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The shelter had a front porch that was so close to the edge of The River, a person could dive into water from it The shelter was called River Front and faced south It extended froback around on itself so close, it would have joined at the neck of the loop it forhland between Though it appeared to be a habitable shelter, no Cave lived there, though travelers, especially those on rafts, sometimes stopped off The water was a little too close, and it sometimes overflowed into the shelter when The River flooded

The Ninth Cave didn’t stop at River Front, but climbed back up the cliff behind the shelter The trail continued north, then curved around toward the east About aRiver Front, the trail headed down a fairly steep grade to the valley of a s the muddy streambed, Joharran stopped and everybody rested while he waited for Jondalar and Ayla Several people made small fires to boil water for a hot tea So food, especially those with children, and had a snack

“We need to make a choice here, Jondalar,” Joharran said “Which way do you think we should go?”

Because The Riverclose to cliff walls on first one side and then the other, it was sohlands To reach the next site, however, there was another possibility

“Froo,” Jondalar said “If we follow this trail across the top of the cliffs, we’ll have to clihland for about half the distance we’ve already coain until we come to another little stream It usually has water, but it’s shallow and easy to cross Then we have another steep cli The River, then down again The River runs through the rassy field there, the floodplain We’ll stop and visit with the Twenty-ninth Cave, probably overnight”

“But there’s another way to go,” Joharran said “The Twenty-ninth Cave is called Three Rocks because they have three shelters, not right next to each other, but spaced around The River and the large floodplain Two of them are on this side, the third is on the other side of The River”

Joharran pointed to the slope ahead “Instead of cli this, we can turn east to The River It turns north ahead and you have to cross to the other side because the water runs right next to the cliffs on this side, but there’s a long, shallow stretch that’s easy to get across And the Twenty-ninth Cave keeps stepping-stones there, as we do at the Crossing We go along the other side for a while, then The River turns east again and crowds the cliffs on the other side, so you have to cross back over, but it spreads out and gets shallow again and that crossing also has stepping-stones We can stop at two of the shelters on this side to visit, but we have to cross over again to get to the third and biggest one, because that is probably where we’ll stay, especially if it rains”

“If we go that e have to cli water,” Jondalar finished for him “What do you think would be the best ith the horses and the pole drags?”

“It’s easy to cross rivers with the horses, but if it’s very deep, the et hich ain,” Ayla said “On our Journey, we had the poles attached to the bowl boat, so it always floated up e had to cross rivers But didn’t you say we have to cross The River at least once anyway?”

Jondalar walked behind Racer’s pole drag “I was thinking, Joharran If we can get a couple of people to walk back here behind the horses and lift up the ends of the poles just enough to keep theetting anything wet”

“I’m sure we could find people to do that There are always a few young h the water whenever there’s a crossing anyway I’ll go ask around,” Joharran said “I think most people would rather not climb any ”

When Joharran left, Jondalar decided to check Racer’s lead rope He stroked the horse, gave hirain that he had in a pouch Ayla s attention to Wolf, who came to see why they stopped She felt the special bond she and Jondalar had formed on their Journey Then it occurred to her that they had another They were the only people who understood the connection that could develop between a person and an animal

“There is another way to go upriver … well, two“One is to pole up by raft, but I don’t think that would work too ith the horses The other is to go along the top of the cliffs on the other side of The River You have to take the Crossing, and it’s actually easier to go all the way to the Third Cave and start froood path to the top of Two Rivers Rock that continues as a trail across the highland It’s more level than this side, only a few minor dips There aren’t as many tributaries on that side of The River, but if you plan to stop at the Twenty-ninth Cave, you have to coain That’s why Joharran decided to stay on this side”

While they rested, Ayla asked about the people they were going to visit Jondalar described the unusual arrangement of the people of the Twenty-ninth Cave of the Zelandonii Three Rocks consisted of three separate settlements of stone shelters in three separate cliffs that for river, all within a mile and a half of each other

“The Histories say that they used to be separate Caves, nu words, and there were more than three,” Jondalar explained, “but they all had to share the sahts, arguing about which Cave could use what, and when I guess it got rather bitter, so with each other Then the Zelandoni of South Face got the idea to join together into one Cave, work together and share everything If a herd of aurochs h, it wouldn’t be the hunters of all the different Caves going after the together”