where blasting had been going on. Still, it was a very long way
to be negotiated over still-remaining tree stumps and the unfilled
holes from which others had been pulled.

He reached the bulldozer and turned south, and at long last reached
the highway. His car should be no more than a quarter-mile away. He
moved toward it, close to the road's edge. He heard music. It was
faint, but vivid because it was the last sound that anybody would
expect to hear in the hours before dawn in a wilderness deserted by
mankind. He scraped his foot on the roadway. The music stopped
instantly. He said, "Jill?"

He heard her gasp.

"I found where Vale had been," he said steadily. "There was no blood
there. There's no sign that he's been killed. Then I was caught
myself. I was put with three other men who were believed killed but
who are still alive. We escaped. It is within reason to hope that Vale
is unharmed and that he may escape or somehow be rescued."

What he said was partly to make her sure that it was he who appeared
in the darkness. But it was technically true, too. It was within
reason to hope for Vale's ultimate safety. One can always hope,
whatever the odds against the thing hoped for. But Lockley thought
that the odds against Vale's living through the events now in progress
were very great indeed.

Jill stepped out into the starlight.

"I wasn't--sure it was you," she said with difficulty. "I saw the
things, you know, at a distance. At first I thought they were men. So
when I first saw you--dimly--I was afraid."

"I'm sorry I haven't better news," said Lockley.

"It's good news! It's very good news," she insisted as he drew near.
"If they've captured him, he'll make them understand that he's a man,
and that men are intelligent and not just animals, and that they
should be our friends and we theirs."

The girl's voice was resolute. Lockley could imagine that all the time
she'd been waiting, she'd been preparing to deny that even the worst
news was final, until she looked on Vale's dead body itself.

"Do you want to tell me exactly what you found out?" she asked.

"I'll tell you while I work on the car," said Lockley. "We want to get
moving away from here before daybreak."

He went down to the little car, wedged in the saplings it had
splintered and broken. He began to clear it so he could lever it back
on to the highway. He used a broken sapling, and as he worked he told
what had happened, including the three m