Wolf cub

“ For unless our ears are keen enough to distinguish between the food and hunting calls of an animal, or between bob-white’s love note and the yodel that brings his scattered flock together, it will be idle for us to ask what message or impulse a mother wolf sends after a running cub when she lifts her head to look at him steadily, and he checks his rush to return to her side as if she had made the murky woods echo to her assembly clamor. ”

“ It might take hours of hard trailing to find their kill; but the cub-wolf would go to it like a homing bee the moment he felt hungry. And that suggests another curious bit of animal lore (one which may be questioned, but of which I had myself no doubt) , that a lone wolf always knows where his pack is feeding or resting. They may be asleep in their day bed far away, after roving uncounted miles since he left them; yet by some instinct or extra sense he seems able to go straight to them at any hour of the day or night. ”

“ He continues to live, but he has lost his integrity as an entity. The wolf cub never becomes an adult wolf. He becomes Dog.
"It is not a doctrine of weakness, but the ultimate weapon of destruction. It can be used to induce any orientation desired in the mind of the enemy. He'll do everything you want him to—because he has your love."
"How did you apply that to the Markovians?" asked Joyce in almost a whisper.
"It was one of the most difficult programs we have ever undertaken," said Venor. "There were comparatively few of us and such a tremendous population of Markovians. ”

“ In captivity, wolves are the meanest brutes on earth, and in a wild state they are no better. As a rule, the stronger ones are ever ready to kill the weaker ones, and eat them, too. One night, our male Russian wolf killed his mate, and ate nearly half of her before morning. A fox or a wolf cub which thrusts one of its legs between the partition bars and into a wolf's den almost invariably gets it bitten off as close to the body as the biter can go. ”

“ Here was fear, and it did not require his instinct to tell him of it. And if sight alone were not sufficient, the cry of rage the intruder gave, beginning with a snarl and rushing abruptly upward into a hoarse screech, was convincing enough in itself.
The cub felt the prod of the life that was in him, and stood up and snarled valiantly by his mother’s side. But she thrust him ignominiously away and behind her. Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx could not leap in, and when she made a crawling rush of it the she-wolf sprang upon her and pinned her down. ”

“ Far up on the hillside in a little opening of the woods the scattered pack came together again. At the first uproar, so unbearable to a silence-loving animal, they had vanished in five different directions; yet so subtle, so perfect is the instinct which holds a wolf family together that the old mother had scarcely entered the glade alone and sat down to wait and listen when the other wolves joined her silently. Malsunsis, the big cub, scarcely felt his wound at first, for the arrow had but glanced through the thick skin and flesh, and he had torn it out without difficulty ”

“ A wolf does not approach a camp of men unless he has an extraordinary reason; I must find out what caused a wary brute to change his lifelong habit. Among wolves, as among other gregarious creatures, there are occasional hermits or outcasts whose ways are not the ways of their kind; they are less wild, more daring or more trustful than their fellows, and perhaps this cub was one of them. Luckily he had come from northward, the direction in which I was heading; I could run his back trail and pick up information without losing precious time. ”

“ The Dark Cub had learned the rudiments of Wolf life: that the way to fight Dogs is to run, and to fight as you run, never grapple, but snap, snap, snap, and make for the rough country where Horses cannot bring their riders.
He learned not to bother about the Coyotes that follow for the pickings when you hunt; you cannot catch them and they do you no harm.
He knew he must not waste time dashing after Birds that alight on the ground; and that he must keep away from the little black and white Animal with the bushy tail. It is not very good to eat, and it is very, very bad to smell. ”

“ The old wolf threw himself down heavily, facing away from the temptation, and the cub slipped aside to find another den, out of sight and smell of the huge leader, lest the scent of blood should overcome them again and cause them to fly at each other's throats in uncontrollable fury. ”

“ And shrinking close to the rock under a friendly dwarf spruce they lay still as two rabbits, watching with round eyes, eager but unafraid, the antics of three brown wolf cubs that were chasing the flies and tumbling over some invisible plaything before the door of the den. ”

“ Again, from the boulder, uprose the steely cry, mournful as a wail sent spearing aloft from Purgatory. From his elbow, Aguilino the guide lifted himself to his feet.
"When you hear the she-wolf give tongue," he answered to the inquiring looks of the others, "you may be sure that its den and runways are near. The young fat cubs make fairly good meat. I will go out into the darkness, hearkening to the cries of the bitch, and if I am lucky, I may locate the brood for you. God willing, we will have an oteo, a wolf-drive, at dawn to-morrow!" ”

“ The cubs tumbled over one another in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat, and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight, to be sure that he had not been overlooked. ”

“ My first notion, that the hungry brute was attracted by the trout, was promptly discarded. A timber wolf might eat a fish that he found on the shore; but nothing could induce him to go near food that lay amid human belongings. A second notion, that the cub was following me with ferocious intent, was more nearly preposterous. Not even when running in a hungry pack will these northern wolves approach a man; on the contrary, they avoid him so carefully that he is lucky to catch a fleeting glimpse of them. ”

“ No wonder wolves are intelligent in avoiding every trap and in hunting together to outwit some fleet-footed quarry with unbelievable cunning. Here on the edge of the vast, untrodden barren, far from human eyes, in an ordinary family of wolf cubs playing wild and free, eager, headstrong, hungry, yet always under control and instantly subject to a wiser head and a stronger will than their own, was the explanation of it all. ”

