into the
radio; and as he did, he knew the answer. Loudons was in the
village, away from the helicopter, gathering tools and workers.

Nothing to do but keep on trying!

"Here they come!" Reader Rawson warned.

"How far can these rifles be depended on?" Birdy Edwards wanted
to know.

Altamont straightened, saw the second band of savages approaching
about four hundred yards away.

"Start shooting now," he said. "Aim for the upper part of their
bodies."

The two auto-loading rifles began to crack. After the first few
shots, the savages took cover. Evidently they understood the
capabilities and limitations of the villagers' flintlocks, but
this was a terrifying surprise to them.

"Jim!"--Altamont was almost praying into the radio--"Come in,
Jim!"

"What is it, Monty? I was outside."

Altamont told him.

"Those fellows you had up with you yesterday, think they could
be trusted to handle the guns? A couple of them are here with
me," Loudons inquired.

"Take a chance on it! It won't cost anything but my life, and
that's not worth much at the present."

"All right, hold on. We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Loudons is bringing the helicopter," Altamont told the others.
"All we have to do is to hold on, here, until he comes."

A naked savage raised his head from behind what might, two
hundred years ago, have been a cement park-bench and he was only
a hundred yards away. Reader Rawson promptly killed him and began
reloading.

"I think you're right, Tenant," he said. "The Scowrers have never
attacked in bands like this before. They must have a powerful
reason and I can think of only one."

"That's what I'm beginning to think, too," Verner Hughes agreed.
"At least, we've eliminated the third of your possibilities,
Tenant. And I think probably the second, as well."

Altamont wondered what they were double-talking about. There
wasn't any particular mystery about the mass attack of the wild
men to him.

Debased as they were, they still possessed speech and the ability
to transmit experiences. No matter how beclouded in superstition,
they still remembered that aircraft dropped bombs, and bombs
killed people, and where people had been killed, they would find
fresh meat. They had seen the helicopter circling about, and had
heard the blasting: everyone in the area had been drawn to the
scene as soon as Loudons had gone down the river.

But they seemed to have forgotten that aircraft carried guns,
although