Watch Wolf

it, it was streaked with something that might have been blood.
I should bury it, too,
he thought. So he began diggingagain. After burying the foam and the rock, he peered into the back of the slot. Was there any chance, he wondered, that this crack went someplace? Could it be an escape tunnel? He felt along the walls and began to hope, for he had crawled quite a length, and the space had widened. But then his muzzle bumped up against a cold rock wall. A sickening feeling swam up in him. It was a dead end. There was no way out.
    Outside he heard the wind blowing. It seemed to be growing colder.
Well,
he thought,
there is no sense staying in the back of this rock slot.
Old Cags must sleep sometime, and if Cags were sleeping, Toby could sneak out into the pit and see if he could find his way out. The pit was deep. He knew that. But the wolves had brought him down here by a path because wolves don’t climb.
But bears do!
Toby thought. He and Burney climbed trees whenever they could find one. If he got a good look at the rock walls, maybe he could climb out of the pit.
    Carefully, he approached the opening to the rock slot.
    Another dead end! Old Cags certainly was sleeping — right by the opening. As soon as Toby peeked out, the wolf staggered to his feet, rushed toward the slot, and began snarling. Toby backed off. It was hopeless. And he could see that it was snowing much more heavily.
    Toby shook his head as if trying to better comprehend his dire situation. The snow sealed his fate, for if the snow moons had come early, the bears’ cold sleep would soon begin. Toby’s mum had told him and Burney about cold sleep. When the winter moons arrived, the bears would grow sleepier and sleepier, and their hunger would fade. The three of them would find a cozy winter den and all “lump up” together. He and Burney would nestle in their mum’s thick fur and sleep until the very end of the last winter moon.
    “But how can you not be hungry, Mum?” Toby had asked.
    “You just aren’t,” she replied.
    “But I always think about fish, the taste of salmon,” Burney said.
    “And I loved the moose liver we shared with the wolves,” said Toby.
    “And the spring onions,” added Burney.
    The two cubs had begun to name their favorite foods.
    “You just forget,” their mum replied. “You forget about food. You forget about everything, really.”
    Even me?
Toby thought now.
Will they forget about me? Do they miss me? They must know now I’m gone, got
lost or something. But if the cold comes, will they even forgetabout missing me?
    On the day Toby had been carried off, Burney had awakened from his nap. Before he even opened his eyes, he sensed that something was wrong. Very wrong!
    “Mum, Mum. Wake up!”
    “Burney, what are you doing waking me up so early from my nap? You and Toby go on and play. Let me get a bit more —”
    “Mum, Toby’s not here!”
    “What?” Bronka’s question came out more as a rumble than an actual word.
    “He’s gone, Mum. He always wakes up before me, but he’s not here now!”
    Bronka was up in a flash, galloping to the edge of the river and across the shallows to the bar. Toby couldn’t have drowned. The water was too shallow and he knew how to swim. She clambered onto the bar and looked about. Then she saw the prints — wolf paw prints! She saw the scuffle marks and even some dark fur — her Toby’s fur.
    Burney stood in fear as he watched his mother’s eyesslide back in her head. There was a horrible renting bellow. She began the most awful roaring he had ever heard. Bronka heaved a huge boulder into the river and began pounding her feet and paws.
    “My child, my cub, my cub! The wolves stole my cub! I’ll tear their heads off! I’ll tear off their legs and gouge out their eyes!”
    “Mum! Mum!” Burney cried out. He was so scared, but she could not hear him through the roaring din and the thunderous pounding of her massive feet.
    A league or more down the river, another grizzly mother heard the rage of a mother whose cub had been taken, wounded, or killed. Instinctively, she reached for her tiny cub and pressed him close to her chest.
    “Mum! Mum you’re squeezing me too hard!”
    She licked his muzzle with her warm tongue. “Hush! Hush, little cub.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
S HADOWS OF W AR
    KATRIA AND AIRMEAD HAD BEEN traveling at press-paw speed. They now were standing on the edge of the shore of the Sea of Hoolemere. The fog rolled in from the southeast across the