“ Had the Mother-wolf been far from home he must soon have been left behind, but the nearest hollow was the chosen place, and the Cub arrived at the den's mouth soon after the Mother-wolf.
A stranger is an enemy, and the old one rushing forth to the defense, met the Cub again, and again was restrained by something that rose in her responsive to the smell. The Cub had thrown himself on his back in utter submission, but that did not prevent his nose reporting to him the good thing almost within reach. The She-wolf went into the den and curled herself about her brood ”

“ Most wonderful, most interesting of all was the little gray hut on the shore, almost under their feet, where little Noel and the Indian children played with the tide like fiddler crabs, or pushed bravely out to meet the fishermen in a bobbing nutshell. For wolf cubs are like collies in this, that they seem to have a natural interest, perhaps a natural kinship with man, and next to their own kind nothing arouses their interest like a group of children playing. ”

“ A new experience had come to the little wolf cubs in a single night,—the experience of fear. For weeks they had lain hid in the dark den, or played fearlessly in the bright sunshine, guarded and kept at every moment, day or night, by the gaunt old mother wolf that was their only law, their only companion. At times they lay for hours hungry and restless, longing to go out into the bright world, yet obeying a stronger will than their own, even at a distance. ”

“ The Yellow Wolf glided down a hollow and led her Cub away in flight, but, as they went, they saw a man rush from the bank near where the mother's nose had warned her of the human scent. They saw him kill the caught Coyote and set the traps for more.
VI THE BEGUILING OF THE YELLOW WOLF
The life game is a hard game, for we may win ten thousand times, and if we fail but once our gain is gone. How many hundred times had the Yellow Wolf scorned the traps; how many Cubs she had trained to do the same! Of all the dangers to her life she best knew traps. ”

“ Being really human, they can talk if they only would, and once a mother bear was heard singing to her cub in words which the hunter understood. There is one variety known as kalâs′-gûnăhi′ta, “long hams,” described as a large black bear with long legs and small feet, which is always lean, and which the hunter does not care to shoot, possibly on account of its leanness. It is believed that new-born cubs are hairless, like mice.
The wolf (wa′ʻya) is revered as the hunter and watchdog of Kana′tĭ, and the largest gens in the tribe bears the name of Ani′-wa′ʻya, “Wolf [265] people.” ”

“ At dawn the next day a sheepherder seeking lost Sheep discovered her from a neighboring hill. A signal mirror called the wolver from his camp. Duskymane saw the new danger. He was a mere Cub, though so tall; he could not face the man, and fled at his approach.
The wolver rode up to the sorry, tattered, bleeding She-wolf in the trap. He raised his rifle and soon the struggling stopped. ”

“ Flocks of grouse and ptarmigan came out of the thick coverts, in which they had been hiding all summer, and began to pluck the berries of the open plains, where they could easily be waylaid and caught by the growing wolf cubs. Plover came in hordes, sweeping over the Straits from the Labrador; and when the wolves surrounded a flock of the queer birds and hitched nearer and nearer, sinking their gray bodies in the yielding gray moss till they looked like weather-worn logs, the hunting was full of tense excitement, though the juicy mouthfuls were few and far between. ”

“ He ranged far and wide, and slept but little in the lair that had now become cheerless and miserable. The she-wolf, too, left her litter and went out in search of meat. In the first days after the birth of the cubs, One Eye had journeyed several times back to the Indian camp and robbed the rabbit snares; but, with the melting of the snow and the opening of the streams, the Indian camp had moved away, and that source of supply was closed to him.
When the grey cub came back to life and again took interest in the far white wall, he found that the population of his world had been reduced. ”

“ Perhaps the cubs are already gorged when the child is thrown before them, or are being supplied with solid food before their carnivorous instinct is awakened, so they amuse themselves by simply licking the sleek, oily body (Hindoo mothers daily rub their boy babies with some native vegetable oil) of the infant, and thus it lies in the nest, by degrees getting the odor of the wolf cubs, after which the mother wolf will not molest it. In a little time the infant begins to feel the pangs of hunger, and hearing the cubs sucking, soon follows their example. ”

“ The wolver had seen them once—a Yellow Wolf followed by another, whose long, awkward legs, big, soft feet, thin neck, and skimpy tail proclaimed him this year's Cub. The record of the dust and sand said that the old one had lost a right front toe, and that the young one was of giant size.
It was the wolver that thought to turn the carcass of the Calf to profit, but he was disappointed in getting Coyotes instead of Wolves. It was the beginning of the trapping season, for this month fur is prime. A young trapper often fastens the bait on the trap; an experienced one does not. ”

“ The cubs were tied in a corner of the cave and at once commanded the attention and unbounded admiration of Bark and Beech-Leaf. The young lady especially delighted in the little beasts and could usually be found lying in the corner with them, the baby wolves learning in time to play with her as if she were a wolf-suckled cub herself. Bark had almost the same relations with the little brutes and Ab looked after them most carefully. ”

“ But there was much beside the capture of wolf cubs to occupy the attention of the boys. They counted themselves the finest bird hunters in the community and, to a certain extent, justified the proud claim made. No youths could set a snare more deftly or hurl a stone more surely, and there was much bird life for them to seek. The bustard fed in the vast nut forests, the capercailzie was proud upon the moors, where the heath-cock was as jaunty, and the willow grouse and partridge were wise in covert to avoid the hungry snowy owl. ”

“ With the sustenance of seven at his service the little Wolf had every reason to grow, and when in the autumn he began to follow his mother on her hunting trips he was as tall as she was. Now a change of region was forced on them, for numbers of little Wolves were growing up. Sentinel Butte, the rocky fastness of the plains, was claimed by many that were big and strong; the weaker must move out, and with them Yellow Wolf and the Dusky Cub.
Wolves have no language in the sense that man has ”