Paul noticed that he was naked except for ammunition belt and an empty holster. Perhaps his present clarity of mind was the true madness, the earlier fog of pain and anger the mind's more natural climate. But one might as well reason and take stock. He remembered the map. Was it saved? No matter: a copy had been flown to the island with Dorothy and the baby. _I have a woman who loves me; I have a daughter. I have my life._ On his left, just visible in twilight beyond a meadow turning brilliant with blue fireflies, there were the low western hills, the hills rotten with the burrows of kaksmas, and they were nearer, much nearer than he had ever seen them except from the lifeboat. (_But Ed Spearman went there; he walked in the hills alone and found iron ore, and now he is----Never mind where he is. If the charlesite was giving out he did right to fly to the island and abandon us. What else could he do?_) Well, it was right too that the hills should be nearer: the edge of the forest slanted northwest, narrowing the meadow. And this far north the hills were smaller, more broken up. Yet it would not do to approach them closely: even the least of the hills (so pygmy and giant tradition said) could be the dwelling place of day-blind ratlike killers numerous enough to destroy this entire party and still be hungry. The retreat must struggle north until the hills were well behind, shut away by level jungle--where the kaksmas still might come, to be sure, but only to the distance of half a night's journey from their burrows. "Doc--can you estimate what distance we've made since we caught up with you?" "Maybe twenty miles," the old man said. "In more time than _Argo_ once needed to travel twenty million miles. What is man?" "Man? A mathematical absurdity.... Aren't you tired? I could carry Pakriaa a while." "No, I'm not tired, son. I like to have her...." Rifles--in the beginning there had been only five, and one shotgun. The shotgun had been taken to the island. Dorothy and Ann had their pistols there, too. Paul's rifle was lost. Lisson's had been lost when she died. That should leave three. Wright had one slung at his back. Peering up ahead, Paul saw another in the red-brown hand of the young giantess Elron. Sears must have lost his. So two at least remained. And one automatic--Wright's. "Those two new recruits Mijok brought----I'm in a fog--I only just remembered----" "Lost," said Wright, staring ahead. "The boy didn't understand. He ran into the mess on the beach like a horse running into a fire. That was before you got back from the south. The other had more sense. Saw the pygmies spilling out of the boats and ran for the woods. Naturally we didn't try to hold him. Perhaps he's reached his home territory. I hope so." Behind him Elis spoke softly: "It was not very far, Doc. When we reach the island and start the new settlement----" "Oh, Elis----"