By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions,the cub had learned well the law that forbade his approaching the entrance.

　　Not only had this law been forcibly and many times impressed on him byhis mother's nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear was developing.

　　Never, in his brief cave- life, had he encountered anything of which to beafraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come down to him from a remoteancestry through a thousand thousand lives. It was a heritage he hadreceived directly from One Eye and the she-wolf; but to them, in turn, ithad been passed down through all the generations of wolves that had gonebefore. Fear! - that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape norexchange for pottage.

　　So the grey cub knew fear, though he knew not the stuff of which fearwas made. Possibly he accepted it as one of the restrictions of life. For hehad already learned that there were such restrictions. Hunger he hadknown; and when he could not appease his hunger he had felt restriction.

　　The hard obstruction of the cave-wall, the sharp nudge of his mother'snose, the smashing stroke of her paw, the hunger unappeased of severalfamines, had borne in upon him that all was not freedom in the world, thatto life there was limitations and restraints. These limitations and restraintswere laws. To be obedient to them was to escape hurt and make forhappiness.

　　He did not reason the question out in this man fashion. He merelyclassified the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. And aftersuch classification he avoided the things that hurt, the restrictions andrestraints, in order to enjoy the satisfactions and the remunerations of life.

　　Thus it was that in obedience to the law laid down by his mother, andin obedience to the law of that unknown and nameless thing, fear, he keptaway from the mouth of the cave. It remained to him a white wall of light.

　　When his mother was absent, he slept most of the time, while during theintervals that he was awake he kept very quiet, suppressing thewhimpering cries that tickled in his throat and strove for noise.

　　Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He didnot know that it was a wolverine, standing outside, all a- trembling with itsown daring, and cautiously scenting out the contents of the cave. The cubknew only that the sniff was strange, a something unclassified, thereforeunknown and terrible - for the unknown was one of the chief elements thatwent into the making of fear.

　　The hair bristled upon the grey cub's back, but it bristled silently. Howwas he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which to bristle?

　　It was not born of any knowledge of his, yet it was the visible expressionof the fear that was in him, and for which, in his own life, there was noaccounting. But fear was accompanied by another instinct - that ofconcealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet he lay withoutmovement or sound, frozen, petrified into immobility, to all appearancesdead. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine'strack, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled him with unduevehemence of affection. And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped agreat hurt.

　　But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of whichwas growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growthdemanded disobedience. His mother and fear impelled him to keep awayfrom the white wall. Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to makefor light. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was risingwithin him - rising with every mouthful of meat he swallowed, with everybreath he drew. In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept awayby the rush of life, and the cub straddled and sprawled toward theentrance.

　　Unlike any other wall with which he had had experience, this wallseemed to recede from him as he approached. No hard surface collidedwith the tender little nose he thrust out tentatively before him. Thesubstance of the wall seemed as permeable and yielding as light. And ascondition, in his eyes, had the seeming of form, so he entered into whathad been wall to him and bathed in the substance that composed it.

　　It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever thelight grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on.

　　Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The wall, insidewhich he had thought himself, as suddenly leaped back before him to animmeasurable distance. The light had become painfully bright. He wasdazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy by this abrupt and tremendousextension of space. Automatically, his eyes were adjusting themselves tothe brightness, focusing themselves to meet the increased distance ofobjects. At first, the wall had leaped beyond his vision. He now saw itagain; but it had taken upon itself a remarkable remoteness. Also, itsappearance had changed. It was now a variegated wall, composed of thetrees that fringed the stream, the opposing mountain that towered abovethe trees, and the sky that out-towered the mountain.

　　A great fear came upon him. This was more of the terrible unknown.

　　He crouched down on the lip of the cave and gazed out on the world. Hewas 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 wrinkledweakly in an attempt at a ferocious and intimidating snarl. Out of hispuniness and fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world.

　　Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgotto snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been routed bygrowth, while growth had assumed the guise of curiosity. He began tonotice near objects - an open portion of the stream that flashed in the sun,the blasted pine-tree that stood at the base of the slope, and the slope itself,that ran right up to him and ceased two feet beneath the lip of the cave onwhich he crouched.

　　Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had neverexperienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So hestepped boldly out upon the air. His hind-legs still rested on the cave-lip,so he fell forward head downward. The earth struck him a harsh blow onthe nose that made him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope, overand over. He was in a panic of terror. The unknown had caught him at last.

　　It had gripped savagely hold of him and was about to wreak upon himsome terrific hurt. Growth was now routed by fear, and he ki-yi'd like anyfrightened puppy.

　　The unknown bore him on he knew not to what frightful hurt, and heyelped and ki-yi'd unceasingly. This was a different proposition fromcrouching in frozen fear while the unknown lurked just alongside. Nowthe unknown had caught tight hold of him. Silence would do no good.

　　Besides, it was not fear, but terror, that convulsed him.

　　But the slope grew more gradual, and its base was grass-covered. Herethe cub lost momentum. When at last he came to a stop, he gave one lastagonised yell and then a long, whimpering wail. Also, and quite as amatter of course, as though in his life he had already made a thousandtoilets, he proceeded to lick away the dry clay that soiled him.

