“Come with me, Lucky,” she said softly. “While the others are distracted. There’s something I want you to see.”

Lucky paced after his litter-sister as she led him out of the caves and away from their camp. There was a thin copse of trees a few paces up from the bank, where the ground was soft and wet.

“Here.” Bella stopped and sat down, nodding her head at something on the ground. She looked very solemn—almost afraid.

Lucky bent his nose to the paw prints. He felt a shiver of nerves, and couldn’t help jerking his head back, but then he sniffed again.

The paw prints were from a small dog, and that at least was reassuring. What was more worrying was that they seemed fresh, as if they’d been made only hours ago, but try as he might, Lucky could pick up almost no scent at all, just the smell of river-water. He took the deepest breath through his nostrils that he possibly could, but still there was nothing.

The print had not been made by one of his own Pack, but that was all Lucky could figure out.

It’s as if some kind of ghost dog has passed by, he thought.

But ghost dogs did not leave prints in the mud. Lucky shook his head and growled with frustration. He had no idea if the dog was still close, even, or if it was long gone and far away.

So perhaps they had better not hang around. . . .

“Lucky, I’m scared.” Bella, beside him, echoed his own thoughts too closely, and his neck prickled.

“There are other dogs nearby,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

“Bruno has been poisoned, and Martha is still hurt. Our two best fighters. And even if no one else drinks the river-water, they will probably still get sick from having nothing to drink at all! There isn’t enough water gathering in that cave—if it doesn’t rain tonight, we’ll be right back where we started. And we haven’t hunted for a while. We’re going to need food soon!”

This wasn’t just Bella’s cry of despair, Lucky realized; there was the gleam of an idea in his litter-sister’s eye. With a sense of foreboding, he licked his chops. “What are you suggesting?” he asked her.

Bella lay down on her forepaws. She gazed up at him with determined eyes. “We have to get to that other Pack’s water supply. And we have to be able to share it. We have to have water, and we have to be allowed to hunt in this valley!”

This was typical Bella thinking, thought Lucky, half in admiration and half in sheer irritation. His litter-sister always wanted to do the impossible thing, always sure she could have her way by sheer force of will. Stalling for time, he gave the prints another sniff.

Still nothing.

“Bella,” he told her, trying to keep his tone as reasonable as possible. “Don’t you remember what happened to Alfie?”

“Of course I do!”