his haunches and watched the thrilling drama above him A little at a time Kawook advanced, and inch by inch Neewa retreated, until at last he rolled clean over and was hanging with his back toward the ground It was then that Kawook ceased his scolding and cal his dinner For two or three minutes Neewa kept his hold Twice he et the branch under hi with his two front paws--then shot down through fifteen feet of space to the ground Close to Miki he landed with a thud that knocked the wind out of hirunt, took one dazed look up the tree, and without further explanation to Miki began to leg it deeper into the forest--straight into the face of the great adventure which was to be the final test for these two

CHAPTER EIGHT

Not until he had covered at least a quarter of a h they had co That part of the forest into which Neewa's flight had led them was like a vast, mysterious cavern Even Challoner would have paused there, awed by the grandeur of its silence, held spellbound by the enigmatical whispers that h in the heavens, but not a ray of it penetrated the dense green canopy of spruce and balsa like a wall over the heads of Miki and Neewa About therowth; under their feet was not a flower or a spear of grass Nothing but a thick, soft carpet of velvety brown needles under which all life was smothered It was as if the forest nyh all the seasons of the year from wind and rain and snow; or else that the olf people--the loup-garou--had chosen it as their hiding-place and frohostlythe sons of men

Not a bird twittered in the trees There was no flutter of life in their crowded branches Everything was so still that Miki heard the excited throbbing of life in his own body He looked at Neewa, and in the glooe fire Neither of them was afraid, yet in that cavernous silence their co now that crept down into their wild little souls and filled the emptiness that was left by the death of Neewa's ently, and in his throat Neewa runt that was like the grunt of a little pig They edged nearer, and stood shoulder to shoulder facing their world They went on after a little, like two children exploring the , yet every hunting instinct in their bodies ake, and they stopped frequently to peer about theht back a memory of the black cavern in which he was born Would Noozak, his mother, come up presently out of one of those dark forest aisles? Was she sleeping here, as she had slept in the darkness of their den? The questions uely in his mind For it was like the cavern, in that it was deathly still; and a short distance away its gloom thickened into black pits Such a place the Indians called MUHNEDOO--a spot in the forest blasted of all life by the presence of devils; for only devils would grow trees so thick that sunlight never penetrated And only owls held the companionshi+p of the evil spirits

Where Neewa and Miki stood a groould have paused, and turned back; the fox would have slunk away, hugging the ground; even the murderous-hearted little ermine would have peered in with his beady red eyes, unafraid, but turned by instinct back into the open tiloo in the a itself, even as Neewa and Miki went on deeper into the silence, and eyes that were like round balls were beginning to gloith a greenish fire Still there was no sound, no rowth of the trees Like the i their sloits--and waiting

And then a huge shadow floated out of the dark chaos and passed so close over the heads of Neewa and Miki that they heard the s As the wraith-like creature disappeared there ca snap of a powerful beak It sent a shi+ver through Miki The instinct that had been fighting to rouse itself within him flared up like a powder-flash Instantly he sensed the nearness of an unknown and appalling danger

There was sound about thehostly tre, ain Miki saw the great shadow coo It was followed by a second, and a third, until the vault under the trees seemed filled with shadows; and with each shadow ca menace of powerfully beaked jaws Like the wolf and the fox he cringed down, hugging the earth But it was no longer with the whiht, and with a snarl he bared his fangs when one of the oooped so low that he felt the beat of its wings

Neewa responded with a sniff that a little later in his life would have been the defiant WHOOF of hisup And it was upon him that one of the shadows descended--a ht out of darkness