d a sort of feeling that perhaps if he
went to the den door, he might find out where the rest of the family
were. The little fat body lay curled up close, and, in spite of the
warmth the family had left behind, tiny shivers shook it every now and
then.

It was no use any longer pretending to go to sleep. The small bright
eyes opened wide, and stared into the shadow that glimmered with the
moon. And suddenly, out of the shadow, Fear came, and the cub shivered
with something worse than cold. He had never been frightened before. It
was a new and terrible experience. It was in his head; it was in his
stomach; the thing was all over him; the very den was full.

He lay for a long time, trembling, and whimpering in a small smothered
way. He hoped his mother might hear him, and come back; yet he did not
dare to cry too loud lest other ears might catch the sound and lead some
prowling enemy to the den. Dawn was just beginning to break when at
length he could bear it no longer, and, in spite of his mother's strict
command, he crawled to the mouth of the den.

With wide-open, frightened eyes, he stared out into the world. On the
bramble-sprays the dew lay thickly. Dew was grey on the grass round the
trodden doorway of the den. It was a damp world that glimmered in the
yellow gleam of the dawn. Beyond the brambles lay the trees, beyond the
trees, the rocky peaks; beyond the utmost peak, the blue vastness where
the eagles have their trails. It all made the cub feel dreadfully small,
dreadfully alone.

Yet somewhere out there, in the wet grey world of the dawn, his mother
and the family were to be found. He put his baby nose to the ground and
sniffed. The family smell was plain all about the doorway. A faint trail
of it seemed to lead off towards the junipers, but when he took a step
or two in that direction the trail was drowned in dew. He went back to
the den-door, paused to sniff again, and set off in the opposite
direction.

Why he went that way, he could not tell. Once he had started, he did not
think of turning back. To return meant the den again. He had a distrust
of the den. It was in the den that he had first known fear.

He went on for what seemed to him an endless distance among enormous
jungles of bramble and fern. No sign of his mother, or the other cubs,
nor any faintest whiff of the heavy family smell! Once a rabbit, leaping
past, scared him out of his wits; and once--how his heart thumped with
terror as he pres