Between the night and the middle of the following day I had, nose to the ground, encircled the whole campsite from the dreary crumbling stone wall to the steep dunes, and so north and round once more by the west and then south again. I snapped up a rat as I made my way and then routed out and nosed through an ill buried package of human scat. Nowhere did I come upon any fresh scent of her.

At last, feeling that I made as sure as I could that the red-haired one must still be somewhere within the circuit, I started out again turning inward but then, exhausted, I laid down and fell asleep. When I awoke, it was predawn and I set out again, sniffing the ground as the long chilly lusterless daylight seeped into the sky pushing the night underground. Backwards and forwards across the open slopes I sniffed and listened till finally I found it, the human scent. The first whiff led me to the food tent. This time I steered clear making a wide quiet circle. Many scents assailed my brain. Each one distinctly separate from the other. This is hopeless, I fumed. I had no idea what scent was hers among the other humans.

As dawn closed in, the rising sun brightening in the eastern sky, I ran to the all-but-bare woods of home. When I reached the entrance to our burrow, I threw up my head and barked loudly. The only response was the clattering of disturbed owls asleep in the trees and the echo of "Rowf! Rowf!"

I hesitated, thinking... There stands another large tree on the southern slope of this forest. They call it a dead place now, solitary, untenanted these man years, a shelter for the wandering denizen of China’s highlands. A roosting place for owls and the pitiless rabbit-blinding crows that frequent the area. And our secret sanctuary if our first home ever came under attack.