　　After that he sat up and gazed about him, as might the first man of theearth who landed upon Mars. The cub had broken through the wall of theworld, the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here he was withouthurt. But the first man on Mars would have experienced less unfamiliaritythan did he. Without any antecedent knowledge, without any warningwhatever that such existed, he found himself an explorer in a totally newworld.

　　Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him, he forgot that theunknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the thingsabout him. He inspected the grass beneath him, the moss- berry plant justbeyond, and the dead trunk of the blasted pine that stood on the edge of anopen space among the trees. A squirrel, running around the base of thetrunk, came full upon him, and gave him a great fright. He cowered downand snarled. But the squirrel was as badly scared. It ran up the tree, andfrom a point of safety chattered back savagely.

　　This helped the cub's courage, and though the woodpecker he nextencountered gave him a start, he proceeded confidently on his way. Such was his confidence, that when a moose-bird impudently hopped up to him,he reached out at it with a playful paw. The result was a sharp peck on theend of his nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The noise he madewas too much for the moose-bird, who sought safety in flight.

　　But the cub was learning. His misty little mind had already made anunconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive.

　　Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive remainedalways in one place, but the live things moved about, and there was notelling what they might do. The thing to expect of them was theunexpected, and for this he must be prepared.

　　He travelled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things. A twig thathe thought a long way off, would the next instant hit him on the nose orrake along his ribs. There were inequalities of surface. Sometimes heoverstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped andstubbed his feet. Then there were the pebbles and stones that turned underhim when he trod upon them; and from them he came to know that thethings not alive were not all in the same state of stable equilibrium as washis cave - also, that small things not alive were more liable than largethings to fall down or turn over. But with every mishap he was learning.

　　The longer he walked, the better he walked. He was adjusting himself. Hewas learning to calculate his own muscular movements, to know hisphysical limitations, to measure distances between objects, and betweenobjects and himself.

　　His was the luck of the beginner. Born to be a hunter of meat (thoughhe did not know it), he blundered upon meat just outside his own cave-door on his first foray into the world. It was by sheer blundering that hechanced upon the shrewdly hidden ptarmigan nest. He fell into it. He hadessayed to walk along the trunk of a fallen pine. The rotten bark gave wayunder his feet, and with a despairing yelp he pitched down the roundedcrescent, smashed through the leafage and stalks of a small bush, and inthe heart of the bush, on the ground, fetched up in the midst of sevenptarmigan chicks.

　　They made noises, and at first he was frightened at them. Then heperceived that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved.

　　He placed his paw on one, and its movements were accelerated. This wasa 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 was made awareof a sensation of hunger. His jaws closed together. There was a crunchingof fragile bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it wasgood. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alivebetween his teeth and therefore better. So he ate the ptarmigan. Nor did hestop till he had devoured the whole brood. Then he licked his chops inquite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.

　　He encountered a feathered whirlwind. He was confused and blindedby the rush of it and the beat of angry wings. He hid his head between hispaws and yelped. The blows increased. The mother ptarmigan was in afury. Then he became angry. He rose up, snarling, striking out with hispaws. He sank his tiny teeth into one of the wings and pulled and tuggedsturdily. The ptarmigan struggled against him, showering blows upon himwith her free wing. It was his first battle. He was elated. He forgot allabout the unknown. He no longer was afraid of anything. He was fighting,tearing at a live thing that was striking at him. Also, this live thing wasmeat. The lust to kill was on him. He had just destroyed little live things.

　　He would now destroy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy toknow that he was happy. He was thrilling and exulting in ways new to himand greater to him than any he had known before.

　　He held on to the wing and growled between his tight-clenched teeth.

　　The ptarmigan dragged him out of the bush. When she turned and tried todrag him back into the bush's shelter, he pulled her away from it and oninto the open. And all the time she was making outcry and striking withher free wing, while feathers were flying like a snow-fall. The pitch towhich he was aroused was tremendous. All the fighting blood of his breedwas up in him and surging through him. This was living, though he did notknow it. He was realising his own meaning in the world; he was doing thatfor which he was made - killing meat and battling to kill it. He wasjustifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achievesits summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

　　After a time, the ptarmigan ceased her struggling. He still held her bythe wing, and they lay on the ground and looked at each other. He tried togrowl threateningly, ferociously. She pecked on his nose, which by now,what of previous adventures was sore. He winced but held on. She peckedhim again and again. From wincing he went to whimpering. He tried toback away from her, oblivious to the fact that by his hold on her hedragged her after him. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. The floodof fight ebbed down in him, and, releasing his prey, he turned tail andscampered on across the open in inglorious retreat.

　　He lay down to rest on the other side of the open, near the edge of thebushes, his tongue lolling out, his chest heaving and panting, his nose stillhurting him and causing him to continue his whimper. But as he lay there,suddenly there came to him a feeling as of something terrible impending.

　　The unknown with all its terrors rushed upon him, and he shrank backinstinctively into the shelter of the bush. As he did so, a draught of airfanned him, and a large, winged body swept ominously and silently past.

