Members of the horde simply dropped out of sight. They
left the caves in the morning, and they never came
back. They disappeared--into the ravenous maws of the
hunting creatures.
This inroad of the Fire People on the carrot-patch was
the beginning of the end, though we did not know it.
The hunters of the Fire People began to appear more
frequently as the time went by. They came in twos and
threes, creeping silently through the forest, with
their flying arrows able to annihilate distance and
bring down prey from the top of the loftiest tree
without themselves climbing into it. The bow and arrow
was like an enormous extension of their leaping and
striking muscles, so that, virtually, they could leap
and kill at a hundred feet and more. This made them far
more terrible than Saber-Tooth himself. And then they
were very wise. They had speech that enabled them more
effectively to reason, and in addition they understood
cooperation.
We Folk came to be very circumspect when we were in the
forest. We were more alert and vigilant and timid.
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