The
monkeys were all so melted-in to everything else; and there was so much
too much of everything else.

As for Ruins, the thing they found was too old. It was like an exposure
of the sins of first men--alive with bats and smaller vermin. The
monkeys there had preserved from age to age the germs of all depravity.
Without words the two Americans turned away from that spot, to forget it.

Skag was learning that his training in the circus had been but a mere
beginning in the study of wild animals. It seemed impossible that there
could be a jungle anywhere with more beasts or greater variety, than they
heard at night.

It was as hard to come in good view of any wild creature--excepting
monkeys--as it had been hard at first to sleep, on account of the voices
of all creation after sundown. To approach undiscovered, and to lie out
and watch undiscovered, taxed and developed all their faculties; the
fascination and excitement of it stretched their powers; and their
successes enriched them both for a life-time.

After the first eagerness to get twenty different positions of a tigress
playing with her kittens, Cadman had become a miser of material and an
adept in noiseless movement. Finding that he was in danger of going
short on sketching paper, he used it more and more as if it were fine
gold, till his outlines were not larger than miniatures. Also, he
learned to glance for the flash of approval in Skag's eye.

The two men had grown into a rare comradeship. This time of year,
sleeping in the open was luxury. They had not suffered for food,
excepting in the memory of such things as had once been most common.
Well above fever-line, no ailment had touched them. So, eating simply,
sleeping deeply and working hard, they toughened in body and keened in
mind--the days all full of quickening interests, every next minute due to
develop surprise.

It was by a little headlong mountain stream, that the revelation came.
Skag was looking to see which was the business-end of his tooth-brush
that morning when Cadman broke his sheath knife. The accident was a
calamity, because Skag's was already worn out cutting step-way to climb
out of khuds, and this was all they had left to serve such a purpose.

"That settles it, we must go," said Cadman, looking ruefully at the stump
of his old blade. "Our nearest kin wouldn't know us, but we are still
recognisable to each other, and I'm not exactly ready to quit--are you?"

"No," Ska