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up beside her, bracing his left forepaw against the side of the pit.
    She clambered up his shaggy back and placed her feet on his shoulders. Then she strained upward until her arms ached, but her fingers were barely brushing the lip of the pit.
    “Sorry, Urso,” she called down to him. She placed one foot on his head. “This is the only way.”
    She let herself stand there for a mere moment before she threw an elbow over the edge of the hole and dragged herself up the rest of the way, her toes getting but small purchase on the side of the pit. Finally, with a squeal of triumph, she rolled away from the pit’s edge and lay on her back, gasping.
    When she’d caught her breath, she leaned back over the pit. “I’m going to find something to get you out of there, Urso. Don’t worry.” Though she herself was panicked.
    She knew there was rope back at her father’s house, but that was an hour’s run at least. She doubted they had that much time. And anyway, the bear’s claws could not cling to a rope the way a pair of hands could. Especially if he’d injured one of them.
    “Not a rope, then,” she told herself. “What else?” She rose and went into the trees, hoping for inspiration.
    Then she saw it—a fallen tree trunk, the insides of which had been eaten out by insects.
    “A ladder,” she whispered. If it would bear Urso’s weight.
    She put her hands under the trunk and pushed. Even hollowed out it was still quite a weight. She had to rock it back and forth till it came loose from the earth that seemed to hold it. But at last she managed to roll it—slowly and with much effort—to the edge of the pit.
    Now all she had to do was maneuver it carefully into position.
    She leaned over. “Urso!” she called down.
    The bear had already been alerted by the sounds of the tree trunk being rolled. He was up on his hind legs.
    Atalanta motioned to him with her hand. “Move to one side. I’m going to slide this log down so you can climb up.”
    He seemed to understand and crouched along the far side of the pit.
    Then slowly, carefully, she tilted the log over the edge, holding on to it long enough to guide it as it slid into the hole. Luckily the end struck the bottom and seemed to fix there, leaving the rest to lean against the side of the pit. It did not reach all the way to the top but would take Urso more than halfway. And halfway was all he would need.
    The bear walked along the side of the log and sniffed at it, as if calculating whether it would carry his weight.
    “Come on, you slowpoke, hurry. There’s no knowing when that hunter will return.” Though she suspected it was more than one. One person could not have dug that hole—or expect to get a bear out of it.
    Urso started to climb, limping whenever he had to put pressure on the injured paw.
    “You can do it,” Atalanta called.
    He growled and kept moving.
    Suddenly they heard a distant sound. For a moment they both froze.
    “Wrong way, Goryx!” a voice called. “The pit’s over here.”
    “I don’t think so,” came the rough answer. “I recognize this rock.”
    A third voice laughed. “That’s because it reminds you of your own thick head!”
    Atalanta unfroze first. “Hurry, Urso!” she cried in a desperate whisper. “The hunters!”
    Urso had managed only a few feet, for every three inches forward, he seemed to slip back two.
    It was clear to Atalanta that he wouldn’t make it out. Not in the time they had left.
    “I’ll get you more time,” she told him, and stood. “You just keep climbing. Then run away from here, as fast as you can.” Fingering the knife at her belt, she looked toward the path where the voices were coming from. She hadn’t been able to save her father, but she was certainly going to save her brother-bear.

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE HUNTERS
    C ROUCHING LOW, ATALANTA GLIDED silently through the forest. She could hear the hunters coming closer.
    “We wouldn’t be having this trouble if we’d stuck to our usual