With Kallik boosting him from behind, Yakone managed to reach the top of the ravine, and immediately flopped down to rest. Kallik joined him, while Toklo, looking harassed, turned to Lusa.

“I thought I told you to stay under cover,” he snapped.

Lusa admitted to herself that she’d forgotten, but she wasn’t going to take that tone from Toklo. “I took a good look around,” she defended herself. “No wolves, no bears. Not even any scent. So what would I be hiding from?”

Toklo gave an ill-tempered grunt. Turning to Kallik, he growled, “Come on, get Yakone on his paws again. We need to move into the shelter of the trees.”

Kallik glared at him but didn’t argue. Lusa knew she understood, just as they all did, that even though Lusa hadn’t seen anything, the sooner they got away from the open ground the better. Toklo took the lead as they headed up the slope and into the woodland. Once there, he seemed to relax and strode on confidently, checking out the terrain ahead and then waiting for the others to catch up.

In spite of Toklo’s confidence, Lusa was still worried about meeting the fierce Old Grizzly that Maniitok had told them about. But she couldn’t smell any brown-bear scents, or see any scratches on the trees that warned they were entering another bear’s territory.

Yakone was growing weaker with every pawstep. Faced with a fallen tree that the others had easily hopped over, he crumpled to the ground. He made one feeble effort to get back on his paws, then collapsed again and lay still beside the smooth gray trunk.

“Toklo!” Kallik called, scrambling back over the tree. “We have to stop and rest.”

Toklo, who had drawn some way ahead, turned back. “We can’t stop,” he replied as he padded up. “We’ve hardly started. It’s not even sunhigh.”

“I don’t care!” Kallik flashed back at him. “I’m not going to force Yakone to get up again. We’re all starving and exhausted, and we need to rest.”

Toklo glared at her, his lips drawn back into a snarl. “Don’t tell me what we need! I know this place, and what we need is to move on before we run into trouble. We know there are wolves around, and an aggressive brown bear.”

Anxiety welled up inside Lusa as she heard the anger in her friends’ voices and saw them ready to lash out at each other. “Look, maybe we should—” she began.

Both Kallik and Toklo ignored her.

“Toklo, this isn’t about you all the time!” Kallik hissed. “Fine, we’ve arrived at your home, but do you think we want to die here? Soon we won’t need wolves or bears to attack us—we’ll just collapse all by ourselves if you won’t let us rest or eat.”