Lost Creek Hollow Tiptoe Closer

Warmer temperatures held fast and for a change of pace in the wintry world, things were beginning to thaw. Some of the rudimentary streams within the Hollow, the ones that had long been frozen over with ice and thick with frost, had crackled to life once again as the warmer days clung to the earth. The days were longer, though Mordecai hardly noticed with the continuance of stress and strain. He focused on the things that were good, that they were seemingly coming out of winter whole; his children grew day by day and were already so eager to explore the world that had yet remained blocked off to them. Of course the latter of that in itself had problems of their own, but they had not yet breached his mind.

In fact, little was on his mind as he made the round of the borders. While he had instructed the others not to go it alone, he took that risk as he followed the curve of the land along the south and east sides. There it was easy to know if there were stranger creatures about — the melting snow and the mud beneath gave away even where he went. And at least there, he had never stumbled across a trace of the cougar that had terrorized them and the surrounding countryside for weeks.

Drawing in the sights as he crested a stout and rather unnoticeable hill, he paused. There he could not avoid the sights that followed the winding path down and more importantly, the figure that crossed quietly through the thinning timberline of the valley. Perhaps if not for the snow, it would have taken him longer to distinguish the mottled and dark fur and at any rate the lacking depth perception did not immediately throw out a gender.

He tested the air for a moment and finding it not in his favor, gambled with an approach that was announced with a bark.