moons and the blazing suns of those twenty years that were gone; it may
be that the soft, sweet music of spring came to her again, filled with
the old, old song of life, and that Something gracious and painless
descended upon her as a final reward for a glorious motherhood on earth.

When Challoner came up she was dead.

From his hiding place in a crotch of the spruce Neewa looked down on
the first great tragedy of his life, and the advent of man. The
two-legged beast made him cringe deeper into his refuge, and his little
heart was near breaking with the terror that had seized upon him. He
did not reason. It was by no miracle of mental process that he knew
something terrible had happened, and that this tall, two-legged
creature was the cause of it. His little eyes were blazing, just over
the level of the crotch. He wondered why his mother did not get up and
fight when this new enemy came. Frightened as he was he was ready to
snarl if she would only wake up--ready to hurry down the tree and help
her as he had helped her in the defeat of Makoos, the old he-bear. But
not a muscle of Noozak's huge body moved as Challoner bent over her.
She was stone dead.

Challoner's face was flushed with exultation. Necessity had made of him
a killer. He saw in Noozak a splendid pelt, and a provision of meat
that would carry him all the rest of the way to the southland. He
leaned his rifle against a tree and began looking about for the cub.
Knowledge of the wild told him it would not be far from its mother, and
he began looking into the trees and the near-by thickets.

In the shelter of his crotch, screened by the thick branches, Neewa
made himself as small as possible during the search. At the end of half
an hour Challoner disappointedly gave up his quest, and went back to
the creek for a drink before setting himself to the task of skinning
Noozak.

No sooner was he gone than Neewa's little head shot up alertly. For a
few moments he watched, and then slipped backward down the trunk of the
cedar to the ground. He gave his squealing call, but his mother did not
move. He went to her and stood beside her motionless head, sniffing the
man-tainted air. Then he muzzled her jowl, butted his nose under her
neck, and at last nipped her ear--always his last resort in the
awakening process. He was puzzled. He whined softly, and climbed upon
his mother's big, soft back, and sat there. Into his whine there came a
strange note, and then out of hi