he best that I
can." He glanced up to find Ashe surveying him intently, but as usual
there was no readable expression on the other's brown face.

"The first thing to do is get the wolf's hide," Ashe said briskly. "Then
bury the carcass. You'd better drag it up here to work on it. If her
mate is hanging around, he might try to jump you."

Why Ashe should think it necessary to acquire the wolf skin puzzled
Ross, but he asked no questions. His skinning task took four times as
long and was far from being the neat job the shock-haired man of the
record tape had accomplished. Ross had to wash himself off in the stream
before piling stones over the corpse in temporary burial. When he pulled
his bloody burden back to the cave, Ashe lay with his eyes closed. Ross
thankfully sat on his own pile of bracken and tried not to notice the
throbbing ache in his arm.

He must have fallen asleep, for when he roused it was to see Ashe crawl
over to mend the dying fire from their store of wood. Ross, angry at
himself, beat the other to the task.

"Get back," he said roughly. "This is my job. I didn't mean to fail."

Surprisingly, Ashe settled back without a word, leaving Ross to sit by
the fire, a fire he was very glad to have a moment or so later when a
wailing howl sounded down-wind. If this was not the white wolf's mate,
then it was another of her kin who prowled the upper reaches of the
small valley.

The next day, having provided Ashe with a supply of firewood, Ross went
to try his luck in the marsh. The thick drizzle which had hung over the
land the day before was gone, and he faced a clear, bright morning,
though the breeze had an icy snap. But it was a good morning to be alive
and out in the open, and Ross's spirits rose.

He tried to put to use all the woodlore he had learned at the base. But
it was one thing to learn something academically and another to put that
learning into practice. He was uncomfortably certain that Ashe would not
have found his showing very good.

The marsh was a series of pools between rank growths of leafless willows
and coarse tufts of grass, with hillocks of firmer soil rising like
islands. Ross, approaching with caution, was glad of it, for from one of
those hillocks arose a trail of white smoke, and he saw a black blot
which was probably a rude hut. Why one should choose to live in the
midst of such country he could not guess, though it might be merely the
temporary camp of some hunter.

Ross