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“That deer was young,” Jondalar said “You could still see his spots I wonder if his da He found theanimals are always vulnerable”

“When I was a little girl, I once tried to kill a lynx withWhinney to a walk

“With a sling? How old were you?” Jondalar asked

She thought for a ht or nine years,” she said

“You could have been killed as easily as that deer,” Jondalar said

“I know He moved and the stone just bounced off It just irritated hied to roll aside and found a piece of wood and hit him with it, and he went away,” she said

“Great Mother! That was a close call, Ayla,” he said, leaning back on his horse, which caused Racer to slon

“I was afraid to go out alone for a while afterward, but that hen I got the idea to throo stones I thought if I had had another one ready, I could have hit him a second time before he came for me I wasn’t sure if it could be done, but I practiced and worked it out Still, it wasn’t until I killed a hyena that I felt confident to go hunting again,” she said

Jondalar just shook his head When he thought about it, it was a that she was still alive On the way back to their current camp, they saw a herd of animals that made Whinney and Racer pay attention: a horselike anier, which appeared to be a cross between a horse and donkey, but were a viable species of their own Whinney stopped to ss, and Racer nickered at the and looked at the horses The sound they returned was closer to a bray, but both animals seemed to be aware of their similarity

They also saw a feoatlike ani noses who preferred plains or steppes, no matter how barren, to hills or a antelope was Iza’s tote day they saw another herd of animals that bothered Ayla more than she wanted to admit: horses Both Whinney and Racer were drawn to them

Ayla and Jondalar studied them and noticed some differences between the wild herd and the aniht with them from the east Rather than Whinney’s dun-yellow color, which was most common all over, or even the rare dark brown of Racer’s coat, ray color with a white belly They all, their two included, had similar stand-up brushlike black manes and black tails, black stripes down their backbones, and black lower legs, with soenerally small horses, broad backed with rounded bellies, but the herd anihtly shorter muzzles

The herd atching Whinney and Racer with asthe herd, but this tie in return She and Jondalar looked at each other when they heard the call and saw a large stallion coreement, Ayla and Jondalar rode their horses in another direction as fast as they could Jondalar did not want Racer to be drawn into a fight with the herd stallion, and with Wolf being gone so ht be tempted to leave her and decide to live with their own land

In the next few days, Wolf spent soh her fa away frohed at a pair of otters playing in a pond that was formed by a dam built by a reclusive beaver that had quickly dived into the water when he saw theht in the bark of a tree, but not the animal itself, and smelled the distinctive racefully leap down frooats, nimbly vault up the face of an almost perpendicular cliff

Several fe thes, had corowth They had long horns that curved over their backs, very wide-set eyes, a hu around the edges, with soft, spongy, flexible soles that gripped the hard stone

Jondalar saw Ayla close her eyes as though concentrating, turning her head back and forth to better hear so this way,” she said