The scientist sniffed."Wood smoke," he said.
Chujee grunted."Either that's our mysterious friend, or we're just in time to stop a forest fire, if the rain hasn't done that for us." He kicked his mount forward. In the patch of pine they were traversing, the agoutis' feet made no sound on the carpet of needles. Thus they came upon the fire and the capuchin who was roasting a slab of venison over it before the latter saw them.
At the snap of a twig, the stranger whirled and snatched up a heavy rifle.
"Well?" he said in a flat voice."Who be you?" In his cape, which he was still wearing after the rain, he looked like a caricature of Little Red Riding Hood.
The explorers automatically reached for the rifles in their saddle boots, but thought better of it in the face of that unwavering muzzle. Nawputta identified himself and the guide.
The stranger relaxed."Oh! Just another one of those damn bug hunters. Sorry I scared you. Make yourselves at home. I'm Nguchoy tsu Chaw, timber scout for the Colony. We—I—came up in that canoe yonder. Made it ourselves out of birch bark. Great stuff, birch bark." "We?" echoed Nawputta.
The scout's shoulders drooped sadly."Just finished burying my partner. Rattlesnake got him. Name was Jawga; Jawga tsu Shrr. Best partner a scout ever had. Say, could you let me have some flea powder? I'm all out."
As he rubbed the powder into his fur, he continued: "We'd just found the biggest stand of pine you ever saw. This river cuts through a notch in the ridge about thirty miles up. Beyond that it's gorges and rapids for miles, and beyond that it cuts through another ridge and breaks up into little creeks. We had to tie the boat up and hike. Great country; deer, bear, giant rabbit, duck, and all kinds of game. Not so thick as they say it is on the western plains, but you can shoot your meat easy." He went on to say that he was making a cast up the main stream before returning to the Colony with his news.
After Nguchoy had departed early the following morning, Chujee, the guide, scratched his head."Guess I must have picked up some fleas from our friend. Wonder why he held a gun on us until he found who we were? That's no way to treat a stranger."
Nawputta wiggled his thumbs, the capuchin equivalent of a shrug."He was afraid at being alone, I imagine."
Chujee still frowned."I can understand his grabbing it before he knew what was behind him; we might have been a lion. But he kept pointing it after he saw we were Jmu"—the capuchin word for "human" —"like himself. There aren't any criminals around here for him to be scared of. Oh, well, I guess I'm just naturally mistrustful of these damned Colonials. Do you want to look at this 'great country'?"
"Yes," said Nawputta."If we go on another week, we can still get out before the cold weather begins." (Despite their fur, the capuchins were sensitive to cold, for which reason exploration had lagged behind the other elements of their civilization. ) "Nguchoy's description agrees with what Chmrrgoy saw from his balloon, though, as you recall, he never got up this far on foot. He landed by the river forty miles down and floated down the Big Muddy to the Colony on a raft."
"Say," said Chujee."Do you suppose they'll ever get a flying machine that'll go where you want it to, instead of being blown around like these balloons? You know all about these scientific things."
"Not unless they can get a much lighter engine. By the time you've loaded your boiler, your engine proper, and your fuel and feed water aboard, your flying machine has as much chance of taking off as a granite boulder. There's a theory that Men had flying machines, but the evidence isn't conclusive. They may have had engines powered by mineral oils, which they pumped out of beds of oil-bearing sand. Our geologists have traced some of their borings. They used up nearly all the oils, so we have to be satisfied with coal."
It was a great country, the explorers agreed when they reached it. The way there had not been easy. Miles before they reached the notch, they had had to cut their way through a forest of alders that stretched along the sides of the river. Chujee had gone ahead on foot, swinging an ax in time to his strides with the effortless skill of an old woodsman. With each swing the steel bit clear through the soft white wood of a slim trunk. Behind him, Nawputta had stumbled, the leading agouti's reins gripped in his tail.
When they had passed through the notch, they climbed up the south side of the gorge in which they found themselves and in the distance saw another vast blue rampart, like the one they had just cut through, stretching away to the northeast. (This had once been called the Allegheny Mountains. ) Age-old white pines raised their somber blue-green spires above them. A huge buffalo-shaped cervid, who was rubbing the velvet from his antlers against a tree trunk, smelled them, snorted, and lumbered off.
"What's that noise?" asked Nawputta.
They listened, and heard a faint rhythmical thumping that seemed to come out of the ground.
"Dunno," said Chujee."Tree trunks knocking together, maybe? But there isn't enough wind."
"Perhaps it's stones in a pothole in the river," said Nawputta without conviction.
They kept on to where the gorge widened out. Nawputta suddenly pulled his agouti off the game trail and jumped down. Chujee rode over and found the scientist examining a pile of bones.
Ten minutes later he was still turning the bones over.
"Well," said Chujee impatiently, "aren't you going to let me in on the secret?"
"Sorry. I didn't believe my own senses at first. These are the bones of Men! Not fossils; fresh bones! From the looks of them they're the remains of a meal. There were three of them. From the holes in the skulls I'd say that our friend Nguchoy or his partner shot them. I'm going to get a whole specimen, if it's the last thing I do."
Chujee sighed."For a fellow who claims he hates to kill things, you're the bloodthirstiest cuss I ever saw when you hear about a new species."
"You don't understand, Chujee," objected Nawputta."I'm what's called a fanatical conservationist. Hunting for fun not only doesn't amuse me; it makes me angry when I hear about it. But securing a scientific specimen is different."
"Oh," said Chujee.
They peered out of the spruce thicket at the Man. He was a strange object to them, almost hairless, so that the scars on his yellow-brown skin showed. He carried a wooden club, and padded noiselessly over the pine needles, pausing to sniff the air. The sun glinted on the wiry bronze hair that sprouted from his chin.
Nawputta squeezed his trigger; the rifle went off with a deafening ka-pow! A fainter ka-pow! bounced back from the far wall of the gorge as the Man's body struck the ground.
"Beautiful!" cried Chujee."Right through the heart! Couldn't have done better myself. But I'd feel funny about shooting one; they look so Jmu."
Nawputta, getting out his camera, tape measure, notebook, and skinning knife, said: "In the cause of science I don't mind. Besides, I couldn't trust you not to try for a brain shot and ruin the skull."
Hours later he was still dissecting his prize and making sketches. Chujee had long since finished the job of salting the hide, and was lolling about trying to pick up a single pine needle with his tail.
"Yeah," he said, "I know it's a crime that we haven't got a tank of formaldehyde so we could pack the whole carcass back, instead of just the skin and skeleton. But we haven't got it, and never did have it, so why bellyache?"
Much as he respected Nawputta, the zoologist got on his nerves at times. Not that he didn't appreciate the scientific point of view; he was well-read and had some standing as an amateur naturalist. But, having managed expeditions for years, he had long been resigned to the fact that you can carry only so much equipment at a time.
He sat up suddenly with a warning "S-s-st!" Fifty feet away a human face peered out of a patch of brake ferns. He reached stealthily for his rifle; the face vanished. The hair on Chujee's neck and scalp rose. He had never seen such a concentration of malevolent hatred in one countenance. The ferns moved, and there was a brief flash of yellow-brown skin among the trees.