now was heavier and, as it were, harder than lambs usually
were at that season; and it smelt somehow different, and uttered
strange sounds. . . . The wolf stopped and laid her burden on the
snow, to rest and begin eating it, then all at once she leapt back
in disgust. It was not a lamb, but a black puppy, with a big head
and long legs, of a large breed, with a white patch on his brow,
like Arapka's. Judging from his manners he was a simple, ignorant,
yard-dog. He licked his crushed and wounded back, and, as though
nothing was the matter, wagged his tail and barked at the wolf. She
growled like a dog, and ran away from him. He ran after her. She
looked round and snapped her teeth. He stopped in perplexity, and,
probably deciding that she was playing with him, craned his head
in the direction he had come from, and went off into a shrill,
gleeful bark, as though inviting his mother Arapka to play with him
and the wolf.

It was already getting light, and when the wolf reached her home
in the thick aspen wood, each aspen tree could be seen distinctly,
and the woodcocks were already awake, and the beautiful male birds
often flew up, disturbed by the incautious gambols and barking of
the puppy.

"Why does he run after me?" thought the wolf with annoyance. "I
suppose he wants me to eat him."

She lived with her cubs in a shallow hole; three years before, a
tall old pine tree had been torn up by the roots in a violent storm,
and the hole had been formed by it. Now there were dead leaves and
moss at the bottom, and around it lay bones and bullocks' horns,
with which the little ones played. They were by now awake, and all
three of them, very much alike, were standing in a row at the edge
of their hole, looking at their returning mother, and wagging their
tails. Seeing them, the puppy stopped a little way off, and stared
at them for a very long time; seeing that they, too, were looking
very attentively at him, he began barking angrily, as at strangers.

By now it was daylight and the sun had risen, the snow sparkled all
around, but still the puppy stood a little way off and barked. The
cubs sucked their mother, pressing her thin belly with their paws,
while she gnawed a horse's bone, dry and white; she was tormented
by hunger, her head ached from the dog's barking, and she felt
inclined to fall on the uninvited guest and tear him to pieces.

At last the puppy was hoarse and exhausted; seeing they were not
afraid of him, and