"Whenever your mouth is still you can hear the children who are dying today--but you don't care. All you can think of is yourself. You claim Lake and the others were cowards--but you didn't dare hunt with them. You keep insinuating that they're cheating us and eating more than we are--but your belly is the only one that has any fat left on it----" She never completed the sentence. Bemmon's face turned livid in sudden, wild fury and he struck her, knocking her against the rock wall so hard that she slumped unconscious to the ground. "She's a liar!" he panted, glaring at the others. "She's a rotten liar and anybody who repeats what she said will get what she got!" When Lake learned of what had happened he did not send for Bemmon at once. He wondered why Bemmon's reaction had been so quick and violent and there seemed to be only one answer: Bemmon's belly was still a little fat. There could be but one way he could have kept it so. He summoned Craig, Schroeder, Barber and Anders. They went to the chamber where Bemmon slept and there, almost at once, they found his cache. He had it buried under his pallet and hidden in cavities along the walls; dried meat, dried fruits and milk, canned vegetables. It was an amount amazingly large and many of the items had presumably been exhausted during the deficiency disease attack. "It looks," Schroeder said, "like he didn't waste any time feathering his nest when he made himself leader." The others said nothing but stood with grim, frozen faces, waiting for Lake's next action. "Bring Bemmon," Lake said to Craig. Craig returned with him two minutes later. Bemmon stiffened at the sight of his unearthed cache and color drained away from his face. "Well?" Lake asked. "I didn't"--Bemmon swallowed--"I didn't know it was there." And then quickly, "You can't prove I put it there. You can't prove you didn't just now bring it in yourselves to frame me." Lake stared at Bemmon, waiting. The others watched Bemmon as Lake was doing and no one spoke. The silence deepened and Bemmon began to sweat as he tried to avoid their eyes. He looked again at the damning evidence and his defiance broke. "It--if I hadn't taken it it would have been wasted on people who were dying," he said. He wiped at his sweating face. "I won't ever do it again--I swear I won't." Lake spoke to Craig. "You and Barber take him to the lookout point." "What----" Bemmon's protest was cut off as Craig and Barber took him by the arms and walked him swiftly away. Lake turned to Anders. "Get a rope," he ordered. Anders paled a little. "A--rope?" "What else does he deserve?" "Nothing," Anders said. "Not--not after what he did."