"You damn' fool!" Sid objected. "You want the busted spot on the tree to show?" "Aw, _they_ ain't got the brains to notice." "The hell they ain't! It stands out like one o' them old street signs. D'ya think they can tell, Blackie?" "I dunno. Maybe." Blackie rose cautiously to peer over a bed of blackberry bushes. "Guess I'll skin up a tree an' see if anything's in sight." He hitched up his pants, looking for an easy place to climb. His blue denims had been stoutly made, but weakened by many rips and patches, and he did not want to rip them on a snag. It was becoming difficult to find good, unrotted clothing in the old ruins. * * * * * Choosing a branch slightly over his head, he sprang for it, pulled, kicked against the trunk, and flowed up into the foliage with no apparent effort. The others waited below. Sid glanced up occasionally, Vito idly kicked at one of the clubs made from an old two-by-four. The other lay beneath the piled jackets; but enough of the end protruded to show that they had been chopped from the same timber, gray-painted on one side, stained and gouged on the other where boards had once been nailed. A coil of rope lay beside the axes. High in the upper branches, Blackie braced himself with negligent confidence and stared along the concrete ribbon. _From here_, he thought, _you'd almost think the place was still alive, instead of crumbling around our ears._ The windows of the distant houses were dark, unglassed holes, but the sunlight made the masonry clean and shining. To Blackie, the ragged tops of most of the buildings were as natural as the tattered look of the few people he knew. Beyond, toward the center of the city, was real evidence of his race's bygone might--a vast jumble of shattered stone and fused metal. Queer weeds and mosses infected the area, but it would be centuries before they could mask the desolation. Better covered, were the heaps along the road, seemingly shoved just beyond the gravel shoulders--mouldering mounds which legend said were once machines to ride in along the pavement. Something glinted at the bend of the highway. Blackie peered closer. He swarmed down the tree from branch to branch, so lithely that the trio below hardly had the warning of the vibrating leaves before he dropped, cat-footed, among them. "They're comin'!" He shrugged quickly into his stained jacket, emulated in silent haste by the others. Vito rubbed his hands down the hairy chest left revealed by his open jacket and hefted one of the clubs. In his broad paws, it seemed light. They were quiet, watching Sid peer out through narrowly parted brush of the undergrowth. Blackie fidgeted behind him. Finally, he reached out as if to pull the other aside, but at that moment Sid released the bushes and crouched. The others, catching his warning glance, fell prone, peering through shrubbery and around tree trunks with savage eyes.