"Wake up!" he might have said. "What's the sense of sleeping on a
day like this? Let's go down along the creek and hunt something."
Neewa roused himself, stretched his fat body, and yawned. Sleepily
his little eyes took in the valley. Miki got up and gave the low
and anxious whine which always told his companion that he wanted
to be on the move. Neewa responded, and they began making their
way down the green slope into the rich bottom between the two
ridges.
They were now almost six months of age, and in the matter of size
had nearly ceased to be a cub and a pup. They were almost a dog
and a bear. Miki's angular legs were getting their shape; his
chest had filled out; his neck had grown until it no longer seemed
too small for his big head and jaws, and his body had increased in
girth and length until he was twice as big as most ordinary dogs
of his age.
Neewa had lost his round, ball-like cubbishness, though he still
betrayed far more than Miki the fact that he was not many months
lost from his mother. But he was no longer filled with that
wholesome love of peace that had filled his earlier cubhood. The
blood of Soominitik was at last beginning to assert itself, and he
no longer sought a place of safety in time of battle--unless the
grimness of utter necessity made it unavoidable.
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