his house to make a parka, maybe boots, and maybe other stuff." said Jack, almost in tears, with a sigh. "Or... she went and found a shelter somewhere." said Max. "But there is no scent of her any where, Max." "Or, maybe..." "Enough! We don't need to argue over what happened to Aleu. Let's just hope it was something good. Notice I said 'hope', not argue." "And if it wasn't?" "Then we won't talk about it." "About the human scent, why aren't we doing anything about it." Silence. A rabbit hopped out of the grass. "Charge?" "At what?" "I don't know, at that rabbit, at the fact that humans are suddenly nearby, maybe?" "Yes, let's leave here. I don't want to be around humans." "Then we shall leave." Jack led the pack towards the Bering Sea. They heard a wolf yelp from Sam's pack. "Humans. Don't they understand that we are living things just like they are?" "Apparently not." "But I don't think that that wolf is dead. I didn't hear a gun shoot. Probably a trap. The wolf is probably bruised and that is it." "It doesn't matter. We should get some rest." "Yes. Sleep would be good." The pack lay down. Kiba chomped at a mosquito. Misty stared at the starry sky. Molly glanced around at various things. Kali glared at a lemming. Shadow watched a stream trickle towards a river that roared towards the Bering Sea. Jack sighed, thinking in his head, "Today went by fast. Yesterday took forever. Is it ever going to be a steady pace?" Ginger also noticed this. The days were getting weirder, and weirder. More and more humans, less and less caribou, it was even getting slightly hotter than it usually does. "Life is bizarre." said Ginger to herself.

The weeks went by, the snow melted away, the sun stayed up longer, and it warmed up to Alaska summer temperature. Misty darted between the legs of a running caribou, Jack hung from its neck, and Slash herded it towards the rest of the pack. The caribou saw its doom. "I hate being a caribou. We moved all the way here to St. Lawrence Island, and all for nothing." the caribou thought to itself. A gun shot and the caribou fell to the ground. Every wolf darted off towards the woods. "Man, I'm glad I'm not a caribou." "Har...har." "Well, Molly, you wouldn’t want to be one either, would you?" "No, but not a wolf, a lemming, a rabbit, a bear, a..." "Ok, ok. I didn't ask for three billion answers. In fact, I only wanted one answer. You said no. So why the 'Har, har.'?" "Anyone up to ..." "No. No one wants..." "I am." said Kali. Kiba rolled her eyes and Ginger said "Leaf hunting was out before even I was born." Robert's eyelids drooped as his eyes turned sharply to the left. Kali showed that she changed her mind.

The summer went by fast. The beginning of fall wasn't what a wolf would wish for. They had pushed their territory borders farther out, as well as Thunder's pack, but Garret and his pack didn't know that Sam's pack had disintegrated. It was both harder and easier to stay hidden from the alarming increase in the human population on the east side of St. Lawrence Island. Because it was fall, there were many leaves on the ground, which made it hard to walk quietly in the forest. But in the older part of their territory, there was little forest. The advantage of being in the forest is that there are more shadows to hide from humans. Still, it was dangerous everywhere. "Plane hunting", as the humans called it, was becoming more and more popular. The number of human houses was great, now, in the eastern half of Jack's pack. They wanted to keep their territory boundaries the same, unless widening them was possible, so that just in case they pick up Aleu’s scent in the new town, they could reach her. But her scent clearly wasn't anywhere in the eastern half of Jack's territory. It was in the western half.

Jack ordered Molly to keep the rest of the pack in order while he, Ginger, Misty, and Max go in to try to find Aleu and bring her back.

The "search party" was having good luck. Other than almost losing their lives with some old lady that was married to a guy with guns piled up in his living room. They guessed that she just couldn't put up with wolves being within a twenty foot radius of her clothes that were drying on a clothes line. Their luck was just high enough at that moment that the gunman forgot to load his gun before exploding out his front door with his face redder than ribbon on a Christmas wreath. He must've told his friend who was "owning" Aleu, because as they were following their noses, right towards the correct house, a human casually opened his door and sat down in a camping chair, smoking a pipe, next to his dog. Jack called the dog over. At first, the English Setter refused, but Jack knew how to deal with these kinds of dogs. Mainly because he had lived with Niju for so long. "I know you have someone in there. Where is she?" "Why do you care?" The human had apparently fallen asleep, because his pipe dropped out of his mouth and he started to snore. "She is the leader of my pack." said Jack, rolling his eyes. "Why should I let a wolf like you into my house?" "Because you let the wolf that is in there in there. How am I different?" Silence. For a moment. "I suggest you let me in and let me bring the wolf that is in there out." The English Setter just glared at Jack. Until Jack attacked him. "Living the life of a wolf is ... hard to describe, I guess." said Jack as the Setter slinked off with his tail between his legs.

