He managed to
get hold of a club and began crushing heads like
eggshells. He was too much for them, and they were
compelled to fall back again. This was his chance, and
he turned his back upon them and ran for it, still
howling wrathfully. A few arrows sped after him, but
he plunged into a thicket and was gone.
The Swift One and I crept quietly away, only to run
foul of another party of Fire-Men. They chased us into
the blueberry swamp, but we knew the tree-paths across
the farther morasses where they could not follow on the
ground, and so we escaped. We came out on the other
side into a narrow strip of forest that separated the
blueberry swamp from the great swamp that extended
westward. Here we met Lop-Ear. How he had escaped I
cannot imagine, unless he had not slept the preceding
night at the caves.
Here, in the strip of forest, we might have built
tree-shelters and settled down; but the Fire People
were performing their work of extermination thoroughly.
In the afternoon, Hair-Face and his wife fled out from
among the trees to the east, passed us, and were gone.
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