She lay down, gave a final groan, and looked at Neewa, as if to
say:

"If you hadn't gone off on some deviltry and upset that old
viper's temper this wouldn't have happened. And now--look at ME!"

A young bear would have rallied quickly from the effects of the
battle, but Noozak lay without moving all the rest of that
afternoon, and the night that followed. And that night was by all
odds the finest that Neewa had ever seen. Now that the nights were
warm, he had come to love the moon even more than the sun, for by
birth and instinct he was more a prowler in darkness than a hunter
of the day. The moon rose out of the east in a glory of golden
fire. The spruce and balsam forests stood out like islands in a
yellow sea of light, and the creek shimmered and quivered like a
living thing as it wound its way through the glowing valley. But
Neewa had learned his lesson, and though the moon and the stars
called to him he hung close to his mother, listening to the
carnival of night sound that came to him, but never moving away
from her side.

With the morning Noozak rose to her feet, and with a grunting
command for Neewa to follow she slowly climbed the sun-capped
ridge. She was in no mood for travel, but away back in her head
was an unexpressed fear that villainous old Makoos might return,
and she knew that another fight would do her up entirely, in which
event Makoos would make a breakfast of Neewa. So she urged herself
down the other side of the ridge, across a new valley, and through
a cut that opened like a wide door into a rolling plain that was