The sea just below the cave was, of
course, below his line of vision; but at a distance of some hundred
yards or so--a distance which varied hugely with the rising and
falling of the tide--he caught sight of the waves, and felt himself
strangely drawn to them. Whether leaden and menacing under the drift
of rain and the brooding of gray clouds, or green-glinting under the
sheen of too rare sunshine, he loved them and found them always
absorbing. The sky, too, was worth watching, especially when white
fleeces chased each other across a patch of blue, or wonderful colors,
pallid yet intense, shot up into it at dawn from behind a far-off line
of saw-toothed rocks.

The absences of the mother seal were sometimes long, for it required
many fish to satisfy her appetite and keep warm her red blood in
those ice-cold arctic currents. Fish were abundant, to be sure, along
that coast, where the invisible fruitfulness of the sea made
compensation for the blank barrenness of the land; but they were swift
and wary, and had to be caught, one at a time, outwitted and
outspeeded in their own element. The woolly cub, therefore, was often
hungry before his mother returned. But when, at last, she came,
flopping awkwardly up the rocky slope, and pausing for an instant to
reconnoitre, as her round, glistening head appeared over the brink of
the ledge, the youngster's delight was not all in the satisfying of
his hunger and in the mothering of his loneliness. As he snuggled
under her caress, the salty drip from her wet, sleek sides thrilled
him with a dim sense of anticipation. He connected it vaguely with
that endless, alluring dance of the waves beyond his threshold.

When he had grown a few days older, the little seal began to turn his
attention from the brighter world outside to the shadows that
surrounded him in his cave. His interest was caught at once by a
woolly gray creature like himself, only somewhat smaller, which lay
perhaps seven or eight feet away, at the other side of the cave, and
farther back. He had not realized before that his narrow retreat was
the home of two families. Being of a companionable disposition, he
eyed his newly discovered neighbor with immense good-will. Finding no
discouragement in the mild gaze that answered his, he presently raised
himself on his flippers, and with laborious, ungainly effort flopped
himself over to make acquaintance. Both youngsters were too
unsophisticated for ceremony, too trusting for