lowing noon without giving off smoke.

Always he was planning on reaching the mainland, and never a day passed
that he did not go to the top of the hill and look out across the sea
toward the dark, distant line that meant for him comparative freedom
and possibly reunion with his comrades. The girl always went with him,
standing at his side and watching the stern expression on his face with
just a tinge of sadness on her own.

"You are not happy," she said once.

"I should be over there with my men," he replied. "I do not know what
may have happened to them."

"I want you to be happy," she said quite simply; "but I should be very
lonely if you went away and left me here."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "I would not do that, little girl,"
he said gently. "If you cannot go with me, I shall not go. If either
of us must go alone, it will be you."

Her face lighted to a wondrous smile. "Then we shall not be
separated," she said, "for I shall never leave you as long as we both
live."

He looked down into her face for a moment and then: "Who was An-Tak?"
he asked.

"My brother," she replied. "Why?"

And then, even less than before, could he tell her. It was then that
he did something he had never done before--he put his arms about her
and stooping, kissed her forehead. "Until you find An-Tak," he said,
"I will be your brother."

She drew away. "I already have a brother," she said, "and I do not
want another."

Chapter 5

Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and the months followed one
another in a lazy procession of hot, humid days and warm, humid nights.
The fugitives saw never a Wieroo by day though often at night they
heard the melancholy flapping of giant wings far above them.

Each day was much like its predecessor. Bradley splashed about for a
few minutes in the cold pool early each morning and after a time the
girl tried it and liked it. Toward the center it was deep enough for
swimming, and so he taught her to swim--she was probably the first
human being in all Caspak's long ages who had done this thing. And
then while she prepared breakfast, the man shaved--this he never
neglected. At first it was a source of wonderment to the girl, for the
Galu men are beardless.

When they needed meat, he hunted, otherwise he busied himself in
improving their shelter, making new and better weapons, perfecting his
knowledge of the girl's language and teaching her to speak and to write