Sometimes he even came up to the horse, jumped up its side, and reached the knees of Brother or Sister with his front paws or even his mouth. And each time he did, we could hear Sister Torlaa’s anxious screams.

Once we had reached the yurt and dismounted, he behaved even more strangely. Brother Galkaan had hardly set foot on the ground when Arsylang dropped down and rolled about next to him. He followed Brother around, his tail wagging and his eyes burning. Then he would jump up again, place his front paws on Brother’s shoulders, sniff and lick him, and howl and whimper. Brother tried to fend off the paws that seemed to want to grip his neck like two hands. But he also was giggling, and for that I was grateful—not only for Arsylang’s sake, but also for my own. After all, my four-legged companion, my brother-instead-of-a-brother, was acting out my own feelings toward my real brother. I, too, would have so loved to grab Brother, drop to the ground with him, and roll about! But the bashfulness that all of a sudden had risen like a whirlwind and was now almost choking me had not yet left, and so I had to wait.

Toward Sister I felt some hurt. Although I was glad that she had come back to us safe and sound, back to her yurt, her flock, and her mountains, I felt some hurt which was neither excruciating nor bitter, but nevertheless sharp like a stab: Why could she not bear Arsylang’s outburst of joy, his joyful greeting which expressed my own joy as well as the joy of the flock and the mountains? Arsylang was not only the most capable of us all, but also the most dignifi d to give voice to all our amassed, pent up joy and to offer the pent up greeting. I felt hurt by Sister and in my mind called her an idiot even though at the same time I was sensing my love for her more strongly than ever. It was her fault that, for the time being at least, the whole affair ended when Father called out and threatened the dog, and then bent over and grabbed a stone. But he no longer needed to throw the stone because the dog had already fled, and so the stone flew without heart and only vaguely in the same direction. Arsylang did not seem to have taken the threat or the stone too seriously in any case, because when Torlaa stepped out of the yurt soon afterward, the dog slinked back with all his doggish loveliness on display. But she just ran back into the yurt with more screams of fear. Somebody had to chase the dog away and keep him at a distance, as if we had strangers visiting who needed to relieve themselves. But this was true only for the first day.