He did not reason these things but the gloom of them settled upon him like black night.
He did not return to his windfall.

In a little open he sat on his haunches, listening to the night sounds, and watching the stars as they came out.

There was an early moon, and as it came up over the forest, a great throbbing red disc that seemed filled with life, he howled mournfully in the face of it.

He wandered out into a big burn a little later, and there the night was like day, so clear that his shadow followed him and all other things about him cast shadows, And then, all at once, he caught in the night wind a sound which he had heard many times before.
It came from far away, and it was like a whisper at first, an echo of strange voices riding on the wind, A hundred times he had heard that cry of the wolves.

Since Maheegun, the she-wolf, had gashed his shoulder so fiercely away back in the days of his puppyhood he had evaded the path of that cry.