The wind stirred, cold and damp with its warning of an approaching storm. He looked to the north, where the evening had turned the gray clouds black, and called Schroeder:

“Steve⁠—any luck?”

“None,” Schroeder answered.

“I just killed a goat,” he said. “It has iron stains on its legs it got at some spring farther north. I’m going on to try to find it. You can turn back in the morning.”

“No,” Schroeder objected. “I can angle over and catch up with you in a couple of days.”

“You’ll turn back in the morning,” he said. “I’m going to try to find this iron. But if I get caught by a blizzard it will be up to you to tell them at the caves that I found iron and to tell them where it is⁠—you know the mockers can’t transmit that far.”

There was a short silence; then Schroeder said, “All right⁠—I see. I’ll head south in the morning.”

Lake took a route the next day that would most likely be the one the woods goats had come down, stopping on each ridge top to study the country ahead of him through his binoculars. It was cloudy all day but at sunset the sun appeared very briefly, to send its last rays across the hills and redden them in mockery of the iron he sought.

Far ahead of him, small even through the glasses and made visible only because of the position of the sun, was a spot at the base of a hill that was redder than the sunset had made the other hills.

He was confident it would be the red clay he was searching for and he hurried on, not stopping until darkness made further progress impossible.