The entry of the spider into the region had preceded the arrival of the people. A giant, even of its kind, it had come across some pass among the mountains for reasons only it could know. But it was deadliness beyond compare. Its legs spanned yards. The fangs were needle-sharp and feet in length--and poisoned. Its eyes glittered with insatiable, insane blood-lust. Its coming was ten times more deadly to the humans--as to the other living creatures of the valley--than a Bengal tiger loosed in a human city would have been. It was bad enough in itself, but it brought more deadly disaster still behind it. Bumping and bouncing behind its abdomen as it moved, fastened to its body by dirtied silken ropes, this creature dragged a burden which was its own ferocity many times multiplied. It was dragging an egg-bag larger than its body--which was feet in diameter. The female spider would carry this ghastly burden--cherishing it--until the eggs hatched. And then there would be four to five hundred small devils loose in the valley. From the instant of their hatching they would be as deadly as their parent. Though the offspring would be small--with legs spanning no more than a foot--their bodies would be the size of a man's fist and able to leap two yards. Their tiny fangs would be no less envenomed than their mother's. In stark, maniacal hatred of all other life they would at least equal the huge gray horror which had begot them. Burl told his tribesmen. They listened, eyes large with fright but not quite afraid. The thing had not yet happened. When Burl insistently commanded that they follow him on a new journey, they nodded uneasily but slipped away. He could not gather the tribe together. Always there were members who hid from him--and when he went in search of them, the ones he had gathered vanished before he could return. There were days of bright light and murder, and nights of slow rain and death in the valley. The great creatures under the cloud-bank committed atrocities upon each other and blandly dined upon their victims. Unthinkingly solicitous parents paralyzed creatures to be left living and helpless for their young to feed on. There were enormities of cruelty done in the matter-of-fact fashion of the insect world. To these things the humans were indifferent. They were uneasy, but like other humans everywhere they would not believe the worst until the worst arrived.