untouched he fled on.

I watched a third tier smoked out, and a fourth. A few of the Folk
escaped up the cliff, but most of them were shot off the face of it as
they strove to climb. I remember Long-Lip. He got as far as my ledge,
crying piteously, an arrow clear through his chest, the feathered shaft
sticking out behind, the bone head sticking out before, shot through the
back as he climbed. He sank down on my ledge bleeding profusely at the
mouth.

It was about this time that the upper tiers seemed to empty themselves
spontaneously. Nearly all the Folk not yet smoked out stampeded up the
cliff at the same time. This was the saving of many. The Fire People
could not shoot arrows fast enough. They filled the air with arrows, and
scores of the stricken Folk came tumbling down; but still there were a
few who reached the top and got away.

The impulse of flight was now stronger in me than curiosity. The arrows
had ceased flying. The last of the Folk seemed gone, though there may
have been a few still hiding in the upper caves. The Swift One and I
started to make a scramble for the cliff-top. At sight of us a great
cry went up from the Fire People. This was not caused by me, but by the
Swift One. They were chattering excitedly and pointing her out to one
another. They did not try to shoot her. Not an arrow was discharged.
They began calling softly and coaxingly. I stopped and looked down. She
was afraid, and whimpered and urged me on. So we went up over the top
and plunged into the trees.

This event has often caused me to wonder and speculate. If she were
really of their kind, she must have been lost from them at a time when
she was too young to remember, else would she not have been afraid of
them. On the other hand, it may well have been that while she was their
kind she had never been lost from them; that she had been born in the
wild forest far from their haunts, her father maybe a renegade Fire-Man,
her mother maybe one of my own kind, one of the Folk. But who shall say?
These things are beyond me, and the Swift One knew no more about them
than did I.

We lived through a day of terror. Most of the survivors fled toward the
blueberry swamp and took refuge in the forest in that neighborhood. And
all day hunting parties of the Fire People ranged the forest, killing us
wherever they found us. It must have been a deliberately executed plan.
Increasing beyond the limits of their own territory, they had decided on
maki