But this did not satisfy the great yearning
that was becoming more and more insistent in Miki's soul, the
overwhelming desire for company, for a brotherhood on the trail.
He loved Neewa. Through the first long weeks of winter he returned
to him faithfully; he brought him meat. He was filled with a
strange grief--even greater than if Neewa had been dead. For Miki
knew that he was alive, and he could not account for the thing
that had happened. Death he would have understood, and FROM death
he would have gone away--for good.
So it came that one night, having hunted far, Miki remained away
from the den for the first time, and slept under a deep windfall.
After that it was still harder for him to resist the CALL. A
second and a third night he went away; and then came the time--
inevitable as the coming and going of the moon and stars--when
understanding at last broke its way through his hope and his fear,
and something told him that Neewa would never again travel with
him as through those glorious days of old, when shoulder to
shoulder they had faced together the comedies and tragedies of
life in a world that was no longer soft and green and warm with a
golden sun, but white, and still, and filled with death.
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