perish. In sheer
distress he sat upright like the cat he was and proclaimed his woes to
the moon in a series of lusty wails.

CHAPTER V

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

Warruk, the black cub was alone in the world, and a strange world it
was, stretching on mile after mile into the hazy distance; seemingly
there was no end.

The encounter with the skunk which had resulted in his ignominious rout
brought home to him the fact that as yet he was not master of the
wilderness. Far from it. He was but one of the hordes of creatures
struggling for existence and the sooner he learned that caution and
stealth led to success while bravado led to failure, the greater were
his chances of survival and growth to the stage where he could
fearlessly proclaim his mastery.

The struggle for existence was very real and very intense but not in the
generally accepted sense of the word. It was not a competitive struggle
between individuals of the same species, or even between members of
different species. It was a fight to overcome obstacles; a battle
against circumstances. There was food enough for all with sufficient to
spare to supply the wants of untold numbers that did not exist; but, one
of the problems was how to get it and the black cub was compelled to
admit to himself that he was not an adept in reaching the solution.

Suma, his mother had taught him many things both practicable and useful.
Others he knew from instinct, an inheritance from countless generations
of his forebears. But as the days passed he more fully appreciated all
that the knowledge of his mother had meant to him, especially when the
voice in his stomach insistently demanded food that he was all but
incapable of procuring. As a last resort, at such times, there were
always the grasshoppers to fall back on even if he had lost his earlier
liking for these insects. He had only to listen for the calling of the
great, turkey-like _Chunha_, follow the gobble to its source and then
gather up the winged but sluggish quarry until his hunger was
satisfied, hoping, all the while that something better would turn up for
the next meal.

There came the day, however, when the hosts of grasshoppers disappeared.
They had lived their allotted span and had passed on. The cub was
reduced to sore straits. The "crumbs" remaining from the feasts of foxes
and wolves, heretofore passed in disdain were now eagerly pounced upon
although they consisted mostly of bits of fur or fea