learn from him all he had to give.

Ulffa and the men of the tribe might have eyed the metal weapons of the
traders with awe and avid desire, but Frigga wanted more than trade
goods. She wanted the secret of the making of such cloth as the
strangers wore, everything she could learn of their lives and the lands
through which they had come. She plied Ross with endless questions which
he answered as best he could, for he lay in an odd dreamy state where
only the present had any reality. The past was dim and far away, and
while he was now and then dimly aware that he had something to do, he
forgot it easily.

The chief and his men prowled the half-built station after the attackers
had withdrawn, bringing back with them a handful of loot--a bronze
razor, two skinning knives, some fishhooks, a length of cloth which
Frigga appropriated. Ross eyed this spoil indifferently, making no claim
upon it. His interest in everything about him was often blanked out by
headaches which kept him limp on his bed, uncaring and stupid for hours
or even full days.

He gathered that the tribe had been living in fear of an attack from the
same raiders who had wiped out the trading post. But at last their
scouts returned with the information that the enemy had gone south.

There was one change of which Ross was not aware but which might have
startled both Ashe and McNeil. Ross Murdock had indeed died under that
blow which had left him unconscious beside the river. The young man whom
Frigga had drawn back to sense and a slow recovery was Rossa of the
Beaker people. This same Rossa nursed a hot desire for vengeance against
those who had struck him down and captured his kinsmen, a feeling which
the family tribe who had rescued him could well understand.

There was the same old urgency pushing him to try his strength now, to
keep to his feet even when they were unsteady. His bow was gone, but
Ross spent hours fashioning another, and he traded his copper bracelet
for the best dozen arrows in Ulffa's camp. The jet pin from his cloak he
presented to Frigga with all his gratitude.

Now that his strength was coming back he could not rest easy in the
camp. He was ready to leave, even though the gashes on his head were
still tender to the touch. Ulffa indulgently planned a hunt southward,
and Rossa took the trail with the tribesmen.

He broke with the clan hunters when they turned aside at the beginning
of the taboo land. Ross, his own mind submerged