In truth, it was the _lost pack_, the pack of the primeval world before the dog ever came in to the fires of men, and, for that matter, before men built fires and before men were men.
He had been born only the other day and had lived but two years in the world, so that, of himself, he had no knowledge of the lost pack.

For many thousands of generations he had been away from it; yet, deep down in the crypts of being, tied about and wrapped up in every muscle and nerve of him, was the indelible record of the days in the wild when dim ancestors had run with the pack and at the same time developed the pack and themselves.

When Michael was asleep, then it was that pack-memories sometimes arose to the surface of his subconscious mind.

These dreams were real while they lasted, but when he was awake he remembered them little if at all.

But asleep, or singing with Steward, he sensed and yearned for the lost pack and was impelled to seek the forgotten way to it.
Waking, Michael had another and real pack.