Reuben's amusement died like the breaking of a weapon in his hand. He thought: _What do they know?_ He stood as tall as he could, waving the green spear, and shouted at them: "I know you! Dirty dogs! Offal! I spit on you!" He fought back a desire to rush out in pursuit of them, with Ben's knife and the green spear. That would be mad. They would understand his smallness, his singleness, and close in, tear him apart, move on to the shelter where Ben lay helpless and sleeping.... Reuben carried more wood to the other fire, then forced himself to squat once more patiently on his heels, and keep count of the pairs of eyes. Four. He could wait, too. How long? Eternal hours. Like those that must have already passed since the wolves came. Or had they been there forever? Why, of course they had. The breed was immortal. They had never been far from Deerfield. They owned the wilderness before ever Christians came to it. They howled in Rome, when Reuben Cory was not. Meeting the green ancient stare from the dark, Reuben felt his face stiffly smiling. He thought: It's true, true--there was a time when I was not. Something new began--something--the name of it I, Reuben Cory. Well, this I may have known, but until now I did never believe it.... He shivered, and although there was cool pleasure in it he drove away the consolation of philosophy because anything that dimmed alertness was dangerous. He could wait. In a reasonable world, one slept for a part of each revolution of the beautiful sun. Reuben thought back in search of the last time he had slept--Springfield, before Jesse was found in the snow. Danger hid in this reflection also, the danger of self-pity. He put an end to it: _I will not sleep._ It came to him that if one is hungry enough, any creature not downright poisonous is meat. Suppose, somehow----? He could not go out against them, away from the fires. Either they would rush him all four together, or they would run away--good meat lost. But suppose, somehow, one of them might be tempted to come alone--say the old gray bitch who had already tried a sneak approach. How? Wisdom lurked in her, a cold flame behind a long gray face. Reuben thought of her as their leader. He discovered that he hated her, in a swelling ecstasy not extended to her slinking companions. The thought of killing her, at first a random flicker like a further warning of madness, became a purpose, a source of power, a wildness deserving a better name than lunacy because of its very absurdity. For ten minutes or perhaps an hour Reuben hovered apart from his mind and watched the thought grow. A boy does not kill a grown wolf with a little stick. And yet the point was sharp. The ash would bend like a bow but never break. His hand and eye were true, true as Ben's.