“I’ll catch a really good piece of prey,” Toklo replied. “A deer, if I can find one. I’ll lay several scent trails through the forest, all leading to this ravine. The wolves will follow the scent of prey, and the deer will be down there in the ravine waiting for them.”

Lusa butted Toklo affectionately with her head. “That should work!” she told him.

Yakone nodded. Kallik looked disgruntled for a moment longer, then relaxed and murmured her approval.

“Okay,” Lusa said. “There’s a lot to do and not much time to waste. Let’s get down there and set some traps.”

She led the way down the track into the ravine and looked around. What can we use that will scare the wolves but not hurt them too much?

“Thorns.” Kallik spoke as if Lusa had uttered her question aloud. “We can pull thorns off the bushes and scatter them about at the bottom of the track. The wolves will get them stuck in their pads.”

“Great idea!” Lusa said. “I can do that.”

“And we can loosen stones on the edge of the stream,” Yakone suggested. “It’ll do the wolves good to get a soaking!”

Toklo let out a snort of amusement. “I’m beginning to look forward to this,” he said. “What about brambles in the shadows of the rocks, where the wolves will trip over them?”

“And I’ll collect stones and branches to throw down at them from the top,” Kallik said.

“Great! Let’s get to it,” Lusa directed.

She padded over to a straggly thornbush growing at the foot of the ravine wall. It was hard to grip the thorns in her teeth to tear them off, and she kept snagging her pelt on the branches. But she was determined, and gradually built up a pile of thorns beside the bush.

When she turned away to transport her thorns to the bottom of the track, she spotted Yakone working patiently at the stones beside the stream.

“Don’t walk too close to the edge,” he warned her. “Half these stones will give way if you put your weight on them.”

Toklo padded past with a bundle of brambles trailing from his jaws and deposited it in the shadow of a rock. Even in daylight Lusa could hardly see that it was there.

“The wolves are going to get such a shock!” she said.

Toklo nodded. “You’ve got a good heap of thorns there,” he told her, pointing with his snout at the pile she had gathered. “But don’t scatter them until we leave. We don’t want them stuck in our pads!”

“I never thought of that!” Lusa exclaimed.

When the rest of the traps had been set, Yakone and Toklo padded up the track. Lusa scattered the thorns around the area at the bottom, where the wolves would have to pass, then followed them.