eded new cartridges for the
big rifle. A man could live in darkness more easily than he could live
without cartridges.

The big black dogs were rising from their bed of deerskins on the
stone slab that covered the crypt in the far corner. They did not come
to meet him, but stayed in their place of trust, greeting him with
anxious, eager little sounds.

"Good boys," he said. "Good dog, Brave; good dog, Bold. Old Keeper's
home again. Hungry?"

They recognized that word, and whined. He hung up the ice-staff on the
pegs by the door, then squatted and got his arms out of the
pack-straps.

"Just a little now; wait a little," he told the dogs. "Keeper'll get
something for you."

He unhooked the net bag that held the lumicon and went to the ladder,
climbing to the loft between the stone ceiling and the steep snow-shed
roof; he cut down two big chunks of smoked wild-ox beef--the dogs
liked that better than smoked venison--and climbed down.

He tossed one chunk up against the ceiling, at the same time shouting:
"Bold! Catch!" Bold leaped forward, sinking his teeth into the meat as
it was still falling, shaking and mauling it. Brave, still on the
crypt-slab, was quivering with hunger and eagerness, but he remained
in place until the second chunk was tossed and he was ordered to take
it. Then he, too, leaped and caught it, savaging it in mimicry of a
kill. For a while, he stood watching them growl and snarl and tear
their meat, great beasts whose shoulders came above his own waist.
While they lived to guard it, the Crown was safe. Then he crossed to
the hearth, scraped away the covering ashes, piled on kindling and
logs and fanned the fire alight. He lifted the pack to the table and
unlaced the deerskin cover.

Cartridges in plastic boxes of twenty, long and thick; shot for the
duck-gun, and powder and lead and cartridge-primers; fills for the
fire-lighter; salt; needles; a new file. And the deerskin bag of
trade-tokens. He emptied them on the table and counted them--tokens,
and half-tokens and five-tokens, and even one ten-token. There were
always less in the bag, after each trip to the village. The Southrons
paid less and less, each year, for furs and skins, and asked more and
more for what they had to sell.

He put away the things he had brought from the village, and was
considering whether to open the crypt now and replace the bag of
tokens, when the dogs stiffened, looking at the door. They got to
their feet, neck-