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the first time he realized that he had not tried to organize one. Just telling what had happened to him, item by item, might take too long; it was important that Fagin and the rest get away quickly. On the other hand, it would take a pretty complete explanation of the state of affairs to convince the teacher of that fact. Nick unconsciously slowed down as he pondered this problem. He was dragged from this reverie only by the sound of his own name.
    "Nick! Is that really you? Where have you been? We thought you'd slept out once too often!" At the first sound, Nick had reached for his knives; but he checked the movement as he recognized the voice.
    "Johnny! It's good to hear proper talk again. What are you doing this far out? Have the sheep eaten everything closer to home?"
    "No, I'm hunting, not herding." John Doolittle pushed through the undergrowth into clear view. "But where have you been? It's been weeks since you went out, and since we stopped looking for you."
    "You looked for me? That's bad. Still, I guess it didn't make any difference, or I'd have known it sooner."
    "What do you mean? I don't understand what you're talking about. And what did you mean about it's being good to hear 'proper talk'? What other kind of talk is there? Let's hear the story."
    "It's a long one, and I'll have to tell everyone as quickly as possible anyway. Come along home; there's no point telling it twice." He headed toward the valley they both called "home" without waiting to hear any answer. John "trailed" his spears and followed. Even without Nick's implication of trouble ahead, he would not willingly have missed the report. Fresh as he was, thpugh, he had difficulty keeping up with the returned explorer; Nick seemed to be in a hurry.
    They met two more of the group on the way, Alice and Tom, who were herding. At Nick's urgent but hasty words they followed toward the village as fast as their charge would permit.
    Five more of the group were actually in the village, and Fagin was at his usual station in the center of the ring of houses. Nick called the teacher by name as he came in sight.
    "Fagin! We're in trouble! What do we have for weapons that you haven't shown us yet?" As usual, there was a pause of a couple of seconds before an answer came back.
    "Why, it's Nick. We had about given you up. What's all of this about weapons? Do you expect to have to fight someone?"
    "I'm afraid so."
    "Who?"
    "Well, they seem to be people just like us; but they don't keep animals, and they don't use fire, and they use , different words for things than we do."

    "Where did you run into these people, and why should we have to fight them?"
    "It's a long story, I'm afraid. It will be better if I start at the beginning, I suppose; but we shouldn't waste any more time than we can help."
    "I agree; a complete report will make the most sense to all of us. Go ahead." Nick settled his weight back on his standing legs and obeyed.
    "I started south as we decided and went slowly, mapping as I went. Nothing much had changed seriously out to the edge of the region we usually cover in farming and grazing; after that, of course, it was hard to tell whether anything had changed at all recently, or in what way.
    "The best landmark I saw by the end of the first day was a mountain, of quite regular conical shape and much higher than any I had ever seen before. I was tempted to climb it, but decided that detail mapping could be accomplished better later on; after all, my trip was to find new areas, not evaluate them. "I passed to the east of the mountain shortly after sunrise the second day. The wind was remarkably strong in that region and seemed always to blow toward the mountain; I called it Storm Hill on the map. Judging by tile wind, there ought to be a lot of night-growing plants there; any exploration should be planned to get off the hill before dark.
    "As far as travel goes, everything was about as usual. I killed enough in self-defense to keep me in food, but none of