snarl at, no matter how big. For
everything ran away from Noozak his mother.

All through this first glorious day Neewa was discovering things, and
with each hour it was more and more impressed upon him that his mother
was the unchallenged mistress of all this new and sunlit domain.

Noozak was a thoughtful old mother of a bear who had reared fifteen or
eighteen families in her time, and she travelled very little this first
day in order that Neewa's tender feet might toughen up a bit. They
scarcely left the fen, except to go into a nearby clump of trees where
Noozak used her claws to shred a spruce that they might get at the
juice and slimy substance just under the bark. Neewa liked this dessert
after their feast of roots and bulbs, and tried to claw open a tree on
his own account. By mid-afternoon Noozak had eaten until her sides
bulged out, and Neewa himself--between his mother's milk and the many
odds and ends of other things--looked like an over-filled pod.
Selecting a spot where the declining sun made a warm oven of a great
white rock, lazy old Noozak lay down for a nap, while Neewa, wandering
about in quest of an adventure of his own, came face to face with a
ferocious bug.

The creature was a giant wood-beetle two inches long. Its two battling
pincers were jet black, and curved like hooks of iron. It was a rich
brown in colour and in the sunlight its metallic armour shone in a
dazzling splendour. Neewa, squatted flat on his belly, eyed it with a
swiftly beating heart. The beetle was not more than a foot away, and
ADVANCING! That was the curious and rather shocking part of it. It was
the first living thing he had met with that day that had not run away.
As it advanced slowly on its two rows of legs the beetle made a
clicking sound that Neewa heard quite distinctly. With the fighting
blood of his father, Soominitik, nerving him on to the adventure he
thrust out a hesitating paw, and instantly Chegawasse, the beetle, took
upon himself a most ferocious aspect. His wings began humming like a
buzz-saw, his pincers opened until they could have taken in a man's
finger, and he vibrated on his legs until it looked as though he might
be performing some sort of a dance. Neewa jerked his paw back and after
a moment or two Chegawasse calmed himself and again began to ADVANCE!

Neewa did not know, of course, that the beetle's field of vision ended
about four inches from the end of his nose; the situation,
consequently, was