of the larger trees or on the ground near the fire ring. Big Hunter crawled into his shelter behind the log and gestured for Kit to join him. With reluctance bordering on dread, Kit acquiesced, thinking that any refusal on his part would only delay the inevitable, or worse, rouse the suspicions of his host, who might then take steps to forestall any escape.
So Kit crawled into the bower to wait. The problem was that the interior of the rude, branch-constructed hut was much more comfortable than he imagined possible. The floor was carpeted with alternating layers of moss and leaves covered by dry grass; there were even pillows—animal pelts rolled into bags and stuffed with grass and, of all things, fragrant lavender. The excitement of the day—which had begun a long time ago and far, far away—combined with a good stint of healthy exercise, served to smother Kit’s resolve. He drifted off to sleep on clouds of lavender and was soon dreaming of lambs frolicking in sun-dappled meadows.
He woke again with the sound of a whippoorwill singing in a nearby tree. Otherwise the camp was peaceful and quiet, and dawn, he guessed, still some way off. Big Hunter was sound asleep, his breathing deep and regular, so Kit gathered himself and, creeping as quietly as he could, backed from the hovel and, rather than cross the camp, slipped around the side and directly into the forest behind.
Once away from the camp, he paused; the moon was low, but there was still enough light to navigate his way without stumbling around. He listened for the river, then followed the sound until he reached the stony bank. The rounded stones appeared like humps of overgrown mushrooms, grey and white in the soft moonlight, the water gleaming all slithery and silver.
It was, Kit decided, merely a matter of retracing the route back through the valley until he reached the place where he had entered the gorge. He had a fair distance to travel, but time enough if he did not dally along the way.
He started out with a determined step and hope in his heart, his pace quick but measured. Fed and rested, his spirits high, he covered ground at a respectable rate, pausing now and again to listen for any sound of pursuit. Each time he continued with greater assurance that he had made good his escape and would reach the meeting place in reasonable time, counting on the fact that it would be morning by the time he approached the vicinity and he would recognise the turning when he saw it again in the daylight.
Assuming, that is, he lived long enough to see the light of another day.
CHAPTER 30
In Which Kit Embraces the Stone Age
Ignorance may be bliss, but it is still ignorance, and Kit, hoofing through the night-dark valley, had not the slightest twinge or premonition of the danger into which he had blithely wandered. To give him a little credit, Kit saw the three black humps beside the river, but took them for stones—one large, two slightly smaller: boulders in a field of boulders strewn along the river path. It was not until an unseen fourth stone, off to his right, reared up on its hind legs that he realised his mistake.
By then he had already passed the point of no return.
It was a bear, black as an ink stain, beady little eyes glinting in the wan light of a fading moon as it swung its head left and right to pick up the human scent that had aroused it from a midnight snack of crayfish and clams. There were, as Kit now understood, four of them—a mother and three half-grown cubs. And without knowing it, he had made the most elementary error—the one transgression every schoolkid on a field trip is warned against committing in the wild: never get between a mother and her young.
Scenting him, the bear gave out a half-strangled cry of alarm as it stood motionless. A scant few-dozen paces across the field of stones, the mother bear’s massive head came up sharply in response to her bawling infant. The great dark muzzle swung first one way and then the other as the creature homed in on him, nostrils twitching. Then, rising on its hind legs, it spread its massive arms, opened its toothy maw, and loosed with a roar to shake the stars from the heavens. The raw, feral snarl of an enraged meat-eater loosened Kit’s bowels, instantly giving the animal a new