They heard insects, too, but they did not know what it was they heard. The shrill, small musical whirrings, the high-pitched small cries which made up a strange new elfin melody, were totally strange. All things were novel to their eyes, and an enormous exultation filled them. From deep-buried ancestral memories, they knew that this was somehow right, was somehow normal. And they breathed clean air for the first time in many generations. Burl even shouted, in triumph, and his voice rang echoing among rocks. The plateau rang with the shouting of a man in triumph! * * * * * They had enough food for days. They had brought it from the isolated thicket not too far beneath the clouds. Had they found other food immediately, they would have settled down comfortably, in the fashion normal to creatures whose idea of bliss is a secure hiding-place and food on hand. Somehow they believed that this high place was secure. But it was not a hiding-place. And though they did accept, with the simplicity of children and savages, that they had no enemies here, their first quest, nevertheless, was for a place in which they could conceal themselves. [Illustration] They found a cave. It was small to hold all of them, so that they would be crowded in it, but, as it turned out, that was fortunate. At some time it had been occupied by some other creature, but the dirt which floored it had settled flat and there were no recent tracks. It retained faint traces of an odor which was unfamiliar but not unpleasant. It had no connotation of danger. Ants stank of formic acid plus the musky odor of their particular city and kind. One could tell not only the kind of ant but what hill they came from, from a mere sniff at a well-traveled ant-trail. Spiders had their own hair-raising odor. The smell of a praying-mantis was acrid, and of beetles decay, and of course those bugs whose main defense was smell gave off an effluvium which tended to strangle all but themselves. The cave's smell was quite different. The humans thought vaguely that it might be another kind of man. Actually, it _was_ the smell of a warm-blooded animal. But Burl and his fellows knew of no warm-blooded creatures but themselves. They had come above the clouds a bare two hours before sunset--of which they knew nothing. For an hour they marveled, staying close together. They were astounded by the sun, more particularly since they could not look at it. But presently, being savages, they accepted it with the matter-of-factness of children. They could not cease to wonder at the vegetation about them. They were accustomed only to gigantic fungi, and a few feverishly growing plants striving to flower and bear seed before being devoured. Here they saw many plants, and at first no insects at all. However, they looked only for the large things they were accustomed to.