in
this world. Fur didn't bring much of a price any more, and he couldn't
get it in as he had when he was younger. His wants were simple, but
there was a certain rock-bottom minimum he had to have. Too, the winters
were starting to bother him a little, the arthritis in his hands was
getting worse every year, times he hardly had the strength in his left
hand, which was the worst, to hold an ax. Another five, ten, years and
it would be the Pioneers' Home for him--if he did not get stove up or
sick sooner and die right here in the cabin, too helpless to cut wood
for the fire. He had helped bury enough others, bed and all when they
didn't come down the river at breakup and somebody had to go up and look
for them, to know it was possible.

The other world was milder, it had game and fur--good fur, too, from the
looks of it, something new that could lick any mutation or synthetic on
the market, and the income tax had still left a few fellows who could
pay through the nose to see their women look nice.

And, the country was new. He'd never thought he'd have a crack at a new
country again, a new, _good_ country. Often, he'd thought how lucky
people had been who were born a hundred and fifty years ago, moving into
an easy, rich country like the Ohio or Kentucky when it was new, instead
of the bitter North.

The Harn would be a nuisance--Ed did not think of it as the Harn, of
course, but just as "they"--but he supposed he could find a way to clean
them out. A man generally could, if varmints got troublesome enough.

And the man in forest-green whipcord, well, he _could_ have been just an
hallucination. Ed did not really believe in hallucinations, but he had
heard about them, and there was always a first time.

Ed sighed, looked at the clock, measured the bottle with his eye--still
better than three quarters full.

All in all, he guessed, he'd leave the door into the other world open.

He put old Tom out and went to bed.

* * * * *

The first order of business seemed to be to get better acquainted with
the Harn, and first thing in the morning he set about it. He took the
rabbit out of the live box and tethered it in a spot in the other world
close to the hole, where raw earth had been exposed by a big blowdown,
sweeping the ground afterward to clear it of tracks.

Getting better acquainted with the Harn, though, did not mean he had to
have it come in and crawl in bed with him.

Before go