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dogs to carry packs since Creation, it was assumed. Dogs were not: so important for that purpose now, since the coming of the horse. Their other use, though, was still valid, especially in a season of poor hunting. The People had long had a small, chunky sort of dog, different from the one they had used as a pack animal. Both could be used as food, but the meat type fattened well on scraps from the cooking of food for the families of the People …
    Where were the dogs of this village? Wolf could only think that the dogs always follow a band when the lodges are struck for a move. But they follow the
people
, not the lodges. The strangers of this band, then, must have left their camp, because there were no dogs. But, to leave their lodges …?
    “There are some horses,” Beaver Track pointed.
    Across the ravine, a scattered group of horses grazed peacefully. No more than ten or twelve … Those that might be left behind in an urgent situation, it appeared.
    But
what
urgent situation? Not an attack … There was no damage evident. Something from which people were dying, yet there had been others to prepare them for burial. Then, suddenly,
they
decided to leave. Had they been afraid? Of what?
Of whatever killed the others
, Wolf realized.
    A chill gripped his heart, and he was not certain that he wanted to know. At the same time, he realized that for the safety of the People, they
must
find out.

4

    V ery gingerly the three riders made their way down the slope and into the village.
    “I am made to think,” said Singing Wolf, “that we should touch nothing until we know more.”
    His voice sounded high and strained, even to himself. He had not encountered a feeling like this before. An unfamiliar spirit hovered here, one that was evil and very dangerous. The horses were skittish, snorting at the smell of death and sidestepping nervously.
    Besides that smell, though, Singing Wolf felt that there was another. He had dealt with much sickness as a holy man of the People. The spirit of every illness, his father had taught him, has its own smell. Animals were more sensitive to such things, accounting for the behavior of the horses. He had wondered, sometimes, if man had lost the keenness of smell when he learned to speak. But no, that could not be it. According to the old legends, all animals and all humans once spoke a single language. Maybe the animals had been given the gift of a sensitive nose when they
lost
the power to speak. No matter, now …
    But his nose was picking up a special scent, a completely unfamiliar one. He felt that it was related to the spirit of whatever illness … yes, it was surely a sickness that had caused this destruction. He reined his horse to a stop and the others did likewise.
    “Let us look around from here for a moment,” he suggested.
    They were among the first of the big lodges. Lodges so much like their own that Wolf felt he might have understood these people and their ways. There were differences … The shape of the doorway, the unfamiliar designs painted on the lodge skins. But the basics were there. The east-facing door, the construction of the smoke flaps, the placement of the poles. It was all familiar.
    “Look!” Beaver Track pointed to the doorway of one of the lodges.
    A moccasined foot was exposed to view. That of a man, probably, from the size. Above that, a bare calf. Wolf moved his horse a step closer, to see farther into the lodge.
    “Be careful,” urged his brother, gripping his ax.
    Wolf felt that whatever this danger, it could not be successfully faced with an ax, but he said nothing. He could see more of the man’s leg now. The color was bad, a sickly bluish hue. Unquestionably, this individual was dead. What sort of people, Wolf wondered, would leave without caring for their dead? It would be unheard of in any tribe he had ever known. A dishonor.
    The leg, he now saw, was disfigured with several wounds. Small, blackened circles, much like the holes made by the lead