　　A hawk, driving down out of the blue, had barely missed him.

　　While he lay in the bush, recovering from his fright and peeringfearfully out, the mother-ptarmigan on the other side of the open spacefluttered out of the ravaged nest. It was because of her loss that she paidno attention to the winged bolt of the sky. But the cub saw, and it was awarning and a lesson to him - the swift downward swoop of the hawk, theshort skim of its body just above the ground, the strike of its talons in thebody of the ptarmigan, the ptarmigan's squawk of agony and fright, andthe hawk's rush upward into the blue, carrying the ptarmigan away with it,It was a long time before the cub left its shelter. He had learned much.

　　Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when theywere large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small live thingslike ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptarmiganhens. Nevertheless he felt a little prick of ambition, a sneaking desire tohave another battle with that ptarmigan hen - only the hawk had carriedher away. May be there were other ptarmigan hens. He would go and see.

　　He came down a shelving bank to the stream. He had never seen waterbefore. The footing looked good. There were no inequalities of surface. Hestepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into theembrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly.

　　The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air that had alwaysaccompanied his act of breathing. The suffocation he experienced was likethe pang of death. To him it signified death. He had no consciousknowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed theinstinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the veryessence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, theone culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him,about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.

　　He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth.

　　He did not go down again. Quite as though it had been a long-establishedcustom of his he struck out with all his legs and began to swim. The nearbank was a yard away; but he had come up with his back to it, and the firstthing his eyes rested upon was the opposite bank, toward which heimmediately began to swim. The stream was a small one, but in the pool itwidened out to a score of feet.

　　Midway in the passage, the current picked up the cub and swept himdownstream. He was caught in the miniature rapid at the bottom of thepool. Here was little chance for swimming. The quiet water had becomesuddenly angry. Sometimes he was under, sometimes on top. At all timeshe was in violent motion, now being turned over or around, and again,being smashed against a rock. And with every rock he struck, he yelped.

　　His progress was a series of yelps, from which might have been adducedthe number of rocks he encountered.

　　Below the rapid was a second pool, and here, captured by the eddy, hewas gently borne to the bank, and as gently deposited on a bed of gravel.

　　He crawled frantically clear of the water and lay down. He had learnedsome more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, itlooked as solid as the earth, but was without any solidity at all. Hisconclusion was that things were not always what they appeared to be. Thecub's fear of the unknown was an inherited distrust, and it had now beenstrengthened by experience. Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he wouldpossess an abiding distrust of appearances. He would have to learn thereality of a thing before he could put his faith into it.

　　One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had recollectedthat there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there cameto him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things inthe world. Not only was his body tired with the adventures it hadundergone, but his little brain was equally tired. In all the days he hadlived it had not worked so hard as on this one day. Furthermore, he wassleepy. So he started out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling at thesame time an overwhelming rush of loneliness and helplessness.

　　He was sprawling along between some bushes, when he heard a sharpintimidating cry. There was a flash of yellow before his eyes. He saw aweasel leaping swiftly away from him. It was a small live thing, and hehad no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely small livething, only several inches long, a young weasel, that, like himself, haddisobediently gone out adventuring. It tried to retreat before him. Heturned it over with his paw. It made a queer, grating noise. The nextmoment the flash of yellow reappeared before his eyes. He heard again theintimidating cry, and at the same instant received a sharp blow on the sideof the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.

　　While he yelped and ki-yi'd and scrambled backward, he saw themother-weasel leap upon her young one and disappear with it into theneighbouring thicket. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, but hisfeelings were hurt more grievously, and he sat down and weaklywhimpered. This mother-weasel was so small and so savage. He was yetto learn that for size and weight the weasel was the most ferocious,vindictive, and terrible of all the killers of the Wild. But a portion of thisknowledge was quickly to be his.

　　He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She didnot rush him, now that her young one was safe. She approached morecautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelikebody, and her head, erect, eager, and snake-like itself. Her sharp, menacingcry sent the hair bristling along his back, and he snarled warningly at her.

　　She came closer and closer. There was a leap, swifter than his unpractisedsight, and the lean, yellow body disappeared for a moment out of the fieldof his vision. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth buried inhis hair and flesh.

　　At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and thiswas only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, hisfight a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hung on,striving to press down with her teeth to the great vein were his life-bloodbubbled. The weasel was a drinker of blood, and it was ever her preferenceto drink from the throat of life itself.

　　The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story towrite about him, had not the she-wolf come bounding through the bushes.

　　The weasel let go the cub and flashed at the she-wolf's throat, missing, butgetting a hold on the jaw instead. The she- wolf flirted her head like thesnap of a whip, breaking the weasel's hold and flinging it high in the air.

　　And, still in the air, the she-wolf's jaws closed on the lean, yellow body,and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.

　　The cub experienced another access of affection on the part of hismother. Her joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at beingfound. She nozzled him and caressed him and licked the cuts made in himby the weasel's teeth. Then, between them, mother and cub, they ate theblood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.