mmon slept and there, almost at once, they found his
cache. He had it buried under his pallet and hidden in cavities along
the walls; dried meat, dried fruits and milk, canned vegetables. It was
an amount amazingly large and many of the items had presumably been
exhausted during the deficiency disease attack.

"It looks," Schroeder said, "like he didn't waste any time feathering
his nest when he made himself leader."

The others said nothing but stood with grim, frozen faces, waiting for
Lake's next action.

"Bring Bemmon," Lake said to Craig.

Craig returned with him two minutes later. Bemmon stiffened at the sight
of his unearthed cache and color drained away from his face.

"Well?" Lake asked.

"I didn't"--Bemmon swallowed--"I didn't know it was there." And then
quickly, "You can't prove I put it there. You can't prove you didn't
just now bring it in yourselves to frame me."

Lake stared at Bemmon, waiting. The others watched Bemmon as Lake was
doing and no one spoke. The silence deepened and Bemmon began to sweat
as he tried to avoid their eyes. He looked again at the damning evidence
and his defiance broke.

"It--if I hadn't taken it it would have been wasted on people who were
dying," he said. He wiped at his sweating face. "I won't ever do it
again--I swear I won't."

Lake spoke to Craig. "You and Barber take him to the lookout point."

"What----" Bemmon's protest was cut off as Craig and Barber took him by
the arms and walked him swiftly away.

Lake turned to Anders. "Get a rope," he ordered.

Anders paled a little. "A--rope?"

"What else does he deserve?"

"Nothing," Anders said. "Not--not after what he did."

On the way out they passed the place where Julia lay. Bemmon had knocked
her against the wall with such force that a sharp projection of rock had
cut a deep gash in her forehead. A woman was wiping the blood from her
face and she lay limply, still unconscious; a frail shadow of the bold
girl she had once been with the new life she would try to give them an
almost unnoticeable little bulge in her starved thinness.

* * * * *

The lookout point was an outjutting spur of the ridge, six hundred feet
from the caves and in full view of them. A lone tree stood there, its
dead limbs thrust like white arms through the brown foliage of the limbs
that still lived. Craig and Barber waited under the tree, Bemmon between
them. The lowering sun shone hot and bright on