man, yet the instinct concerning man was his. In
dim ways he recognised in man the animal that had fought itself to
primacy over the other animals of the Wild. Not alone out of his own
eyes, but out of the eyes of all his ancestors was the cub now looking
upon man--out of eyes that had circled in the darkness around countless
winter camp-fires, that had peered from safe distances and from the
hearts of thickets at the strange, two-legged animal that was lord over
living things. The spell of the cub's heritage was upon him, the fear
and the respect born of the centuries of struggle and the accumulated
experience of the generations. The heritage was too compelling for a
wolf that was only a cub. Had he been full-grown, he would have run
away. As it was, he cowered down in a paralysis of fear, already half
proffering the submission that his kind had proffered from the first time
a wolf came in to sit by man's fire and be made warm.

One of the Indians arose and walked over to him and stooped above him.
The cub cowered closer to the ground. It was the unknown, objectified at
last, in concrete flesh and blood, bending over him and reaching down to
seize hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily; his lips writhed
back and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doom above
him, hesitated, and the man spoke laughing, "_Wabam wabisca ip pit tah_."
("Look! The white fangs!")

The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up the
cub. As the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the cub
a battle of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions--to yield
and to fight. The resulting action was a compromise. He did both. He
yielded till the hand almost touched him. Then he fought, his teeth
flashing in a snap that sank them into the hand. The next moment he
received a clout alongside the head that knocked him over on his side.
Then all fight fled out of him. His puppyhood and the instinct of
submission took charge of him. He sat up on his haunches and ki-yi'd.
But the man whose hand he had bitten was angry. The cub received a clout
on the other side of his head. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi'd louder
than ever.

The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even the man who had been
bitten began to laugh. They surrounded the cub and laughed at him, while
he wailed out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he heard
something. The Indians heard it too. Bu