ached, there were blue and black patches of
forest, the shimmer of lakes still partly frozen, the sunlit sparkle of
rivulet and stream, and the greening open spaces out of which rose the
perfumes of the earth. These smells drifted up like tonic and food to
the nostrils of Noozak the big bear. Down there the earth was already
swelling with life. The buds on the poplars were growing fat and near
the bursting point; the grasses were sending out shoots tender and
sweet; the camas were filling with juice; the shooting stars, the
dog-tooth violets, and the spring beauties were thrusting themselves up
into the warm glow of the sun, inviting Noozak and Neewa to the feast.
All these things Noozak smelled with the experience and the knowledge
of twenty years of life behind her--the delicious aroma of the spruce
and the jackpine; the dank, sweet scent of water-lily roots and
swelling bulbs that came from a thawed-out fen at the foot of the
ridge; and over all these things, overwhelming their individual
sweetnesses in a still greater thrill of life, the smell of the heart
itself!

And Neewa smelled them. His amazed little body trembled and thrilled
for the first time with the excitement of life. A moment before in
darkness, he found himself now in a wonderland of which he had never so
much as had a dream. In these few minutes Nature was at work upon him.
He possessed no knowledge, but instinct was born within him. He knew
this was HIS world, that the sun and the warmth were for him, and that
the sweet things of the earth were inviting him into his heritage. He
puckered up his little brown nose and sniffed the air, and the pungency
of everything that was sweet and to be yearned for came to him.

And he listened. His pointed ears were pricked forward, and up to him
came the drone of a wakening earth. Even the roots of the grasses must
have been singing in their joy, for all through that sunlit valley
there was the low and murmuring music of a country that was at peace
because it was empty of men. Everywhere was the rippling sound of
running water, and he heard strange sounds that he knew was life; the
twittering of a rock-sparrow, the silver-toned aria of a black-throated
thrush down in the fen, the shrill paean of a gorgeously coloured
Canada jay exploring for a nesting place in a brake of velvety balsam.
And then, far over his head, a screaming cry that made him shiver. It
was instinct again that told him in that cry was danger. N