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expression the next morning when the off-rear wheel, sinking in a leaf-covered hole, cracked the cotter pin and lazily spun off. The team dragged the wagon on for several lengths, grinding the hub into the dirt before Dowell was able to halt them. Grimly he surveyed the damage. Then, with the sigh of long-suffering patience, he set to the job of repairing the wheel.
    It was by no means the first time that wheels had come off, and Aramina and Pell needed no instructions to search out stout limbs, and to help roll a boulder into place for the lever. Indeed it was a well-drilled operation, and Aramina and Pell had wedged two blocks under the wagon bed as soon as Dowell and Barla had levered it up. They had the wheel back on the axle when Dowell discovered that there were no more cotter pins or kingpins in the wagon. He’d used the last on the journey to Igen Cave and had no reason to replace them in the long Turn.
    “With the world and all of wood about us, Dowell?” Barla had remonstrated to cut short his flow of self-recriminations. “There’s a hardwood over there. It can’t take much time to whittle new pegs. The children can forage ahead for food and a cave. Come.” She handed him the hatchet. “I’ll help. Aramina, take a sack and one of the hide buckets. Pell, make one of your snares and set it if you cross snake spoor. Nexa, you may carry the small shovel, but don’t lose it in the woods.”
    “If you hear more about Threadfall from the dragons, Aramina, you come back to me straightaway,” Dowell added as he made for the hardwood visible from the track. “Don’t dally.”
    With a spirit of urgent adventure the three children ran up the track. For the first four switchbacks, there was nothing but forest on either side, though Pell insisted on inspecting several outcroppings of the gray rock that he felt looked promising.
    Then the logging trace started a long, straight run, which finally disappeared around a rocky outthrust. To their right, up a steep bank, the trees were sparser as the native rock intruded.
    “I’ll go look up there, ’Mina!” Pell cried, and took off just as Nexa called Aramina’s attention to the unmistakable if withered tops of redroots growing on the downside.
    Aramina saw Pell scrambling for footing on the steep and slippery bank, and elected to forage with Nexa. They had been digging for only a short while when Aramina heard Pell’s warbling, the family signal for an emergency. Fearful that he had injured himself climbing, Aramina raced back to the track.
    “I found a cave, ’Mina! I found a cave.” Pell slithered back down the bank. “A good deep one. Room for Nudge and Shove, too.” His voice reflected the jouncing his body took as he half walked, half slid the remaining distance to his sister.
    “And lost your gathering,” she said sternly, pointing to the cluster of broken bulge-nut twigs he still clutched in his left hand.
    “Oh, them.” Pell tossed the useless bits aside, stood up, and brushed the wet leaves from his leathern pants. “There’re plenty more where they . . .” He broke off, an uncertain look on his face as his hand hesitated.
    “Hmm, sprung the seams again, too,” Aramina said impatiently and, grabbing him, swung him about to see the damage the slide had done his trousers. She sighed, controlling her temper. Pell never considered risk and consequence.
    “Only the seam. Not the leather. Mother can mend it! In the cave I just found. Plenty of space.” Grinning broadly to soothe the frown from his sister’s face, he made exaggerated gestures with his arms, outlining the splendor of his discovery.
    “How far up the slope?” Aramina regarded the steep incline with a thoughtful eye. “I’m not sure Nudge and Shove could make it.”
    “They’ll make it ’cause there’s grass and water . . .”
    “The cave is damp?”
    “Nah! Dry as far in as I went.” Pell cocked his head sideways. “And I didn’t go
all
the way in, just like you always