knew that Sara was one major reason why he wanted to stay. Ever since  they took him in he and Sara were becoming closer than friends. And after last night he was 100% sure that there was something strong between them. He wanted to tell Yak, but he knew if he did then Yak would just keep yakking that he was right, which was something that always annoyed Patrick.

Yak wasn't surprised. He had always known that Patrick didn't like migratory life and he knew that whenever a chance to stay and make friends came he would take that chance. Even though Patrick didn't mention anything about Sara he still knew they liked each other and that Patrick didn't want to leave her, but he decided to keep quiet about it since they were dealing with more important issues. "I still need more time to think." was all he could say.

The two wolves were making good progress. They were following Yak's scent from when he escaped and the trail made the part of the journey relatively easy going with little obstacles or distractions, but they knew that the easy parts always came first. At around noon they came up on their first obstacle, the river. In order to continue they had to cross a river that was about 50 feet wide. Even though the river wasn't that large the current was still moving fast, there were lots of rocks, and the water was ice cold. Crossing it seemed to be impossible, but the two wolves were determined to cross. 

"Okay, I think we should try and find the shallowest area of the river that we can and cross from there." suggested Yak.

"Well how did you cross? Why don't we just take the path you took?" asked Patrick.

"There was originally a tree over there," said Yak pointing slightly up the river. "but it probably got washed away. We'll just have to cross the hard way."

Patrick agreed and the two started looking for a good crossing. After about half an hour of looking they finally found a good area.

"This is the best looking place to cross I've seen so far. And it'll probably be the best one for a long time." said Patrick.

"Okay, I guess we'll cross here, but let me go first." said Yak.

Yak then slowly and cautiously started crossing. The current was running fast, but he was able to find some footing on some rocks that were on the shallow bottom. Finally he made it across.

"There's a few loose rocks so be careful!" he shouted. 

Then Patrick started to cross. He was a little hesitant because he wasn't the greatest swimmer, but after taking a couple easy steps he started to feel more confident. Whenever he stepped on a loose rock he would pause and his heart would start racing because he thought it would give way and he would fall and be washed down with the current, but after several scares he started to loosen up. He started to think he would make it across just fine but then he stepped on an extremely loose rock which caused it to give way! Then Patrick fell over and started to flow downstream. 

"Yak! Help!"

"Don't worry Pat! I'm coming!"

Yak tried to get a hold of Patrick to pull him to shore, but he was just out of reach. Yak quickly looked around and saw a branch on the shore. He picked it up and told Patrick to grab it. After several missed attempts Patrick was finally able to get a hold of the branch, then Yak started to pull him to shore, but suddenly the ground beneath Yak gave way and he fell into the river too! Since he was a better swimmer than Patrick he was able to orientate himself quickly and he frantically started flailing his arms and legs to keep his head above the water. He caught a glimpse of Patrick whose head then went under. Yak swan up to where he saw his brother and then dived under. He saw Patrick slowly sinking deeper so he swam to him, grabbed him, and swam back up to the surface. Both wolves took in deep breaths when their heads popped up, but it getting hard for Yak to keep Patrick and himself afloat, his entire body was feeling weak from exhaustion and numbness from the cold water. Just then he spotted a branch from a tree that had fallen over into the river that was in reach. Yak quickly swam to position himself to grab the branch and, without a moment to spare, got a good hold on it, then with as much energy as he could muster he pulled himself and Patrick ashore. Both wolves collapsed on the ground and started coughing up water and taking in deep breaths. After recovering Patrick spoke up.

"I'm never going swimming again!" he said as he laughed and coughed at the same time.

Yak started laughing as well. "Fine with me! At least we're across the river, that's one obstacle down!"

After shaking off the water and drying the wolves continued on their journey. The current carried them down stream so they had to walk back up stream to continue following Yak's scent. 

5 hours of walking, sore paws, and empty stomach's later the wolves finally arrived at the base of the mountains that were separating them from their pack. The two wolves were feeling great about themselves and wanted to continue on, but their stomach's were rumbling. They hadn't eaten anything since just before the river crossing and if they wanted to cross the mountains they would need energy to do it.

"Man I'm starving!" said  Patrick. "I'm going to go find something to eat!"

"Good call! I'm getting hungry too!" 

Patrick soon stumble upon a hidden pond with plenty of fish in it. He was able to get one fish and he quickly devoured it, but it did little to relieve his hunger. 

"Screw this!" he said to himself. "I'm a wolf! I need four legged animals! Or at least something that tastes good!"

He started looking around for something decent to eat when suddenly he spotted a buck in a clearing! Patrick knew that this would probably be the only chance he would have for something decent to eat. He had hunting experience and had killed his fair share of prey before, only problem was that he never killed something as big a buck before. The largest thing he ever killed was a sheep on a farm his pack stumbled upon a few years ago. Patrick was nervous, but he knew he had to take this opportunity. He started stalking it the way his natural instincts told him to. He was within arms reach of the buck when he unknowingly stepped on a twig. The buck's head shot up and looked around. Patrick knew he had to act now or else the buck would run off. He sprang up and sank his teeth into the buck's neck the buck immediately started to flail about and desperately tried to shake the wolf loose, but Patrick had a good grip on the buck and was determined no to let it go. Blood started rushing from the bite wound on the buck which started to slow it down, and as quickly as he could Patrick finally let go of the buck and started attacking it's legs to try and get it to fall over. The stopping buck managed to land a few good hits on Patrick, but after more fierce bites the buck finally fell over and Patrick started biting it's neck to choke it. The buck was still fighting, but as Patrick continued to bite the neck the buck slowly stopped fighting and finally lay dead. When he was sure it was dead Patrick got up and studied his kill. At first he was feeling proud of himself, but soon the reality of the attack hit him. This magnificent animal that doing no harm to anyone was dead and it was because of him. Since Patrick didn't have any experience with big game he wasn't used to the feeling of killing it. He was on the verge of crying when he was able to get some sense into his brain.

"Remember, you're a wolf," he thought to himself "and when you have to eat you have to be willing to kill. That's why you killed this buck, so you and your brother wouldn't be hungry, so can have the energy to continue on. It's our natural instinct." 

After a couple deep breaths Patrick finally was able to calm down. Now all he had to do was let Yak know that he had food for both of them! But the buck was too large for him to carry by himself so he let out a howl to let Yak know that he had a kill. A few minutes later Yak appeared out of the brush, but suddenly stopped at the sight of the kill. 

"Hungry?" asked Patrick.

Yak was speechless. He had never seen Patrick with a kill as big as this.

"You killed this?" he asked.

Patrick nodded his head.

"Holy shit Pat! This is incredible! This has got to be your largest kill ever! Nice work!"

The two wolves then proceeded to enjoy their food. While they were eating Yak started asking Patrick about the kill.

"So how'd you do it?"

Patrick then explained how he killed the buck.

"I'm impressed! You were able to get that close without it knowing and you even were able to kill it one your first try! Normally most wolves aren't able to do all that on their first big kill! You've got skills! If only Mom and Dad could see you now!"

"Thanks Yak." Patrick wanted to argue that he was just lucky, but Yak always won arguments so he kept quiet.

Once the two were finally done eating they got ready for the next part of their journey, which was also the hardest, crossing the mountains to get to the coyote camp! The sun was starting to set so they wanted to get through before it got to dark and they wanted to sneak into the camp early before any coyotes woke up. 

"Alright it's getting dark, but if we hurry we'll be on the other side of the mountains before it gets do dark. That way we'll be able to sneak in early." explained Yak. "Just remember