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Back The Last Wilderness Save as PDF
Chapters (76)
  1. Also By
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Map
  6. Chapter One: Ujurak
  7. CHAPTER ONE:
  8. Chapter Two: Lusa
  9. CHAPTER TWO:
  10. Chapter Three: Toklo
  11. CHAPTER THREE:
  12. Chapter Four: Kallik
  13. CHAPTER FOUR:
  14. Chapter Five: Lusa
  15. CHAPTER FIVE:
  16. Chapter Six: Toklo
  17. CHAPTER SIX:
  18. Chapter Seven: Toklo
  19. CHAPTER SEVEN:
  20. Chapter Eight: Ujurak
  21. CHAPTER EIGHT:
  22. Chapter Nine: Kallik
  23. CHAPTER NINE:
  24. Chapter Ten: Lusa
  25. CHAPTER TEN:
  26. Chapter Eleven: Toklo
  27. CHAPTER ELEVEN:
  28. Chapter Twelve: Ujurak
  29. CHAPTER TWELVE:
  30. Chapter Thirteen: Kallik
  31. CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
  32. Chapter Fourteen: Ujurak
  33. CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
  34. Chapter Fifteen: Toklo
  35. CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
  36. Chapter Sixteen: Kallik
  37. CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
  38. Chapter Seventeen: Ujurak
  39. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
  40. Chapter Eighteen: Lusa
  41. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
  42. Chapter Nineteen: Ujurak
  43. CHAPTER NINETEEN:
  44. Chapter Twenty: Toklo
  45. CHAPTER TWENTY:
  46. Chapter Twenty-One: Ujurak
  47. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
  48. Chapter Twenty-Two: Kallik
  49. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
  50. Chapter Twenty-Three: Lusa
  51. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
  52. Chapter Twenty-Four: Toklo
  53. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
  54. Chapter Twenty-Five: Lusa
  55. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
  56. Chapter Twenty-Six: Toklo
  57. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
  58. Chapter Twenty-Seven: Kallik
  59. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
  60. Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lusa
  61. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
  62. Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ujurak
  63. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
  64. Chapter Thirty: Kallik
  65. CHAPTER THIRTY:
  66. Chapter Thirty-One: Toklo
  67. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
  68. Chapter Thirty-Two: Ujurak
  69. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
  70. Chapter Thirty-Three: Ujurak
  71. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
  72. Chapter Thirty-Four: Kallik
  73. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
  74. About the Author
  75. About the Publisher
  76. Cover

Lusa exchanged a glance with Kallik. ‘You can’t hunt the caribou,’ she explained patiently, ‘because Ujurak is one of them.’

Toklo let out a snort of disgust. ‘Then he’d better watch out!’

Without waiting for a response, he charged off up the valley after the caribou.

Chapter Six: Toklo

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CHAPTER SIX:

Toklo

Snuffing up the enticing scents of the caribou, Toklo followed their trail along the valley. Steep mountain slopes reared up on either side, while in the valley bottom the trail wound between ponds and stretches of marshy ground. Toklo gazed around him and breathed in the mountain air. This is the right sort of place for bears! He was aware of Lusa and Kallik padding after him, but he didn’t wait for them to catch him. He was concentrating too hard on his prey.

Soon the trail joined another river, the bank heavily rutted with caribou hooves. The valley twisted and turned; sometimes Toklo caught the sound of the caribou’s clicking hooves and thought he was about to see them at last, only to find that around the next bend the sound faded again.

Pausing briefly, Toklo studied the caribou hoofprints, trying to judge the speed of the herd from the depth of the prints and the distance between them. In the heart of the herd he spotted smaller prints; water flooded his jaws as he imagined bringing down a young caribou and feasting on it.

Toklo set off again, bounding faster in pursuit of the herd. Rounding yet another bend, he halted at the sight of a flat-face denning area: a group of dens made from the same neatly lopped tree trunks as the one further down the valley where he had met the little cub.

‘More flat-faces!’ he growled, a shock of disappointment running through him. ‘I thought there weren’t any here in the wilderness. But they get everywhere.’

Trotting briskly down the track towards him was another brown bear; Toklo breathed a sigh of relief as he recognised Ujurak. No matter what he had said to Lusa and Kallik, he didn’t want to mistake his friend for a caribou and kill him.

‘Hi!’ Ujurak called as he came into earshot. ‘Did you see all the caribou? Aren’t they amazing?’

Toklo ignored the question. ‘How far away are they?’ he demanded, bounding forward to meet Ujurak. ‘When did they pass through?’

‘Oh, they’re long gone,’ Ujurak replied. His eyes were sparkling; he had obviously enjoyed his brief journey with the herd. ‘You’ll never catch up with them now.’

Weasel-brain! Toklo thought to himself. We’re not just here to have fun. Don’t you want a good meal?

‘That pesky flat-face cub,’ he grumbled. ‘If he hadn’t got in the way, I would have caught a caribou.’

‘Ujurak, you’re back!’ Lusa greeted the smaller brown cub as she and Kallik padded up. ‘What was it like, travelling with the caribou?’