The guard returns from hunting and announces that the geological research team is gone for a ten-day trip to Alkarash Gorge and he himself will be absent for two days. While the three can stay in the guard's hut, he has no keys to the main houses or the storage. Chuk, Gek and their mother must now survive the next ten days in this wilderness all by themselves, with only the meagre supply that they have brought with them.