again it happened--the stone went
plummeting. A third time he tried, and a fourth. He chose the more
pliant vines and strove to make them stay, sought a new way to fasten.
The stone would not stay.

Gral mourned, and from the mourning came anger and then a bitterness
that rose to blind him. For the rest of that day he tried--he could not
have counted the times. A factor was missing--dimly he knew that. The
sun was dull red along the valley when he desisted; his hands were raw
and bleeding, and seeing that, a sound rose in his throat like grating
gravel.

Grimly, he buried his stone there beneath the bole and made his way back
to the great ledge. His share of Obe would last yet a day or two. The
thought of food was only fleeting, because the anger was still inside
him, larger now, demanding now ... that thing-that-prodded.

* * * * *

Obe was gone at last, both Gral's share and all the rest. Three days
were gone and Gral did not try to bring again. But each day he went from
the ledge in advance of the others, he went in a hunger he did not
heed--to the place of the buried stone.

On the third day he thought that Otah followed, keeping discreetly
behind; but he could not be sure. This was not Otah's usual direction.
And later, on the far shore across the shallows he saw one of Kurho's
tribe from Far End. It was not often that Kurho's people foraged this
far, and Gral could not say how long the man must have stood there bold
and brazen. When next he looked up, the fellow was gone.

Ordinarily he would have reported this to Gor-wah, but the incident was
soon forgotten. He continued doggedly with shaft and stone. It was
something wild and febrile that drove him now, and he could not have
wondered at his own incredible quixotism--he was a million years removed
from that! But inevitably his synapses took hold, the neuronic links
grooved, and to Gral one thought emerged: _the vines would never do_.

And so he came to know where the missing factor lay. He knew it dully
and was helpless.

More than helpless, he was hungry. It came with a great gnawing need. On
the fifth day it was _Otah_ who noticed, and more out of contempt than
pity tossed him the remnants of a wild-dog he had brought: the portion
was little more than stripped bones and sinew, but Gral accepted without
question, crawled to his place on the ledge and partially assuaged his
hunger....

_The ways of discovery are most won