“Now why,” Bob Craig wondered, “did they do that?”

“They saw we had just killed a crawler,” Humbolt said. “The crawlers are their enemies and I guess letting us live was their way of showing appreciation.”

Their further explorations of the lowlands revealed no minerals⁠—nothing but alluvial material of unknown depth⁠—and there was no reason to stay longer except that return to the caves was impossible until spring came. They built attack-proof shelters in the trees and settled down to wait out the winter.

They started north with the first wave of woods goats, nothing but lack of success to show for their months of time and effort.