d the woods goats
returned, with them the young that had been born in the north, already
half the size of their mothers.

For a while there was meat, and green herbs. Then the prowlers came, to
make hunting dangerous. Females with pups were seen but always at a
great distance as though the prowlers, like humans, took no chances with
the lives of their children.

The unicorns came close behind the first prowlers, their young amazingly
large and already weaned. Hunting became doubly dangerous then but the
bowmen, through necessity, were learning how to use their bows with
increasing skill and deadliness.

A salt lick for the woods goats was hopefully tried, although Lake felt
dubious about it. They learned that salt was something the woods goats
could either take or leave alone. And when hunters were in the vicinity
they left it alone.

The game was followed for many miles to the south. The hunters returned
the day the first blizzard came roaring and screaming down over the edge
of the plateau; the blizzard that marked the beginning of the long,
frigid winter. By then they were prepared as best they could be. Wood
had been carried in great quantities and the caves fitted with crude
doors and a ventilation system. And they had meat--not as much as they
would need but enough to prevent starvation.

Lake took inventory of the food supply when the last hunters returned
and held check-up inventories at irregular and unannounced intervals. He
found no shortages. He had expected none--Bemmon's grave had long since
been obliterated by drifting snow but the rope still hung from the dead
limb, the noose swinging and turning in the wind.

* * * * *

Anders had made a Ragnarok calendar that spring, from data given him by
John Prentiss, and he had marked the corresponding Earth dates on it. By
a coincidence, Christmas came near the middle of the winter. There would
be the same rationing of food on Christmas day but little brown trees
had been cut for the children and decorated with such ornaments as could
be made from the materials at hand.

There was another blizzard roaring down off the plateau Christmas
morning; a white death that thundered and howled outside the caves at a
temperature of more than eighty degrees below zero. But inside the caves
it was warm by the fires and under the little brown trees were toys that
had been patiently whittled from wood or sewn from scraps of cloth and
anim