Белый Клык / White Fang

She hung on, trying to press the great vein with her teeth. The weasel was a drinker of blood.

The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story to write about him, had not the she-wolf come through the bushes. Then her jaws closed on the lean, yellow body, and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.

His mother’s joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at being found. She caressed him and licked the cuts made in him by the weasel’s teeth. Then they ate the blood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.

Chapter V. THE LAW OF MEAT

The cub’s development was rapid. He rested for two days, and then went out from the cave again. But on this trip he did not get lost. When he grew tired, he found his way back to the cave and slept. And every day after that he was ranging a wider area.

He began to understand his strength and his weakness, and to know when to be bold and when to be cautious.

He never forgot and was always ready to revenge the hurts by the ptarmigan and or the weasel.

He studied their habits.

In the matter of meat, his luck had been all in the beginning. The seven ptarmigan chicks and—later—the baby weasel were the sum of his killings. His desire to kill strengthened with the days. He wanted a squirrel. But as birds flew in the air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawl upon the squirrel when it was on the ground.

The cub had a great respect for his mother.

She could get meat, and she never failed to bring him his share. She was unafraid of things. His mother represented power; besides, the older he grew the shorter grew her temper.

Once his mother brought strange meat. He didn’t know it was a lynx’s kitten, nor did he know the desperateness of what his mother did. He only knew it was meat.

With a full stomach, the cub lay in the cave, sleeping against his mother’s side. He was woken by her snarling.

Possibly in her whole life it was the most terrible snarl she ever gave. There was reason for it, and none knew it better than she. In the afternoon light, crouching in the entrance of the cave, the cub saw the lynx-mother. He bristled.

Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx could not go in, and, when she tried to, the she-wolf sprang upon her and threw her down. The cub saw little of the battle. There was an awful snarling.