From a crevice beyond appeared a man, likewise clad in skins, brandishing a crooked stick. At sight of Marlin, he stopped in his tracks, then scampered toward the cave, turning at the entrance as if to make a last desperate stand. Marlin came on with eager stride, but he stopped a few feet away and the two looked at each other. * * * * * The cave dweller was under-sized, bearded, and shaggy. His arms and legs protruded in ungainly fashion from the ill-fashioned skin garment. Something about the manner in which the sharp eyes gleamed at him through a tangle of overhanging hair struck a chord in Marlin's memory. "You're--you're Link!" he said thickly. The words came with difficulty from unaccustomed lips. "Slinky Link! Remember? I'm--Marlin." The woman's head emerged cautiously from behind her man. The scarred lip again prompted Marlin's memory. "Maw--Barstow!" "What you want?" demanded Link. The words were thickly spoken, as if he, too, rarely used his speech organs. Truly Marlin did not know what he wanted. Nothing, perhaps, beyond the association of his own kind. For the first time he realized that he was cold. He approached the smoldering embers and knelt over them, gratefully warming himself in the glow. The other two eyed him resentfully, but when the sun sank low they prepared a frugal meal and grudgingly offered him a portion. He ate greedily of the hard, gritty cake of ground corn and morsel of half-cooked flesh; smacked his lips over the swallow or two of thin milk which they allowed him to drink from a crudely formed earthen cup. The urge to talk was strong within Marlin--to exchange views with these, perhaps the only members of his kind in all the region. But memories of the old life and speculations as to the manner of their arrival seemed to have little reality in the minds of the two. Maw was brooding and taciturn, wrapped in an animal-like concern for her scrawny infant. Link vaguely recalled that they had wandered until they came to this valley, where it was somehow easier to wrest an existence than on the outer slopes. He had found two half-starved cattle, captured one, and Maw made him keep it alive for its milk. The other was a bull, but so far it had eluded his attempts at capture. He had learned to make fire, the primitive way, through striking certain kinds of rock together. These were his preoccupations. He quickly tired of the conversation and crawled into the cave to sleep. In the morning, there was less to eat. When Marlin sought to help himself to the fresh milking, Maw snatched the clay vessel and scuttled with it into the cave. Link thrust a piece of stringy meat into Marlin's hands, then caught up his stick and brandished it threateningly. "This is our place," he snarled. "You go." Marlin crammed the partly cooked flesh into his mouth. "Why?" he demanded. "Eat too much," was the laconic response.