at their departing, the small grey people in the underground doorways
watched the great shapes furtively, and made disturbed noises at each
other after they were gone. And in the little damp corridors, where the
darkness was twisty because of many roots, the tiny feet pattered
nervously, and the tiny whiskers twitched.

From the summit of a bare-topped hill, up which they had been mounting
slowly from the lower forest levels, Dusty Star paused for the first
time to look back. There, in the distance, with the morning mists lying
in white streaks along its sides, rose the great heights of Carboona
against the autumn sky. Would he ever see it again--or was he gazing at
its shining peaks and precipices for the last time? A dim fear of the
unknown crept into him--of the unseen things that lay in wait behind him
in the world. And Carboona had become, in a strange manner, his
home--his wolf-home, where, with Kiopo, he had learned those forgotten
secrets which are the medicine of the wolves. And now they were looking
at it together perhaps for the last time! As he turned away, to continue
his journey, his eyes were troubled as if they were seeking an
unfamiliar trail.

Between the forest and the prairies lay a tract of broken country full
of ravines and rocky hills. It was a barren, treeless region, where the
water-courses dried up in the summer, or shrank to muddy pools. With the
exception of a few rabbits and prairie dogs, game was scarce. Now and
then a wolf or coyote would wander across its barren buttes, scenting
the hungry air; but usually retreating with stomachs as light as when
they entered it. During the greater part of the year, the larger animals
gave it a wide berth. Indians avoided it also. They called it the Bad
Lands. But in spite of its reputation among the human kind, the beasts
had their uses for it at certain times of the year. It had seen many a
fierce battle when the wolves and coyotes followed the mating call. The
Wild Kin made their marriages there, but mostly settled their breeding
haunts far enough away. It was not a good place to be born in. But
animals hunted to the death, or those whose limbs were stiffened with
old age, knew in some mysterious way that they could crawl there to die.

But a use that was neither for mating nor dying, was one of which even
the Indians knew very little, and the reason for which even the Wild Kin
itself was in the dark.

Hunters crossing the borders of the Bad Lands