Terrible wars were shown to him. Violent death stalked the streets of the beautiful cities. War after war piled on top of struggling civilization until at last a conflict that seemed to embrace every shred of man's life took place. After that there were scenes of cities utterly deserted, crumbling into ruins. The final picture made Rog gasp with shock. They showed ten men laboring on a great steel ball, filling it with tiny miniatures and statues and boxes. The last picture was of one man lying under a transparent glass dome at the bottom of the ball. Rog was suddenly frightened. He turned and fled back down the stairs and out the door, and plunged into the forest-- * * * * * He said nothing to the rest of the tribe that day. Somehow he knew he must guard his secret with his life. If the others found what he had discovered, they would crowd into it and tear to shreds these things that he treasured, simply through love of destruction. When he thought of that, his fists clenched and hatred blazed in his eyes. The ball must be kept safe, so that he could learn what it meant. It meant more than life itself, more than Lo, even, that he should solve the message in the shining globe. But the next day he found time to sit by the river with Lo. "You were gone yesterday," she said. "Where?" Rog's heart leaped into his mouth. He looked down in sudden confusion. "Only down the river," he lied. "I went to hunt roots." Her questioning eyes told him she knew he was lying. But she was wise, and held her tongue. After a long time he could hold himself in no longer. "Do you ever wonder," he asked intensely, "why we live this way? I mean--have men always lived like this, in caves, killing their meat and gorging themselves on it, and then starving until they killed again?" Lo's dark eyes met his boring glance, but she said nothing. She was feminine enough, and civilized enough, to realize it wasn't an answer he wanted, but an audience. In a moment he went on. "You and I aren't like the others, Lo. The Old Man and all the rest of the people aren't happy unless they are eating. But we can be happy talking, and ... wondering." She smiled at him in happy understanding. "Luk-no says you are lazy," she said naïvely. "But I know you work hard even when you are quiet. Else how would you find things to make like the Thing that Floats?" He warmed at her mention of his raft. It was only a short while ago that he had conceived the idea of tying a bundle of logs together to ferry things across the river, but now it was in daily use. But when his mind rested on Luk-no, he scowled. "Some day I will kill him," he promised savagely. "Always he interferes." Luk-no was a great, stubby trunk of a man who resented Lo's interest in Rog and took every chance to get in his way. His greatest delight was to carry tales of his laziness to Sarak, who would promptly beat his son with a club. Such treatment rankled under Rog's skin.