not even attending to him, he began somewhat
timidly approaching the cubs, alternately squatting down and bounding
a few steps forward. Now, by daylight, it was easy to have a good
look at him. . . . His white forehead was big, and on it was a hump
such as is only seen on very stupid dogs; he had little, blue,
dingy-looking eyes, and the expression of his whole face was extremely
stupid. When he reached the cubs he stretched out his broad paws,
laid his head upon them, and began:

"Mnya, myna . . . nga--nga--nga . . . !"

The cubs did not understand what he meant, but they wagged their
tails. Then the puppy gave one of the cubs a smack on its big head
with his paw. The cub, too, gave him a smack on the head. The puppy
stood sideways to him, and looked at him askance, wagging his tail,
then dashed off, and ran round several times on the frozen snow.
The cubs ran after him, he fell on his back and kicked up his legs,
and all three of them fell upon him, squealing with delight, and
began biting him, not to hurt but in play. The crows sat on the
high pine tree, and looked down on their struggle, and were much
troubled by it. They grew noisy and merry. The sun was hot, as
though it were spring; and the woodcocks, continually flitting
through the pine tree that had been blown down by the storm, looked
as though made of emerald in the brilliant sunshine.

As a rule, wolf-mothers train their children to hunt by giving them
prey to play with; and now watching the cubs chasing the puppy over
the frozen snow and struggling with him, the mother thought:

"Let them learn."

When they had played long enough, the cubs went into the hole and
lay down to sleep. The puppy howled a little from hunger, then he,
too, stretched out in the sunshine. And when they woke up they began
playing again.

All day long, and in the evening, the wolf-mother was thinking how
the lamb had bleated in the cattle-shed the night before, and how
it had smelt of sheep's milk, and she kept snapping her teeth from
hunger, and never left off greedily gnawing the old bone, pretending
to herself that it was the lamb. The cubs sucked their mother, and
the puppy, who was hungry, ran round them and sniffed at the snow.

"I'll eat him . . ." the mother-wolf decided.

She went up to him, and he licked her nose and yapped at her,
thinking that she wanted to play with him. In the past she had eaten
dogs, but the dog smelt very doggy, and in the delicate state of