Great Bear Lake by Erin Hunter Read Free Book Online

on either side, speckled with thick, leafy bushes. A warm breeze blew into Lusa’s face, carrying the scent of beetles and worms and other tasty things, but she didn’t want to ask to stop in case Ujurak lost his fragile trail.
    They followed the track as it curved around the foot of the hill. On the other side the ground fell away until they could look down across wooded slopes, fading into the distance. Way below, Lusa spotted the gleam of a river running through the trees, and beyond it a stone path, with tiny glittering specks that she knew were firebeasts racing up and down. They were so far away that she couldn’t hear their roaring.
    The sun had begun to slide down the sky by the time the cubs rounded a shoulder of the hill and came face-to-face with a tumble of rocks and earth, shaggy with ferns and grasses. The path forked; one part led back toward the mountains, while the other zigzagged across the downward slope and into the forest. Toklo, who had taken the lead, came to a halt, growling softly in his throat. He stretched out his neck, sniffing the air as if trying to decide which way to go.
    Lusa turned to Ujurak. “Is there a sign?”
    Ujurak trotted forward until he stood at the exact point where the track forked. He stood still and tense, his eyesflickering back and forth. Lusa clamped her jaws shut and forced herself to be quiet.
    At last Ujurak relaxed and tipped his head, inviting Lusa to join him. “Is there a sign? Can you read it?” she demanded as she bounded up to him.
    Ujurak ignored a heavy sigh from Toklo. “Yes, look.” He faced the direction that led into the mountains, pointing with one paw at a huge boulder right in the middle of the track, halfway to the top. “That’s blocking the way,” he explained. “But the other path”—he swiveled around to face the forest—“is clear, as if it’s telling us to go that way.”
    Lusa thought about that. The boulder wasn’t really stopping them from taking the upward path if they wanted to; all they would have to do was squeeze around it. But the lines gouged into its surface gave it a forbidding look, like a huge bear with an angry face. She shivered, deciding that she didn’t want to go that way anyway.
    â€œIt’s as if the spirits are warning us,” she whispered, hoping Toklo didn’t hear.
    Toklo let out a snarl. “Not you as well! Why am I stuck with two squirrel-brains?”
    But he swung around and headed along the downward track without any more argument.
    Ujurak set off after Toklo and Lusa had to run to keep up. Soon they reached the first pine trees; Lusa relaxed when she heard bear spirits murmuring in the branches above her head. Leaf-shadows dappled the ground and she felt the crackle of pine needles under her paws. Looking up, she saw crisscrossingbranches outlined against the sky. Peace flowed into her like rain filling a hollow, and she felt a sense of familiarity that she had missed up in the mountains. Already she could scent water and make out in the distance the rush of the river she had seen from the upper slopes.
    â€œToklo, do you think there will be salmon in the river?” Ujurak asked.
    â€œMight be.” Toklo still sounded grumpy. “If there are, just stay out of the way till I catch one.”
    Lusa’s belly rumbled at the mention of salmon. The last proper meal they had eaten had been a muskrat Toklo had caught in the mountains. Apart from that, on the bleak mountain ridge, they had survived on berries and insects grubbed up from the ground. Lusa had never tasted salmon, but Oka had told her how delicious it was, back in the Bear Bowl. Even better than blueberries, the grizzly had said.
    The sun was sinking, casting long shadows across the water, when they came to the river. Curiosity attacked Lusa like a tormenting fly as she realized that the path divided again, going along the bank in both