Chapter III. THE GREY CUB

He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother; while he alone took after his father. He was the only grey cub of the litter. He was a real wolf—in fact, he was like One Eye himself.

The grey cub’s eyes had not been open long, yet already he could see clearly. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother. She had a soft, caressing tongue that calmed him when it passed over his soft little body, and that made him sleepy.

Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life began, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave. And his brothers and sisters did the same. The chemistry of the life that created them demanded the light.

Later the grey cub discovered that his mother also had a nose and a paw and could push and hit. Thus he learned hurt; and he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not risking; and second, when he had risked, by retreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of his first generalizations upon the world.

He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to be expected. He was a carnivorous animal and came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat. The milk he drank was transformed directly from meat.

But he was the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louder growl than any of them, and it was he who first learned many things. He was always going to the mouth of the cave—and was always stopped by his mother. To him the entrance of the cave was a wall—a wall of light; it attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he must choose.

Though never allowed by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached the other walls, and felt a hard obstacle on the end of his tender nose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, he left the walls alone.

In fact, the grey cub did not think—at least, not like men. Yet his conclusions were as sharp as those of men. He had a method of accepting things, without questioning ‘why’. In reality, this was the act of classification. He never asked why a thing happened. How it happened was enough for him. Thus, when he had touched back-wall a few times with his nose, he accepted that he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he accepted that his father could disappear into the wall of light. Logic and physics were no part of his mental make-up.

Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced hunger. Hunger came unexpectedly. At first, the cubs cried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long before they were in a coma of hunger. The cubs slept, while the life that was in them was dying down.

One Eye was desperate. He ranged far and wide, and slept but little. The she-wolf, too, left her litter and went out in search of meat.

When the grey cub came back to life and again took interest in the far white wall, he found that only one sister remained to him. The rest were gone. And soon she was gone, too.

Then there came a time when the grey cub no longer saw his father appearing and disappearing in the wall or lying down asleep in the entrance. The she-wolf knew why One Eye never came back, but there was no way by which she could tell what she had seen to the grey cub. Hunting herself for meat, she had followed a day-old trail of One Eye. And she had found him, or what remained of him. There were many signs of the battle, and of the lynx that came back to her lair after having won the victory. The she-wolf found this lair, but the signs told her that the lynx was inside, and she did not dare to come in.

After that, the she-wolf avoided hunting there. She knew that in the lynx’s lair there was a litter of kittens. It was quite a different matter for a lone wolf to fight a lynx—especially when the lynx had a litter of hungry kittens.

But the Wild is the Wild, and motherhood is motherhood, and the time was to come when the she-wolf, for her grey cub’s sake, would dare to go there.

Chapter IV. THE WALL OF THE WORLD

By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions, the cub had learned well the law that forbade him to approach the entrance. Not only had this law been impressed on him by his mother’s nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear was developing. Fear!—that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape.

In fact, the cub merely classified the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. And after such classification he avoided the things that hurt in order to enjoy the satisfactions and the remunerations of life.

When his mother was absent, he slept most of the time, while during the intervals that he was awake he kept very quiet. Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He did not know that it was a wolverine, standing outside. The cub knew only that it was something unclassified, therefore unknown and terrible. The cub was terrified; he lay without movement or sound. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine’s track, and licked and caressed him more than ever. And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped a great hurt.

Another power within him was growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growth demanded disobedience. His mother and fear made him keep away from the white wall. Growth is life, and life is always reaching for light.

So once he entered into the wall.

It was astonishing. He was going through solidity. Fear called him to go back, but growth drove him on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The light had become painfully bright.

A great fear came upon him. He crouched down in the entrance and looked out on the world. He was very much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him. Therefore the hair stood up on end along his back and his lips wrinkled in an attempt at a snarl. Out of his fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world.

Nothing happened. He continued to look, and in his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been driven away by growth.

Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air. His hind-legs still were on the cave-lip, so he fell head downward. Then he began rolling down the slope, over and over. He was in a panic of terror. The unknown had caught him at last, and he gave a loud ‘ki-yi’ cry. And then he ki-yi’d again and again.

When at last he came to a stop, he gave one last ‘ki-yi’. Also, as though in his life he had already made a thousand toilets, he licked himself well.

Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him, he forgot that the unknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the things about him. He inspected the grass, the plants around, and the dead trunk. A squirrel, running around the trunk, gave him a great fright. He cowered down and snarled. But the squirrel was scared as well, so it ran up a tree.

This helped the cub’s courage. He met a woodpecker, and then a moose-bird. It pecked him on the end of his nose.

But the cub was learning. His little mind had already made an unconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive. Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive remained always in one place, but the live things moved about, and there was no telling what they might do. He must be prepared.

He travelled very awkwardly. Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped and stubbed his feet. Then there were the stones that turned under him when he stepped upon them; and from them he learnt that the things not alive were not all in the same state of stability. But with every mistake he was learning. The longer he walked, the better he walked.

He had the beginner’s luck. Born to be a hunter (though he did not know it), he found meat just outside his own cave-door. It was a ptarmigan nest. He fell into it, in the midst of seven ptarmigan chicks.

They made noises, and at first he was frightened. Then he understood that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved. He placed his paw on one, and its movements were slowered. This was a source of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he felt hunger. His jaws closed together. There was a crunching of small bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it was good. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth and therefore better. So he ate all the ptarmigan. Then he licked his chops in quite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.

There, the mother ptarmigan was in a fury and tried to hit him. He became angry. He no longer was afraid of anything. He was fighting. He had just destroyed little live things. He would now destroy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy to know that he was happy.

But he lost the battle with ptarmigan. She pecked on his nose, again and again. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. So he released his prey, turned tail and made an inglorious retreat. But, while he was lying in the bush, he saw a terrible hawk that caught the mother-ptarmigan and carried it away.

Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when they were large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small live things like ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptarmigan hens.

He came down a bank to the stream. He had never seen water before. The surface looked good. He stepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into the embrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly. The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air. Like every animal of the Wild, he had the instinct of death. To him it was the greatest of hurts.

He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth. He did not go down again. He fought frantically, going under water from time to time, but finally he reached the bank. He crawled from the water and lied down. He had learned some more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, it looked as stable as the earth, but was without any stability at all. His conclusion was that things were not always what they seemed to be.

One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had remembered that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world. Not only his body and brain were tired with the adventure. So he started out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling lonely and helpless.

He was going through some bushes, when he heard a sharp cry. He saw a weasel leaping away from him. It was a small live thing, and he had no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely small live thing, only several inches long, a young weasel, that, like himself, had disobediently gone out on an adventure. He turned it over with his paw. It made a strange noise. The next moment he received a sharp blow on the side of the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.

Then the mother-weasel leaped upon her young one and disappeared with it. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, but his feelings hurt more.

He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She approached cautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelike body. She came closer and closer. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth deep in his hair and flesh.

At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and this was only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, his fight—a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hung on, trying to press the great vein with her teeth. The weasel was a drinker of blood.

The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story to write about him, had not the she-wolf come through the bushes. Then her jaws closed on the lean, yellow body, and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.

His mother’s joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at being found. She caressed him and licked the cuts made in him by the weasel’s teeth. Then they ate the blood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.