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Certainly, he told himself, this new life in the wild, this life of matehood, was a good thing. When Finn took up his abode in the den of his mate, Warrigal, he entered what was to him an entirely new world, and this new world was in fact one of the most interesting corners of the wild in all Australia. For example
Off there, beyond the pale of the cabin and the influence of Nepeese, were all the things that the wolf blood in him found now most desirable: companionship of his kind, the lure of adventure, the red, sweet blood of the chase and matehood. This last, after all, was the dominant mystery that was urging him, and yet least of all did he understand it.
In the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the air there breathed to Gray Wolf the mystery of matehood and of motherhood. She whined softly and rubbed her blind face against Kazan. For days, in her way, she tried to tell him. More than ever she wanted to curl herself up in that warm dry nest under the windfall. She had no desire to hunt.
It struck upon him like a clashing discord, the fact of matehood between these two a condition inconsistent and out of tune with the beautiful things he had built up in his mind about the woman.
For in Gray Wolf there was now the instinct of matehood, and seeing Kazan tearing and righting the pack she joined him in the struggle which she could not understand. When it was over, Kazan and Gray Wolf were alone out on the plain.
After the long sleep of winter nature was at work in all her glory. It was Unekepesim, the Mating Moon, the Home-building Moon and Baree was going home. Not to matehood but to Nepeese. He knew that she was there now, perhaps at the very edge of the chasm where he had seen her last.
The mixture was of pride and jealousy, approval and solicitude, motherhood and matehood quite a curious little study in expression. And then came an odd, rather touching little incident.
At last she understood that he could not move, and she ran nervously out into the plain, and back again, until her footprints were thick in the trail she made. The instincts of matehood were strong in her. It was she who first saw Pierre Radisson coming over their trail, and she ran swiftly back to Kazan and gave the warning.
As he clasped her, she felt the wild throbbing of his heart like the pulsing force of a racing engine. He kissed her, and in his kiss there was more than the lover's adoration. It held the demand and mastery of matehood. By it he claimed and sealed her for his own. When his hold relaxed, she made no effort to withdraw herself.
It was not the "call" that comes with the moonlit nights, and neither was it the hunt-cry, nor the she-wolf's yearning for matehood. It carried with it the lament of death. And after that one cry Gray Wolf slunk back to the fringe of bush over the river, and lay with her face turned to the stream. A strange terror fell upon her.
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