l rebuffs failed to drive them away. They _liked_ the colony.
They seemed, somehow, to savor the atmosphere, moving about like solemn,
fuzzy overseers as the work progressed through the summer. Pete Farnam
thought that they had even tried to warn the people about the winter.
But the colonists couldn't understand, of course. Not until later. The
Dusties became a standing joke, and were tolerated with considerable
amusement--until the winter struck.

It had come with almost unbelievable ferocity. The houses had not been
completed when the first hurricanes came, and they were smashed into
toothpicks. The winds came, vicious winds full of dust and sleet and
ice, wild erratic twisting gales that ripped the village to shreds,
tearing off the topsoil that had been broken and fertilized--merciless,
never-ending winds that wailed and screamed the planet's protest. The
winds drove sand and dirt and ice into the heart of the generators, and
the heating units corroded and jammed and went dead. The jeeps and
tractors and bulldozers were scored and rusted. The people began dying
by the dozens as they huddled down in the pitiful little pits they had
dug to try to keep the winds away.

Few of them were still conscious when the Dusties had come silently, in
the blizzard, eyes closed tight against the blast, to drag the people up
into the hills, into caves and hollows that still showed the fresh marks
of carving tools. They had brought food--what kind of food nobody knew,
for the colony's food had been destroyed by the first blast of the
hurricane--but whatever it was it had kept them alive. And somehow, the
colonists had survived the winter which seemed never to end. There were
frozen legs and ruined eyes; there was pneumonia so swift and virulent
that even the antibiotics they managed to salvage could not stop it;
there was near-starvation--but they were kept alive, until the winds
began to die, and they walked out of their holes in the ground to see
the ruins of their first village.

From that winter on, nobody considered the Dusties funny any more. What
had motivated them no one knew, but the colony owed them their lives.
The Dusties tried to help the people rebuild. They showed them how to
build windshields that would keep houses intact and anchored to the
ground when the winds came again. They built little furnaces out of dirt
and rock which defied the winds and gave great heat. They showed the
colonists a dozen things they neede