Shasta made it clear that one could not be everywhere at the same time, and that, anyhow, he had not missed the moons.
"No one misses the moons," Gomposh remarked gravely, "except those of us who go to sleep. It is a pleasant sleep in the winter when we go sleeping through the moons."
"Nitka and Shoomoo do not sleep," Shasta said boastfully. "We do not sleep the winter sleep—we of the wolves!"
"And so you do not find the world beautifully new when you wake up in the spring," Gomposh said.
That was a fresh idea to Shasta. He knew what a wonderful thing it was to find the world new every day, but it must seem terribly new indeed to you after the winter sleep. The thought of hunger came to his rescue.
"You must be very hungry," he said triumphantly.
"It is better to be very hungry once and get it over," Gomposh said composedly, "than to go on being hungry all the winter when they tell me food is scarce."
Another fresh thought for Shasta! If Gomposh kept on putting new ideas into him at this rate, he felt as if something unpleasant must happen in his head. If he had been rather more of a boy, and rather less of a wolf, he might have been inclined to argue with Gomposh, just for the sake of arguing. As it was, he was wise enough to realize that Gomposh knew more than he did; and that however new or uncomfortable the things were that Gomposh said, they were most likely true. So he said nothing more for some time, but kept turning over in his head the fresh ideas about newness and hunger, and the being less a wolf.
"You will not stay among us," Gomposh said after a long pause. "You will go back to the new kindred, and the new smell."
Shasta felt frightened at that—so frightened as to be indignant. He was afraid lest the old bear might be saying what was true. And the memory of the hide thong that had cut into his flesh and of the horrible captivity when he had been forced to stay in one small space, whether he liked it or not, made him feel more and more strongly that he would not go back whatever happened.