Every bone in her aged body seemed
broken or dislocated. She limped and sagged and moaned as she
walked, and behind her were left little red trails of blood in the
green grass. Makoos had given her a fine pummeling.
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.
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