ita, carrying a baby and leading two other children. The baby on her
back had cost the life of Kyna in childbirth; one of the others had been
left motherless when Eldra had been killed by the Hairy People.

* * * * *

That had been two years ago, in the winter when they had used one of
their two demolition-bombs to blast open a cavern in the mountains. It
had been a hard winter; two children had died, then--Kyna's firstborn,
and the little son of Kalvar Dard and Dorita. It had been their first
encounter with the Hairy People, too.

Eldra had gone outside the cave with one of the skin water-bags, to fill
it at the spring. It had been after sunset, but she had carried her
pistol, and no one had thought of danger until they heard the two quick
shots, and the scream. They had all rushed out, to find four shaggy,
manlike things tearing at Eldra with hands and teeth, another lying
dead, and a sixth huddled at one side, clutching its abdomen and
whimpering. There had been a quick flurry of shots that had felled all
four of the assailants, and Seldar Glav had finished the wounded
creature with his dagger, but Eldra was dead. They had built a cairn of
stones over her body, as they had done over the bodies of the two
children killed by the cold. But, after an examination to see what sort
of things they were, they had tumbled the bodies of the Hairy People
over the cliff. These had been too bestial to bury as befitted human
dead, but too manlike to skin and eat as game.

Since then, they had often found traces of the Hairy People, and when
they met with them, they killed them without mercy. These were great
shambling parodies of humanity, long-armed, short-legged, twice as heavy
as men, with close-set reddish eyes and heavy bone-crushing jaws. They
may have been incredibly debased humans, or perhaps beasts on the very
threshold of manhood. From what he had seen of conditions on this
planet, Kalvar Dard suspected the latter to be the case. In a million or
so years, they might evolve into something like humanity. Already, the
Hairy ones had learned the use of fire, and of chipped crude stone
implements--mostly heavy triangular choppers to be used in the hand,
without helves.

Twice, after that night, the Hairy People had attacked them--once while
they were on the march, and once in camp. Both assaults had been beaten
off without loss to themselves, but at cost of precious ammunition. Once
they had