Mickey poked his black-and-white nose out of the cave. His ears were pricked high with excitement. “Lucky, come and see what I’ve found!”

Lucky trotted over curiously to where Mickey was nosing at small objects on the cave floor. He heard Bella walking after him.

Mickey’s eyes were shining brightly. “Do you see?”

“I’m not sure.” Lucky wished he could be as enthusiastic as Mickey, if only to make the whole day more cheerful for everyone, but all he could do was paw at a piece of twisted metal, cocking his head to the side. “What are they?”

“Bella, you see it, don’t you?” Mickey nudged a stone bowl, making it roll and clatter to Bella’s feet. “These are longpaw things!”

Bella cocked her head and gave a happy bark. “You’re right! Look, here’s one of those skin covers that they would put over their bottom paws before they went for walks.” She picked it up delicately in her teeth and showed it to Lucky.

“So what?” asked Lucky, bewildered. “We’re not very far from the city—”

“Don’t you see?” yelped Mickey. “When the water washed the mud away, and showed us all this—it wasn’t the River-Dog at all. It was our longpaws—they’re still watching over us!”

Lucky gave a soft growl of disapproval. He hadn’t always been very good at keeping in touch with the Spirit Dogs, and sometimes he’d been less than respectful, but what Mickey was saying sounded like an outright insult to the River-Dog.

Still, the others didn’t seem to notice that. They were beginning to crowd around Mickey. Martha, still favoring her injured leg, limped over as fast as she could. When she’d had a thorough sniff at the longpaw relics, she confirmed exactly what Lucky had been thinking.

“You shouldn’t doubt the River-Dog, Mickey,” she said. “He’s been good to us.”

“He made Bruno sick,” grunted Mickey, but he didn’t meet her eyes.

“I’m not sure either.” Daisy sat back on her haunches, inspecting Mickey’s haul. “If our longpaws were near, wouldn’t they come to get us?”

“Maybe they can’t,” objected Mickey, gathering the longpaw things into a tidy pile. He had moved his own longpaw glove to lie with them, Lucky noticed. “Maybe this is their way of telling us they still care, even though they can’t come for us. And they’ve given us shelter, and water! See? Even the hollow in the floor looks like my old longpaw bowl that they gave me to drink from!”

“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” muttered Lucky, and Sunshine and Daisy gave him uncertain looks.

“And I still trust in the River-Dog!” declared Martha firmly.

But Mickey showed no sign of being swayed by her argument. “They’re protecting us,” he growled, “and they’re watching over us. That means they’ll come back!”

“Oh, Mickey—do you really think so?” Sunshine yipped.

Daisy barked excitedly. “Perhaps it is true! Yes, maybe the longpaws still want to keep us safe!”

Lucky shook his head as the two small dogs bounced and yapped with happiness. They clearly wanted to believe that Mickey was right, that the longpaws were looking after them even from far away. He sighed to himself. There seemed to be no convincing these Leashed Dogs that they were on their own now. He might have said this out loud, but Bella nudged his shoulder before he could.