a cruel gash of the terrible fangs in his flank without defending
himself. Even our hounds seem to have inherited something of this
primitive wolf trait, for there are seasons when, unless urged on by
men, they will not trouble a mother wolf or fox. Many times, in the
early spring, when foxes are mating, and again later when they are heavy
with young and incapable of a hard run, I have caught my hounds trotting
meekly after a mother fox, sniffing her trail indifferently and sitting
down with heads turned aside when she stops for a moment to watch and
yap at them disdainfully. And when you call them they come shamefaced;
though in winter-time, when running the same fox to death, they pay no
more heed to your call than to the crows clamoring over them. But we
must return to Wayeeses, sitting over her den on a great gray rock,
trying every breeze, searching every movement, harking to every chirp
and rustle before bringing her cubs out into the world.

Satisfied at last with her silent investigation she turned her head
towards the den. There was no sound, only one of those silent, unknown
communications that pass between animals. Instantly there was a
scratching, scurrying, whining, and three cubs tumbled out of the dark
hole in the rocks, with fuzzy yellow fur and bright eyes and sharp ears
and noses, like collies, all blinking and wondering and suddenly silent
at the big bright world which they had never seen before, so different
from the dark den under the rocks.

Indeed it was a marvelous world that the little cubs looked upon when
they came out to blink and wonder in the June sunshine. Contrasts
everywhere, that made the world seem too big for one little glance to
comprehend it all. Here the sunlight streamed and danced and quivered on
the warm rocks; there deep purple cloud shadows rested for hours, as if
asleep, or swept over the mountain side in an endless game of