For Neewa had come back to sleep his first Long Sleep in the place of his birth--the cavern in which Noozak, his mother, had brought him into the world.
His old bed was still there, the wallow in the soft sand, the blanket of hair Noozak had shed; but the smell of his mother was gone.

In the nest where he was born Neewa lay down, and for the last time he grunted softly to Miki.

It was as if he felt upon him the touch of a hand, gentle but inevitable, which he could no longer refuse to obey, and to Miki was saying, for the last time: "Good-night!" That night the PIPOO KESTIN--the first storm of winter--came like an avalanche from out of the North.

With it came a wind that was like the roaring of a thousand bulls, and over all the land of the wild there was nothing that moved.

Even in the depth of the cavern Miki heard the beat and the wail of it and the swishing of the shot-like snow beyond the door through which they had come, and he snuggled close to Neewa, content that they had found shelter.
With the day he went to the slit in the face of the rock, and in his astonishment he made no sound, but stared forth upon a world that was no longer the world he had left last night.