CHAPTER TWO
That night Neewa had a hard attack of Mistu-puyew, or stomach-ache.Imagine a nursing baby going direct from its mother's breast to abeefsteak! That was what Neewa had done. Ordinarily he would not havebegun nibbling at solid foods for at least another month, but natureseemed deliberately at work in a process of intensive educationpreparing him for the mighty and unequal struggle which he would haveto put up a little later. For hours Neewa moaned and wailed, and Noozakmuzzled his bulging little belly with her nose, until finally hevomited and was better.
After that he slept. When he awoke he was startled by opening his eyesfull into the glare of a great blaze of fire. Yesterday he had seen thesun, golden and shimmering and far away. But this was the first time hehad seen it come up over the edge of the world on a spring morning inthe Northland. It was as red as blood, and as he stared it rosesteadily and swiftly until the flat side of it rounded out and it was ahuge ball of SOMETHING. At first he thought it was Life--some monstrouscreature sailing up over the forest toward them--and he turned with awhine of enquiry to his mother. Whatever it was, Noozak was unafraid.Her big head was turned toward it, and she was blinking her eyes insolemn comfort. It was then that Neewa began to feel the pleasingwarmth of the red thing, and in spite of his nervousness he began topurr in the glow of it. From red the sun turned swiftly to gold, andthe whole valley was transformed once more into a warm and pulsatingglory of life.
For two weeks after this first sunrise in Neewa's life Noozak remainednear the ridge and the slough. Then came the day, when Neewa was elevenweeks old, that she turned her nose toward the distant black forestsand began the summer's peregrination. Neewa's feet had lost theirtenderness, and he weighed a good six pounds. This was pretty goodconsidering that he had only weighed twelve ounces at birth.
From the day when Noozak set off on her wandering TREK Neewa's realadventures began. In the dark and mysterious caverns of the foreststhere were places where the snow still lay unsoftened by the sun, andfor two days Neewa yearned and whined for the sunlit valley. Theypassed the waterfall, where Neewa looked for the first tune on arushing torrent of water. Deeper and darker and gloomier grew theforest Noozak was penetrating. In this forest Neewa received his firstlessons in hunting. Noozak was now well in the "bottoms" between theJackson's Knee and Shamattawa waterway divides, a great hunting groundfor bears in the early spring. When awake she was tireless in her questfor food, and was constantly digging in the earth, or turning overstones and tearing rotting logs and stumps into pieces. The little graywood-mice were her piece de resistance, small as they were, and itamazed Neewa to see how quick his clumsy old mother could be when oneof these little creatures was revealed. There were times when Noozakcaptured a whole family before they could escape. And to these wereadded frogs and toads, still partly somnambulent; many ants, curled upas 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 vinegarants as large as a man's two fists, and frozen solid. Neewa ate aquantity of these, and the sweet, vinegary flavour of them wasdelicious to his palate.
As the days progressed, and living things began to crawl out from underlogs and rocks, Neewa discovered the thrill and excitement of huntingon his own account. He encountered a second beetle, and killed it. Hekilled his first wood-mouse. Swiftly there were developing in him theinstincts of Soominitik, his scrap-loving old father, who lived threeor four valleys to the north of their own, and who never missed anopportunity to get into a fight. At four months of age, which was latein May, Neewa was eating many things that would have killed most cubsof his age, and there wasn't a yellow streak in him from the tip of hissaucy little nose to the end of his stubby tail. He weighed nine poundsat this date and was as black as a tar-baby.
It was early in June that the exciting event occurred which broughtabout the beginning of the big change in Neewa's life, and it was on aday so warm and mellow with sunshine that Noozak started in right afterdinner to take her afternoon nap. They were out of the lower timbercountry now, and were in a valley through which a shallow streamwriggled and twisted around white sand-bars and between pebbly shores.Neewa was sleepless. He had less desire than ever to waste a gloriousafternoon in napping. With his little round eyes he looked out on awonderful world, and found it calling to him. He looked at his mother,and whined. Experience told him that she was dead to the world forhours to come, unless he tickled her foot or nipped her ear, and thenshe would only rouse herself enough to growl at him. He was tired ofthat. He yearned for something more exciting, and with his mindsuddenly made up he set off in quest of adventure.
In that big world of green and golden colours he was a little blackball nearly as wide as he was long. He went down to the creek, andlooked back. He could still see his mother. Then his feet paddled inthe soft white sand of a long bar that edged the shore, and he forgotNoozak. He went to the end of the bar, and turned up on the green shorewhere the young grass was like velvet under his paws. Here he beganturning over small stones for ants. He chased a chipmunk that ran aclose and furious race with him for twenty seconds. A little later ahuge snow-shoe rabbit got up almost under his nose, and he chased thatuntil in a dozen long leaps Wapoos disappeared in a thicket. Neewawrinkled up his nose and emitted a squeaky snarl. Never hadSoominitik's blood run so riotously within him. He wanted to get holdof something. For the first time in his life he was yearning for ascrap. He was like a small boy who the day after Christmas has a pairof boxing gloves and no opponent. He sat down and looked about himquerulously, still wrinkling his nose and snarling defiantly. He hadthe whole world beaten. He knew that. Everything was afraid of hismother. Everything was afraid of HIM. It was disgusting--this lack ofsomething alive for an ambitious young fellow to fight. After all, theworld was rather tame.
