mother was gone. In the
nest where he was born Neewa lay down, and for the last time he grunted
softly to Miki. It was as if he felt upon him the touch of a hand,
gentle but inevitable, which he could no longer refuse to obey, and to
Miki was saying, for the last time: "Good-night!"

That night the PIPOO KESTIN--the first storm of winter--came like an
avalanche from out of the North. With it came a wind that was like the
roaring of a thousand bulls, and over all the land of the wild there
was nothing that moved. Even in the depth of the cavern Miki heard the
beat and the wail of it and the swishing of the shot-like snow beyond
the door through which they had come, and he snuggled close to Neewa,
content that they had found shelter.

With the day he went to the slit in the face of the rock, and in his
astonishment he made no sound, but stared forth upon a world that was
no longer the world he had left last night. Everywhere it was white--a
dazzling, eye-blinding white. The sun had risen. It shot a thousand
flashing shafts of radiant light into Miki's eyes. So far as his vision
could reach the earth was as if covered with a robe of diamonds. From
rock and tree and shrub blazed the fire of the sun; it quivered in the
tree-tops, bent low with their burden of snow; it was like a sea in the
valley, so vivid that the unfrozen stream running through the heart of
it was black. Never had Miki seen a day so magnificent. Never had his
heart pounded at the sight of the sun as it pounded now, and never had
his blood burned with a wilder exultation. He whined, and ran back to
Neewa. He barked in the gloom of the cavern and gave his comrade a
nudge with his nose. Neewa grunted sleepily. He stretched himself,
raised his head for an instant, and then curled himself into a ball
again. Vainly Miki protested that it was day, and time for them to be
moving. Neewa made no response, and after a while Miki returned to the
mouth of the cavern, and looked back to see if Neewa was following him.
Then, disappointed, he went out into the snow. For an hour he did not
move farther than ten feet away from the den. Three times he returned
to Neewa and urged him to get up and come out where it was light. In
that far corner of the cavern it was dark, and it was as if he were
trying to tell Neewa that he was a dunce to lie there still thinking it
was night when the sun was up outside. But he failed. Neewa was in the
edge of his Long Sleep--the beginning o