Great Bear Lake by Erin Hunter Page B

as if the trunk was about to break.
    Suddenly the tree lurched to one side. Toklo toppled sideways; his hind legs dangled over the surface of the water while he clung on with his forelegs wrapped around the trunk.
    â€œHang on, Toklo!” Lusa leaped back onto the trunk and began making her way along the wildly bouncing tree.
    Toklo scrabbled with his hindpaws, but he couldn’t get a grip on the slippery wood. Lusa reached him, sank her teeth into his scruff and hauled upward, digging her claws into the trunk. For a few terrified heartbeats she thought his weight would pull her into the river, but at last he managed to get one hindpaw, then the other, up onto the trunk.
    â€œOkay!” he gasped. “Give me some room.”
    Lusa let go his scruff. She could see real fear in Toklo’s eyes, and wondered why he was so terrified of deep water. It was such a strange thing for grizzlies to be afraid of. Unable to turn around on the narrow trunk, she edged backward and Toklo followed her, breathing hard. Lusa kept her gaze locked with his, as if she could hold him steady and draw him to safety with her eyes. The creaking sound came again, louder now, and she braced herself for the trunk to crack and pitch them both into the river.
    â€œLusa, you’ve made it. You can jump down now.” Ujurak’s voice came from behind her.
    Lusa looked down to see the grassy bank beneath her. She leaped off beside Ujurak, stumbling because she had to jump backward. Toklo, still over the water, tottered again and letout a grunt of fear. Ujurak sprang up beside him and steadied him with his shoulder.
    The tree trunk rolled underneath them and started to crash down into the river. Water surged up; Ujurak jumped to safety but Toklo slipped, clinging to the crumbling edge of the bank while his hindquarters dangled into the stream.
    â€œI can’t hold on!” he yelped.
    Lusa reached over and fastened her teeth in the thick fur on his shoulder. Ujurak grabbed him on the other side and they heaved together. Scrabbling with his hindpaws, Toklo pushed himself upward and collapsed ungracefully on the bank.
    Lusa padded a few pawsteps up the bank and looked around. She was standing on a narrow strip of grass on the edge of a stone path; as she watched, a red firebeast roared by, filling the air with its noise and harsh smell. The bright glare of its eyes flashed across Lusa and was gone. Beyond the stone path, a grassy bank led up into more trees.
    â€œWhich way now?” she asked Ujurak. She felt exhausted; every muscle in her body ached and her belly was bawling with hunger. But she knew that they couldn’t stay here, so close to the firebeasts.
    Ujurak’s eyes were dark and desolate, and he did not reply.
    Anxiety clawed at Lusa’s belly. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œWhy were there no fish in the river?” Ujurak whimpered. “Where have they gone?”

CHAPTER FIVE
Toklo
    Relief surged through Toklo as he dragged himself away from the river and onto a narrow strip of grass alongside a BlackPath. Beyond the BlackPath, a tree-covered slope led steeply upward. A few bearlengths farther away from the river, Ujurak and Lusa were waiting for him, their fur buffeted by the wind of the flat-faces’ firebeasts as they roared past.
    Instead of joining them, Toklo shook earth from his pelt, then flopped down again, panting, on the grass. He had hated crossing the hungry river on the fallen tree trunk, but he hated swimming even more. Ujurak liked it, but Ujurak was strange in a lot of ways, and as for Lusa…what did she know about being a brown bear? Toklo was furious that Lusa was better at swimming than he was, and more furious still that she had helped him, as if he were a feeble cub who couldn’t manage on his own. He wouldn’t let her know how scared he had been.
    Oka had told him that the spirits of dead bears drifted down the river to a faraway land where they could be