Refreshed, Tarlac surveyed his problems. He had water and shelter; he still needed food, fire, and foot protection, not necessarily in that order. Food, now at mid-autumn, was as plentiful as water, and there was nothing he could do about foot protection at the moment, so that made fire his next priority. There were plenty of likely-looking rocks on the streambed; some, he remembered from a survival course he'd taken years ago, might work nearly as well as flint. He waded into the stream and selected a handful, putting them on the bank to dry while he planned. It was just past midday, so he had plenty of time to equip himself, even with nothing but a knife to work with. He wouldn't need much gear; it wasn't as if he was Robinson Crusoe, having to live off the land indefinitely. He'd be out twenty days, at the most. He would have to have some kind of shoes, though; his feet were simply too tender for him to walk fifty kilometers barefoot, even through this open, leaf-carpeted forest. Some kind of long-distance weapon, say a spear or a crude bow, would be useful, too, and effective enough at the relatively short ranges a forest allowed. Anything else would be strictly a convenience. It would be nice if he could rig some way to carry coals so he wouldn't have to start a fire from scratch every night . . . He shrugged. That wasn't very likely, and speed was his main consideration, so it might be just as well for him to travel light. By the time he came to that conclusion, the stones were dry enough to strike sparks if they were going to. He went through them methodically, hitting each one against the flat of his knife. Two of the first six did spark, weakly; he set them aside and kept going. The next five did nothing at all, and he was beginning to think he'd have to make do with one of the weak ones. Then the twelfth, a small rock that looked like pinkish quartz, gave a big bright spark that made him whistle in relief and admiration. Tossing the other stones back in the stream, he put the quartz in the pocket of his shorts and headed back for the clearing, picking up dry wood on the way. He found a gratifying number of animal traces as well, both trails and pawprints, and he hoped few of them were predators. He might not be Robinson Crusoe, but he wasn't Tarzan either, and the idea of tackling a big cat with nothing more than a knife held absolutely no appeal. Predators, he reminded himself, didn't normally attack unless provoked. At least the trails meant he had a chance of trapping something, and it was a sure bet that animal skins would make better moccasins than soh leaves would!