And in the dark wind-fall, buried deeper and
deeper under the snow, he dreamed.
He dreamed of Challoner, who had been his master in the days of
his joyous puppyhood; he dreamed of the time when Neewa, the
motherless cub, was brought into camp, and of the happenings that
had come to them afterward; the loss of his master, of their
strange and thrilling adventures in the wilderness, and last of
all of Neewa's denning-up. He could not understand that. Awake,
and listening to the storm, he wondered why it was that Neewa no
longer hunted with him, but had curled himself up into a round
ball, and slept a sleep from which he could not rouse him. Through
the long hours of the three days and nights of storm it was
loneliness more than hunger that ate at his vitals. When on the
morning of the fourth day he came out from under the windfall his
ribs were showing and there was a reddish film over his eyes.
First of all he looked south and east, and whined.
Through twenty miles of snow he travelled back that day to the
ridge where he had left Neewa. On this fourth day the sun shone
like a dazzling fire. It was so bright that the glare of the snow
pricked his eyes, and the reddish film grew redder. There was only
a cold glow in the west when he came to the end of his journey.
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