Into the Wild/Chapter 6

"Surprise is the warrior's greatest weapon."

— Firepaw quoting Lionheart's favorite line in Into the Wild, page 74

Into the Wild
Chapter number:	6 (of 25)
Page numbers:	70-79
Point of View:	Firepaw
Chronology

Below contains in-depth information for chapter six of Into the Wild. If you are looking for a shorter summary of the entire book, please check the main article.

Chapter Number: 6 (of 25)

Page Numbers: 70-79

Chapter description

Two moons have passed since Firepaw had joined ThunderClan, and the young apprentice is out on his own during his first solo hunting mission. Firepaw pauses to sniff the air, and scents a Twoleg that had wandered into the woods recently, and Firepaw notes that greenleaf has fully arrived. Senses alert, Firepaw moves silently through the trees, making his way for the stream that he crossed during his very first journey to ThunderClan's camp, but instead of smelling prey, he smells fox. He is soon able to separate the scenes and finds that there is a water vole nearby. A loud rustle in the bushes scares away his prey, however.

Firepaw attacks the rustle in the bushes, and soon finds himself face-to-face with Graypaw. While the gray apprentice jokes that Firepaw has raked him to shreds, Firepaw is apologetic, and the two young cats leap at each other in a sort of play-fight. Firepaw tricks Graypaw into letting his guard down, and Firepaw wins the fray. Afterwards, the two ask how their tasks are going. Firepaw says that he was about to catch a vole before Graypaw came charging through.

The apprentice apologizes for scaring away the prey, and says that he was also going to do his own hunting before meeting up with the patrol at the WindClan border to give them a message from Bluestar. Firepaw mews that he is hungry, but the Clan must be fed first per the warrior code. Graypaw muses that Sandpaw and Dustpaw must have eaten while they were on hunting duty, but Firepaw says that he does not want to mess up his first solo task. Graypaw offers to help Firepaw in exchange for him accidentally scaring away the vole that Firepaw was hunting, but the flame-colored tom says that it does not matter and he will find another. Graypaw insists on helping, and the two head upstream from where they started.

The pair of apprentices soon smell fox again, and Firepaw is amazed at what a fox actually looks like. Graypaw says that the fox Firepaw saw on his adventure from his Twoleg nest was likely hunting him, not the other way around. Making sure the fox has not noticed the two, Firepaw and Graypaw continue on their hunt. Firepaw then asks about a badger, and Graypaw explains that the black-and-white creatures are bad-tempered and their bites are vicious. He explains that Halftail, a Clan elder, had his tail bitten off by a badger and has not been able to climb a tree since then due to being scared of falling.

After some successful hunting, Firepaw and Graypaw come across a squirrel, but they end up chasing it to the Thunderpath. Graypaw and Firepaw are both disgusted by the stench of the Thunderpath and the monsters on it, and Firepaw tries to get closer to it to touch it and feel it for the first time. He is stopped by Graypaw, who calls him mouse-brained. As Firepaw sits down and licks his ruffled fur, he tells Graypaw that he thought he saw a ShadowClan warrior on the other side of the Thunderpath. Not long after, Graypaw departs and Firepaw muses to himself that at least he will have a story to tell Dustpaw and Sandpaw when he gets back to camp.

Characters

Major

• Firepaw

Minor

• Graypaw

Mentioned

• Lionheart
• Tigerclaw
• Bluestar
• Dustpaw
• Sandpaw
• Halftail
• Unnamed ShadowClan warrior