They proceeded. For two heartbreaking hours Miki followed at
Neewa's heels, the void in his stomach increasing as the swelling
in his body diminished. His hunger was becoming a torture. Yet not
a bit to eat could he find, while Neewa at every few steps
apparently discovered something to devour. At the end of the two
hours the cub's bill of fare had grown to considerable
proportions. It included, among other things, half a dozen green
and black beetles; numberless bugs, both hard and soft; whole
colonies of red and black ants; several white grubs dug out of the
heart of decaying logs; a handful of snails; a young frog; the egg
of a ground-plover that had failed to hatch; and, in the vegetable
line, the roots of two camas and one skunk cabbage. Now and then
he pulled down tender poplar shoots and nipped the ends off.
Likewise he nibbled spruce and balsam gum whenever he found it,
and occasionally added to his breakfast a bit of tender grass.
A number of these things Miki tried. He would have eaten the frog,
but Neewa was ahead of him there. The spruce and balsam gum
clogged up his teeth and almost made him vomit because of its
bitterness. Between a snail and a stone he could find little
difference, and as the one bug he tried happened to be that
asafoetida-like creature known as a stink-bug he made no further
efforts in that direction.
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