He set off at a new angle, came around the edge of a huge rock, andsuddenly stopped.
From behind the other end of the rock protruded a huge hind paw. For afew moments Neewa sat still, eyeing it with a growing anticipation.This time he would give his mother a nip that would waken her for good!He would rouse her to the beauty and the opportunities of this day ifthere was any rouse in him! So he advanced slowly and cautiously,picked out a nice bare spot on the paw, and sank his little teeth in itto the gums.
There followed a roar that shook the earth. Now it happened that thepaw did not belong to Noozak, but was the personal property of Makoos,an old he-bear of unlovely disposition and malevolent temper. But inhim age had produced a grouchiness that was not at all like thegrandmotherly peculiarities of old Noozak. Makoos was on his feetfairly before Neewa realized that he had made a mistake. He was notonly an old bear and a grouchy bear, but he was also a hater of cubs.More than once in his day he had committed the crime of cannibalism. Hewas what the Indian hunter calls uchan--a bad bear, an eater of his ownkind, and the instant his enraged eyes caught sight of Neewa he let outanother roar.
At that Neewa gathered his fat little legs under his belly and was offlike a shot. Never before in his life had he run as he ran now.Instinct told him that at last he had met something which was notafraid of him, and that he was in deadly peril. He made no choice ofdirection, for now that he had made this mistake he had no idea wherehe would find his mother. He could hear Makoos coming after him, and ashe ran he set up a bawling that was filled with a wild and agonizingprayer for help. That cry reached the faithful old Noozak. In aninstant she was on her feet--and just in time. Like a round black ballshot out of a gun Neewa sped past the rock where she had been sleeping,and ten jumps behind him came Makoos. Out of the corner of his eye hesaw his mother, but his momentum carried him past her. In that momentNoozak leapt into action. As a football player makes a tackle sherushed out just in time to catch old Makoos with all her weight fullbroadside in the ribs, and the two old bears rolled over and over inwhat to Neewa was an exciting and glorious mix-up.
He had stopped, and his eyes bulged out
like shining little onions ashe took in the scene of battle. He had longed for a fight but what hesaw now fairly paralyzed him. The two bears were at it, roaring andtearing each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earthin their deadly clinch. In this first round Noozak had the best of it.She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, andnow with her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashing himwith her sharp hind claws until the blood streamed from the oldbarbarian's sides and he bellowed like a choking bull. Neewa knew thatit was his pursuer who was getting the worst of it, and with a squeakycry for his mother to lambast the very devil out of Makoos he ran backto the edge of the arena, his nose crinkled and his teeth gleaming in aferocious snarl. He danced about excitedly a dozen feet from thefighters, Soominitik's blood filling him with a yearning for the frayand yet he was afraid.
Then something happened that suddenly and totally upset the maddeningjoy of his mother's triumph. Makoos, being a he-bear, was of necessityskilled in fighting, and all at once he freed himself from Noozak'sjaws, wallowed her under him, and in turn began ripping the hide offold Noozak's carcass in such quantities that she let out an agonizedbawling that turned Neewa's little heart into stone.
It is a matter of most exciting conjecture what a small boy will dowhen he sees his father getting licked. If there is an axe handy he isliable to use it. The most cataclysmic catastrophe that cam come intohis is to have a father whom some other boy's father has given awalloping. Next to being President of the United States the averagesmall boy treasures the desire to possess a parent who can whip anyother two-legged creature that wears trousers. And there were a lot ofhuman things about Neewa. The louder his mother bawled the moredistinctly he felt the shock of his world falling about him. If Noozakhad lost a part of her strength in her old age her voice, at least, wasstill unimpaired, and such a spasm of outcry as she emitted could havebeen heard at least half a mile away.
Neewa could stand no more. Blind with rage, he darted in. It was chancethat closed his vicious little jaws on a toe that belonged to Makoos,and his teeth sank into the flesh like two rows of ivory needles.Makoos gave a tug, but Neewa held on, and bit deeper. Then Makoos drewup his leg and sent it out like a catapault, and in spite of hisdetermination to hang on Neewa found himself sailing wildly through theair. He landed against a rock twenty feet from the fighters with aforce that knocked the wind out of him, and for a matter of eight orten seconds after that he wobbled dizzily in his efforts to stand up.Then his vision and his senses returned and he gazed on a scene thatbrought all the blood pounding back into his body again.
Makoos was no longer fighting, but was RUNNING AWAY--and there was adecided limp in his gait!
Poor old Noozak was standing on her feet, facing the retreating enemy.She was panting like a winded calf. Her jaws were agape. Her tonguelolled out, and blood was dripping in little trickles from her body tothe ground. She had been thoroughly and efficiently mauled. She wasbeyond the shadow of a doubt a whipped bear. Yet in that gloriousflight of the enemy Neewa saw nothing of Noozak's defeat. Their enemywas RUNNING AWAY! Therefore, he was whipped. And with excited littlesqueaks of joy Neewa ran to his mother.