Chapter 3
THE BANDITS talked and drank well into the night. They reduced the deer and rabbits to a pile of bones which they threw to the dogs. The bears got some uncooked chunks of meat, the front legs and the head and neck of the deer, and proceeded to tear strips of meat and sinew off the bones with their teeth. One of the animals then trotted off to the creek and made a mess of the pool where Johanna had tried to collect water. It stood in the shallow water and dug in the sand with its claws. Then it repeatedly stuck its head in the water and nosed around. What it found there to eat, Johanna couldn’t see, but it chewed noisily and wetly.
When it got darker, Sigvald made one of the junior bandits get up to pass the prisoners mats and blankets. They were a collection of horse blankets a
