Soon even the sound of the bear moving was gone and the smell – the dark odour that at last the boy smelled and should have smelled sooner – was diminished and he relaxed, almost idly picked more berries and ate them. He knew he needed more than berries and wondered why his stomach had seemed to desert him and wanted to get shed of the berries when he first saw the bear. He had as a matter of living seen bears before – although never one close as this, so close he could have reached out and touched it – yet his stomach flopped over inside his gut when he saw the bear’s face and it was all he could do to keep it from emptying. You’d think, he thought, his belly would be glad to have some berries and not be so eager to get rid of them.

Still, Leif held them down and let the canoe move away from the overhanging berries and into the current. It was still running the wrong way – heading out towards the main channel – for what he wanted, but the strength of the moving water was slackening and he knew it would soon stop moving before it started back in. So he paddled against it for a time, moving further into the inlet but slowly, and then, when the current was reduced to slack water, picking up speed until he rounded a small point and saw the end.

It was exactly what he was trying to find – a small, shallow river-creek pushing through a gravel bar into the open water. On either side there were more blackberry bushes – they seemed, indeed, to be everywhere the soil was anything but pure rock – and more important, stands of straight willows, most of them small enough to be almost tall wands, but some stood as big as his wrist and taller than he stood, which was what he was seeking.

And no bears.

He beached the canoe on the gravel and hopped out. There were odd piles of bear scat here and there, but all were old and dried out. He took the hand axe and moved into the willows. What he was after was a tall willow that was straight and about a finger’s length in diameter. When he found one he cut it off near the ground and carried it back to the canoe. There he cut it to about twice as tall as he was and used his knife to peel the bark. It was slick and gave way easily and stripping the bark only took him a short while, sitting on a large rock near the edge of the stream.