To this point it all seemed clear, and while it was a thing to churn the imagination, still it was a plain and possible happening, not destroying any concepts or deepsunk training of my youth; because no man of my folk knew whence we had come, or anything of our history save that it had always been, so far as our elders knew, the same as it is now: easy and pleasant, with no enemies save the beasts of prey, and a mate for every man and woman. But then came the problem of the guardians. These folk knew them too. They passed between us, it was clear, living with us of the glens but visiting these of the caverns. I tried Dy-lee with a question: did he know there were many, many more like me, living beyond the Fearful Forest? I made a mark in the gritty dirt with my knife point, showed him that it stood for myself, then made a great number of similar marks beside it and pointed east. He understood. He could scarcely believe at first, but after a period of astonished grunts and reassurances, he believed. There were many like me, over yonder to the east. Then something took him with eagerness, so that he nearly burst with what he could not tell me; and at last he ran furiously away to his cave, leaving me to sit with eyes popping till he returned with a bag made of hide. From this he took a number of little bones, hollowed and corked with plugs of wood, and some sticks tipped with carefully-trimmed stiff feathers. Sensing that I would be curious, he handed me one of the bones. I pried out the plug and saw that the hollow was full of a green-blue dye, mixed, as I had suspected, with something to make it stiff and thick. As I sniffed at it and touched my fingertip to it gingerly, he set to work on the flat stone beside me, dipping his feathered stick into first this bone and then that one, making marks upon the cold rock. I watched the dyes spread and grow into the shape of a man. Dy-lee, my friend, was a maker of pictures! I embraced him. I was overcome with his genius. That this animal-looking fellow could himself make the wondrous _peeshas_! * * * * * Impatiently he motioned to me to be seated while he worked. I sat down and, hoping to repay him for the pleasure I took in his craft, I began to sing. He nodded vigorously and chuckled. We were enchanted with each other's accomplishments. Watching him, I saw the roughly outlined form of a man grow into a tiny likeness of myself, with hunter's loincloth and bow. He prodded me with the stick, quite unnecessarily. I could see that it was Ahmusk there on the flat stone. Then hastily he made pictures of two others, one of which seemed to be his conception of a female of my race. Hesitantly then, he pointed east. I told him, Yes, and flickered my fingers to show that there were many of us there. His thatch-shaded eyes blinked with amazement.