The fate of Mispoon and his mate had taught him the priceless value of silence and of caution, for he knew now that in the world there were many things that were not afraid of him, and many things that would not run away from him.

He had lost his fearless and blatant contempt for winged creatures; he had learned that the earth was not made for him alone, and that to hold his small place on it he must fight as Maheegun and the owls had fought.

This was because in Miki's veins was the red fighting blood of a long line of ancestors that reached back to the wolves.
In Neewa the process of deduction was vastly different.

His breed was not the fighting breed, except as it fought among its own kind.

It did not make a habit of preying upon other beasts, and no other beast preyed upon it.