But now he imagined Saya looking astonished and glad when he grandly handed her more food than she could possibly eat. She would admire him enormously! Of course he did not imagine himself fighting to get food for Saya. He meant only to stab something edible in the water. Things in the water did not fight things on land. Since he would not be in the water, he would not be in a fight. It was a completely delectable idea, which no man within memory had ever entertained before. If Burl accomplished it, his tribe would admire him. Saya would admire him. Everybody, observing that he had found a new source of food, would even envy him until he showed them how to do it too. Burl's fellow-humans were preoccupied with the filling of their stomachs. The preservation of their lives came second. The perpetuation of the race came a bad third in their consideration. They were herded together in a leaderless group, coming to the same hiding-place nightly only that they might share the finds of the lucky and gather comfort from their numbers. They had no weapons. Even Burl did not consider his spear a weapon. It was a tool for stabbing something to eat only. Yet he did not think of it in that way exactly. His tribe did not even consciously use tools. Sometimes they used stones to crack open the limbs of great insects they found incompletely devoured. They did not even carry rocks about with them for that purpose. Only Burl had a vague idea of taking something to some place to do something with it. It was unprecedented. Burl was at least an atavar. He may have been a genius. But he was not a high-grade genius. Certainly not yet. He reached a spot from which he could look down into the water. He looked behind and all about, listening, then lay down to stare into the shallow depths. Once, a huge crayfish, a good eight feet long, moved leisurely across his vision. Small fishes and even huge newts fled before it. After a long time the normal course of underwater life resumed. The wriggling caddis-flies in their quaintly ambitious houses reappeared. Little flecks of silver swam into view--a school of tiny fish. Then a larger fish appeared, moving slowly in the stream. Burl's eyes glistened; his mouth watered. He reached down with his long weapon. It barely broke through the still surface of the water below. Disappointment filled him, yet the nearness and apparent probability of success spurred him on. He examined the shelf-fungi beneath him. Rising, he moved to a point above them and tested one with his spear. It resisted. Burl felt about tentatively with his foot, then dared to put his whole weight on the topmost. It held firmly. He clambered down upon the lower ones, then lay flat and peered over the edge.