CHAPTER XII
MAKU AND SHE WOLF
When the night, the day following, and the next night had passed, She Wolf took her son in the hollow of her arm and went to look for No Man. It was beginning to be autumn in the forest, the veins of the big mosswood leaves were already scarlet; the sassafras were yellow and red; the beeches yellow and crimson; the birches white and gold; the sky thinly blue, with wispish puffs of cloud gusting over it. The air was fine and keen.
She Wolf ran in a great circle, but slowly for she was very hungry, and came upon No Man’s stale track in the thicket where he had lain in wait for Strong Hand.
The track tho’ stale was very plain, for no rain had fallen on it, and No Man had been running with all the weight of despair. She Wolf followed a little way, and stooping picked up No Man’s bow and ten arrows which he had dropped in his flight.
Here the track was joined by Strong Hand’s track, and She Wolf was puzzled and did not understand any of it.
“Why did he drop his weapons?” she said.
And she went on. But she sat down in a sunny place by the brook to nurse her son, who had begun to pipe aloud and clutch at her breasts with his tiny paws. As he snuggled and sucked and gasped, she crooned a song over him, making it up as she went along.