Lucky didn’t answer and Mickey brushed past him, stepping beneath the overhang, trailing his muzzle over the ground, stopping to sniff deeply or lick the occasional clump of dirt or pebbles. Lucky watched him, noticing the scuffle of paw marks in the dirt. He tried to match them to different Pack members. There were large, heavy imprints that he thought could have been Martha’s, but the rest were unclear. A smudge of small prints cut through some other marks, then vanished in a muddle of soil: Sunshine? Daisy? It was pointless trying to guess.

Lucky could scarcely bear to lift his head. He had made a point of waking the others before the Sun-Dog reached its highest point, leading them back to the Pack’s camp. As Wiggle had whimpered about his sore paws, Lucky had raised the pup’s spirits by telling him tales of Packmates to play with, and more food than he could eat. It hadn’t exactly been the truth—the Pack had complained about the grainy soil and absence of prey—but he had hoped they would have settled in and found some by now.

“You’ll love the Pack,” Lucky had told the pups. “Martha will teach you how to swim and Fiery is a great hunter. You’ll learn a lot from him.” It had twisted his gut to talk of the Pack, but what choice did he have? He had to make sure that the pups took to their new home. Without the safety of other dogs, they would be dead in days; he was sure. That was assuming that the Pack even agreed to take the young dogs. Lucky hadn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility that they would not. But surely, even if the Pack didn’t want Lucky back, they would never refuse these motherless pups.

How could the Pack just have vanished? Lucky thought with a shiver. The abandoned shelter looked dark and empty beneath the overhang without the flurry of other dogs. Wiggle scampered closer, wide-eyed.

“You said it was safe,” he yipped, his short tail hanging between his legs. “It doesn’t look very safe to me.”

“I know; I’m sorry,” Lucky replied. “When we left the whole Pack was here. We should be able to pick up their scents; we can follow them.”

But in his head, he added: Do these pups have the strength to keep going? And could there be danger nearby? Is that why the Pack seems to have left in such a hurry?

Lucky swallowed a whimper and rose abruptly to his paws, shaking off the sense of dread that coursed through his tired limbs. He approached Wiggle, licking the top of the pup’s head.

“The camp has been moved,” he told him, “but we’ll find it—won’t we, Mickey?”