Here for the first time the father
wolf appeared, coming in quietly one late afternoon, as if he knew, as
he probably did, just when he was needed. Beyond a glance he paid no
attention whatever to the cubs, only taking his place opposite the
mother as the wolves started abreast in a long line to beat the thicket.
By night the cubs had already caught several rabbits, snapping them up
as they played heedlessly in the moonlight, just as they had done with
the wood-mice. By day, however, the hunting was entirely different. Then
the hares and rabbits are resting in their hidden forms under the ferns,
or in a hollow between the roots of a brown stump. Like game birds,
whether on the nest or sitting quiet in hiding, the rabbits give out far
less scent at such times than when they are active; and the cubs,
stealing through the dense cover like shadows in imitation of the old
wolves, and always hunting upwind, would use their keen noses to locate
Moktaques before alarming him. If a cub succeeded, and snapped up a
rabbit before the surprised creature had time to gather headway, he
dropped behind with his catch, while the rest went slowly, carefully, on
through the cover.
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