"Shut up. Just shut up," said Bill, and his voice was like that of a maniac holding himself in with a terrible effort. "I don't think you ought to tell him things like--" persisted Trutch, and then Bill Cuff had leaned forward and given him a hell of a wallop on the side of the head with his open palm. The driver jerked forward and grunted and then he was quiet, as the car lurched and recovered. We were doing fifty. Cuff said, "Shut up! When I tell you that, do it!" There were two other men in the back. One of them growled, "Easy, Bill. We live by the primal rage, but you must control it." * * * * * I turned and put my arm across the back of the seat and looked at the man who had spoken. He was another of the short and stocky breed. His eyes were snapping gray gems in a face as tan as a boot. He had more hair piled on top of his long skull than I ever saw on anyone but a movie actor: it was bright yellow, not gold but sulphur yellow, and slicked with oil. His features were broad and at the same time vulpine, the thickened muzzle of a fox. I had meant only to glance at each of them in turn, but my gaze was held by this Old Companion. His expression was good-humored and yet he radiated evil, an old, old wickedness commingled with piercing intelligence. When at last I managed to tear my eyes from him, I knew that this was the worst of my enemies. I could not have defended that by logic, but neither could I have been argued out of it. I would have faced five giant Bill Cuffs rather than this yellow-haired creature. "My name is Skagarach," he said to me, bringing my eyes back to him involuntarily. "I am third leader in our muster of the Old Companions. You have met the second leader, Old One. That is the truth of our folk. In time, in generations, we shall all look so, and the effete refinements of Homo sapiens will be gone." He glanced at Bill Cuff, who towered beside him, watching me. "Bill is first leader. In two years he has become so. He killed nineteen of us to gain that leadership." Skagarach smiled, cunningly and drily. I gathered that he was not fond of my cousin. And that was my first piece of real hope. "The man at the wheel," he went on, "is called Trutch. As far as I know he has no other name. The fourth is Vance." This last was a young fellow, about as wide as he was high, with the usual gray eyes. "Are the eyes a distinguishing characteristic?" I asked. "Some ninety per cent of us have them. You do yourself. But every gray-eyed man is not Homo-Neanderthal by any means." "How _do_ you--we--tell each other apart from men?" "Actions: Cuff killed insanely, from a human viewpoint, that is, and then answered our telepathic call. Occasionally we have only actions, not mental communication, to judge by, and then we find the one who has gone berserk and test him. Sometimes the dawn brain returns to an Old Companion without the gift of telepathy."