Baree had felt the thrill of his first great adventure. He had
discovered his father.

This all happened in the third week of Baree's life. He was just
eighteen days old when Gray Wolf allowed Kazan to make the acquaintance
of his son. If it had not been for Gray Wolf's blindness and the memory
of that day on the Sun Rock when the lynx had destroyed her eyes, she
would have given birth to Baree in the open, and his legs would have
been quite strong. He would have known the sun and the moon and the
stars; he would have realized what the thunder meant, and would have
seen the lightning flashing in the sky. But as it was, there had been
nothing for him to do in that black cavern under the windfall but
stumble about a little in the darkness, and lick with his tiny red
tongue the raw bones that were strewn about them. Many times he had
been left alone. He had heard his mother come and go, and nearly always
it had been in response to a yelp from Kazan that came to them like a
distant echo. He had never felt a very strong desire to follow until
this day when Kazan's big, cool tongue caressed his face. In those
wonderful seconds nature was at work. His instinct was not quite born
until then. And when Kazan went away, leaving them alone in darkness,
Baree whimpered for him to come back, just as he had cried for his
mother when now and then she had left him in response to her mate's
call.

The sun was straight above the forest when, an hour or two after
Kazan's visit, Gray Wolf slipped away. Between Baree's nest and the top
of the windfall were forty feet of jammed and broken timber through
which not a ray of light could break. This blackness did not frighten
him, for he had yet to learn the meaning of light. Day, and not night,