own the sun and the moon and the
stars; he would have realized what the thunder meant, and would have
seen the lightning flashing in the sky. But as it was, there had been
nothing for him to do in that black cavern under the windfall but
stumble about a little in the darkness, and lick with his tiny red
tongue the raw bones that were strewn about them. Many times he had
been left alone. He had heard his mother come and go, and nearly always
it had been in response to a yelp from Kazan that came to them like a
distant echo. He had never felt a very strong desire to follow until
this day when Kazan's big, cool tongue caressed his face. In those
wonderful seconds nature was at work. His instinct was not quite born
until then. And when Kazan went away, leaving them alone in darkness,
Baree whimpered for him to come back, just as he had cried for his
mother when now and then she had left him in response to her mate's
call.

The sun was straight above the forest when, an hour or two after
Kazan's visit, Gray Wolf slipped away. Between Baree's nest and the top
of the windfall were forty feet of jammed and broken timber through
which not a ray of light could break. This blackness did not frighten
him, for he had yet to learn the meaning of light. Day, and not night,
was to fill him with his first great terror. So quite fearlessly, with
a yelp for his mother to wait for him, he began to follow. If Gray Wolf
heard him, she paid no attention to his call, and the sound of the
scraping of her claws on the dead timber died swiftly away.

This time Baree did not stop at the eight-inch log which had always
shut in his world in that particular direction. He clambered to the top
of it and rolled over on the other side. Beyond this was vast
adventure, and he plunged into it courageously.

It took him a long time to make the first twenty yards. Then he came to
a log worn smooth by the feet of Gray Wolf and Kazan, and stopping
every few feet to send out a whimpering call for his mother, he made
his way farther and farther along it. As he went, there grew slowly a
curious change in this world of his. He had known nothing but
blackness. And now this blackness seemed breaking itself up into
strange shapes and shadows. Once he caught the flash of a fiery streak
above him--a gleam of sunshine--and it startled him so that he
flattened himself down upon the log and did not move for half a minute.
Then he went on. An ermine squeaked under him. H