Her despair vanishing like mist in the sun, Lusa sprang to her paws. Then she realized a problem. There are no flat-faces here . . . not that I’ve seen, anyway. How will I find a flat-face healing den?

Lusa bounded on up the slope until she came to a very tall fir tree. Sinking her claws into the bark, she climbed it quickly, until the trunk grew narrower and swayed under her weight.

“Bear spirit, please watch over me,” she prayed as she climbed even higher, more slowly now, up and up through spindly branches that bent and threatened to send her crashing to the ground. At last she reached the top of the tree and clung there with the wind buffeting her fur and making the trunk lurch with each gust.

A huge view opened up in front of her as she poked her head above the forest canopy. Rolling forested hills stretched in every direction. Rivers wound a course through the trees, flowing into lakes that reflected the blue of the sky and sparkled in the sunlight. Snow-topped mountains reared up on one side, while far away in the opposite direction she could just make out the flat plains that they had crossed on the firesnake.

“It’s amazing!” Lusa breathed, almost forgetting her precarious perch at the top of the tree. She remembered this view from the Sky Ridge at the beginning of her journey, but now it felt as if she was seeing it with new eyes, because there was something very particular she was looking for. Her heart beat faster as she caught sight of a huge flat-face denning place in the middle of the forest. BlackPaths cut through the trees toward it, encircling the mass of white dens.

With so many flat-faces, there must be a healing den!

Judging the distance, she thought it would take her about a day to walk to the denning place. And another day to get back. Her belly churned at the thought of traveling alone through the forest, but she swallowed her fears. I’ve got to try. There was no way Yakone could walk that far, Kallik wouldn’t leave him, and Toklo had to stay to guard them both in case the wolves found them again and grew aggressive over prey.

From her perch, Lusa took one more careful look at the forest below her, searching for landmarks. I can follow that river nearly all the way . . . and if I head straight for the mountains, I’m bound to reach the riverbank. Then she scrambled down the tree and raced back to where she had left the others. As she hurried toward them, she saw that Toklo had caught a squirrel, which he and Kallik were sharing; Yakone was still unconscious. To Lusa’s relief their quarrel seemed to be over.