grew the forest Noozak was penetrating.  In this forest Neewa received his first lessons in hunting.  Noozak was now well in the “bottoms” between the Jackson’s Knee and Shamattawa waterway divides, a great hunting ground for bears in the early spring.  When awake she was tireless in her quest for food, and was constantly digging in the earth, or turning over stones and tearing rotting logs and stumps into pieces.  The little gray wood-mice were her piece de resistance, small as they were, and it amazed Neewa to see how quick his clumsy old mother could be when one of these little creatures was revealed.  There were times when Noozak captured a whole family before they could escape.  And to these were added frogs and toads, still partly somnambulent; many ants, curled up as if dead, in the heart of rotting logs; and occasional bumble-bees, wasps, and hornets.  Now and then Neewa took a nibble at these things.  On the third day Noozak uncovered a solid mass of hibernating vinegar ants as large as a man’s two fists, and frozen solid.  Neewa ate a quantity of these, and the sweet, vinegary flavour of them was delicious to his palate.

As the days progressed, and living things began to crawl out from under logs and rocks, Neewa discovered the thrill and excitement of hunting on his own account.  He encountered a second beetle, and killed it.  He killed his first wood-mouse.  Swiftly there were developing in him the instincts of Soominitik, his scrap-loving old father, who lived three or four valleys to the north of their own, and who never missed an opportunity to get into a fight.  At four months of age, which was late in May, Neewa was eating many things that would have killed most cubs of his age, and there wasn’t a yellow streak in him from the tip of his saucy little nose to the end of his stubby tail.  He weighed nine pounds at this date and was as black as a tar-baby.

It was early in June that the exciting event occurred which brought about the beginning of the big change in Neewa’s life, and it was on a day so warm and mellow with sunshine that Noozak started in right after dinner to take her afternoon nap.  They were out of the lower timber country now, and were in a valley through which a shallow stream wriggled and twisted around white sand-bars and between pebbly shores.  Neewa was sleepless.  He had less desire than ever to waste a glorious afternoon in napping.  With his little round eyes he looked out on a wonderful world, and found it calling to him.  He looked at his mother, and whined.  Experience told him that she was dead to the world for hours to come, unless he tickled her foot or nipped her ear, and then she would only rouse herself enough to growl at him.  He was tired of that.  He yearned for something more exciting, and with his mind suddenly made up he set off in quest of adventure.