At first Baree could hardly stand. His legs were cramped. Every bone in
his body seemed out of joint. His ear was stiff where the blood had
oozed out of it and hardened, and when he tried to wrinkle his wounded
nose, he gave a sharp little yap of pain. If such a thing were
possible, he looked even worse than he felt. His hair had dried in
muddy patches; he was dirt-stained from end to end; and where yesterday
he had been plump and shiny, he was now as thin and wretched as
misfortune could possibly make him. And he was hungry. He had never
before known what it meant to be really hungry.

When he went on, continuing in the direction he had been following
yesterday, he slunk along in a disheartened sort of way. His head and
ears were no longer alert, and his curiosity was gone. He was not only
stomach hungry: mother hunger rose above his physical yearning for
something to eat. He wanted his mother as he had never wanted her
before in his life. He wanted to snuggle his shivering little body
close up to her and feel the warm caressing of her tongue and listen to
the mothering whine of her voice. And he wanted Kazan, and the old
windfall, and that big blue spot that was in the sky right over it. As
he followed again along the edge of the creek, he whimpered for them as
a child might grieve.

The forest grew more open after a time, and this cheered him up a
little. Also the warmth of the sun was taking the ache out of his body.
But he grew hungrier and hungrier. He always had depended entirely on
Kazan and Gray Wolf for food. His parents had, in some ways, made a
great baby of him. Gray Wolf's blindness accounted for this, for since
his birth she had not taken up her hunting with Kazan, and it was quite
natural that Baree should stick close to her, though more than once he