"I shouldn't wonder," said O'Hara. "The fact is, Nedra, you've got to put on some clothes. Which means, I'm sure, that I shall have to get to providing them. I had forgotten what a chore it is to be a husband in this world." The snow did not stop. On the fourth day of it O'Hara shot a giant timber wolf. Its flesh was coarse and its hide, when they had baked it out, had an amazing stench, but Nedra fashioned it into a sort of kirtle, not so expertly made as that which had concealed her sex the first time that O'Hara saw her, but serviceable. "Beyond the Curtain," he said, "men buy perfumes for their women, but I doubt, Nedra, that any ever bought a perfume such as this." "You do not think that I am beautiful in this?" But it had been a long day's climb and O'Hara was weary. He did not feel that he was in the best of shape for battle. "Yes, Nedra, beautiful," he sighed, and for this night at least she let him lie a coward. On the sixth day, as they were trudging slowly upward along a snow-drifted trail, the brush ahead of them parted suddenly and from it stepped the gaunt, commanding figure of the clansmen's Elder, his Colt aimed menacingly at O'Hara's breast. But Nedra said, "Is this the way you welcome us? Where are the others of the clan?" And they came out of hiding along the trail behind the Elder. It was not a time for conversation. The Elder now turned his back upon them and began to lead the way, and the clansmen closed in quickly around them, and together at a trot they proceeded along the trail toward the sandy chasm. In the days that followed, with Nedra reigning placidly once more within the deep gloom of the cavern, O'Hara prepared himself for what he knew must follow. Now that he was free, now that he felt himself again a factor in his destiny, he was reluctant. It was the Elder who at last convinced him, after hearing one night the strange abominations of the lowlands. "It is a time of strange things," said the Elder cautiously. "I too have heard and seen strange things since you were with us. Do you recall the day you vanished in the valley? Those of us who escaped the Degraded continued on until we reached the lake that had the black water. In time we returned here with it, and made the long copper pots that you designed upon the walls of the cavern--" "Oh, yes, the still for refracting petroleum." "--and then we prepared the water that you wished, the colorless water, to give to the flying thing. We wished despite your absence to send it into the air. We took the colorless water in jars and we placed the jars before the flying thing and waited. And presently we heard a voice that spoke the way you spoke when you first came to us. Again and again, as a wolf calls for its missing whelp, it called for you: 'O'Hara--O'Hara--come in, O'Hara! This is Tournant calling, this is Wrangell calling--can you come in, O'Hara?'" "Tournant!"