Jack came out with Aleu by his side. In two milliseconds, all the tails went wild. As did the tails of the rest of the pack as the search and rescue party returned. Except Splash, a lone wolf who wanted a pack to live with, who watched from the distance. He had discovered the pack at the end of summer, and has been waiting for the right time to approach. He decided now was the best time that will ever be. Maybe. He had to make a quick decision. "Now, or never?" He chose now.

The pack saw Aleu staring off into the bushes. At the completely black Splash. "H-hello." he said. "Who are you, and what do you want?" asked Aleu. Splash looked down and off to the right. Almost behind him. "Never mind." he said and trotted briskly off. Later that night, Aleu went off to try and find him. "Sorry." "No, really. I mean, I can help. But first tell me your name." "My name is Splash. I have an interesting background, though." "How? And is that why you're here?" "No, that’s not why I'm here. But how my background is weird is that my dad and everyone on his side of the family are Portuguese Water dogs, my mom was a wolf/Soft Coated Wheaton Terrier mix, and so was my grandma. My grandpa is a purebred Wheaton. But somehow, there is quite a bit of wolf, not just from my mom. And I don't know where it came from." "Oh. And the reason you are here...?" "I'm a lone wolf looking for a pack to live with."

“Oh…” Aleu had never encountered this decision before. Was she supposed to let a lone wolf into a pack, or was she to turn him or her away? Turning a homeless wolf away sounded rude so… “OK.”

“I will not allow anyone to be at all rude or unkind to him. He was a lone wolf, but now we must accept him into our pack. Do you have anything to say, Splash?” Splash shook his head.

The weeks went by, weeks turned into months, and before anyone knew it, winter was upon them. Snow came, sometimes days or even weeks at a time. It was one of the worst winters they had ever faced, and they were running out of food. All the animals they ate had somehow disappeared and their cave had little leftovers. The other packs had moved away, so Aleu’s pack had no one to share with. They were growing skinny. They, too, might have to move away, thought Scylla. Many other wolves were thinking the same, but Aleu was determined that there was another way out of this winter. Aleu had one other wolf in the pack thinking the same as her. It was Jack.

“There can’t be any other way out.” “There has to be a way.” “How?” “Aleu?” “I’m with Jack. Now let me ask you a question. How can there not be a way out?” “Even Nava never found a way out of a winter like this. He moved us.” “Am I Nava?” “Aleu, come here.” Scylla led Aleu away from the rest of the pack. “Aleu, this is your big chance.” “My big chance for what?” “The pack doesn’t put all their trust in you. If you take this chance and we survive the winter without moving, you will earn their trust. But there is always the chance that we will not survive. If we move, they will most likely still distrust you. If we move, there is a ninety-five percent chance that they will still distrust you. The other five percent is that they do trust you for making the decision to move. If we stay, there is a fifty percent chance that we survive the winter and you earn their trust, the other fifty percent is that we die. You are the leader. You make the decision.” “Ninety-five is bigger than fifty, but fifty is bigger than five.” “Yes.” “Let’s go to sleep, and I’ll think about it.”

The next morning, Aleu announced her decision. “We stay.” The pack went into a loud murmur that lasted quite a long time. Someone asked Aleu “What will we do for food?” “There must be something to eat. And besides, today isn’t that bad, so we better get hunting. Everyone will hunt.” “What?” the pack asked in unison. “Everyone will hunt and we better get started. Now.” Again, the pack went into a loud murmur. “No, I mean right now.” “As a group?” “Yes. Everyone, let’s go!”

The pack broke out into a perfect formation, at a perfect speed. Fast enough that they will cover much ground, but slow enough to conserve energy for the rest of the day and in case they encounter any danger. It took a while, but they eventually found the scent of a nearby buffalo. With a group this big, they could easily take down a buffalo. On their way towards victory over the buffalo, them taking down the buffalo rather than it taking them down, they caught scent of a herd of elk. Three wolves, Robert, Slash, and Misty, took the buffalo back to their food