The next job was to move the building materials to the site chosen for their camp. Carrying large packs, they hiked to the ledge, where it took them only an hour to erect two beehive-shaped buildings. Since these were so light that a strong wind could carry them away, they were enclosed around the bases with piles of stones. And some small boulders were placed on the floor inside to secure them even further. The Silversteins moved into one building; the Englishman and German into the other.

At noon they returned to the vessel and packed more materials. They carried these to the 'village,' where the women and children and a few men crowded around them in wonder. The people were amazed at the spraying and hardening of the foam. Only after some talk among themselves did they get courage enough to approach and touch the plastic. They watched as the four piled stones around these and placed some heavy ones inside. Gribardsun cut out the door and replaced it with hinges and a lock. This dome was to hold artifacts and records and specimens and to serve as a temporary home and workshop. Gribardsun walked around it twelve times chanting Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark and making meaningless gestures. He hoped by doing this to convince the villagers that magic was being invoked to protect the dome.

After that, he went in Abinal's tent and found the boy sitting up and eating meat from a bone. The boy, who had been laughing with his sister, fell silent as Gribardsun entered. But Laminak spoke a few words to him, and he relaxed somewhat. Gribardsun examined him, noticing that the boy shrank from the touch of his fingers. But his sister jollied him, and she even spoke to Gribardsun, though she knew he could not understand her.

When the Englishman and the girl left the tent, he pointed at various people or objects and asked Laminak their names. She caught on and entered the game with enthusiasm. She was a pretty girl in spite of the dirt and the cumbersome fur she wore. Her hair was waist-length, wavy, and would, if washed, have been a rich chestnut color. Her face was broad but her nose was medium in size and well shaped. Her lips were full and grease-smeared, like those of her fellows, to avoid chapping. Her breasts were just beginning to swell. She had large dark eyes that looked merry most of the time. And she seemed to lack the fear for him that the others had.

He liked her very much, and this liking reinforced her attitude to him. She was intelligent; she was soon putting the names of objects into short sentences for his benefit. Or, rather, as he discovered, incorporating them into words, since the language of the Wota'shaimg lacked sentences in the English meaning of the word. A Wota'shaimg 'sentence' was a 'word,' a string of syllables or single phones attached to each other in a certain sequence with the object-term as the nucleus.

Later, Gribardsun and von Billmann were to agree that the structure of the speech of the Bear Folk had striking parallels to the structure of both Eskimo and Shawnee. The sounds were different, of course, and Wota'shaimg had no relation to either of those two languages.

Von Billmann, who was fluent in both Basque and Georgian, could determine no relationship between Wota'shaimg and either of those languages. He admitted that his studies of a possible relationship were superficial and that a deep study by many scholars might reveal a kinship. But he doubted it.

Von Billmann's field was Indo-Hittite with Celtic as his specialization. But he had been highly trained in other fields, including American Indian languages. No one else was as competent as he to study the middle Magdalenian tongues.

The days and nights went by swiftly. The sun became hotter, and the earth bloomed. The women left the area to dig for roots and collect medicinal plants and edible berries. They also tanned the skins their men brought in, cut them into desired shapes, and sewed them with ivory or bone needles and thin gut-thread. They spent endless hours chewing hides to make them soft. They smoked meat in little huts on racks. They worked from dawn to far past dusk.

A baby was born to Gragmirri, a young woman. Gribardsun wanted to assist, or at least to make sure that the delivery was sanitary. But the birth took place in a specially erected tent to which no men, not even Glamug, the shaman, were admitted. And both the baby boy and the mother did well. Gragmirri was up and working the second day, and the men were handling the baby and exclaiming over its fine physique. Glamug sprinkled some milk on its head, and the bear cub licked the milk off while the baby cried and Glamug loudly chanted. By then the four were versed enough in the language to know that the baby, Shamkunnap, had been initiated into the tribe. He was now a member of the family of the Great Bear, and if he died he would go to a place where the Great Bear, some sort of ancestral spirit, would provide him with all the comforts of life.

The four scientists worked almost as hard as the Bear People. They made records and films and collected specimens. Drummond and Rachel took short field trips. He studied the geology of the area, she collected specimens of plant and animal life and of soil and made many photographs.

The days were getting warm enough so that they need wear only shorts and shoes. One day, Gribardsun started to wear native garb entirely. At this season, that consisted of a skin loincloth and a broad leather belt. He even went barefooted, revealing to his fellow scientists feet with thick calluses on the soles.

'If you had a beard, you could pass for a Wota'shaimg,' Rachel said. She looked admiringly at his powerfully muscled yet beautifully proportioned body.

'You could play Tarzan in the trivis,' she said.

Drummond did not look happy. He said, 'Where in hell did you get those calluses?'

'I never wore shoes when I lived in Africa,' the Englishman said. 'You know that I spent many years on the Inner Kenyan Sanctuary. The natives there were barefoot; so I was barefoot too.'

Gribardsun's black hair was shoulder-length after the fashion that had come in two years before, and he wore bangs across his forehead. He looked even more savage than the savages, since his skin was a uniform bronze but theirs was pale except on the face and the arms. During the past few days he had taken to throwing a spear with an atlatl at a target of wood and grass that he had built. Though he practiced only half an hour a day, he was becoming very accurate. And he could already throw a spear about twenty yards beyond the best cast of Angrogrim, the champion of the Wota'shaimg.

This accomplishment did not lessen his attractions for Rachel.

I always thought that the Cro-Magnons, having much sturdier bones for muscle attachments, would be stronger than modern men,' she said.

'These aren't the very early Cro-Magnons,' von Billmann said. 'But even so, they are large, and their constant use of their muscles in hunting and labor should make them very strong. In fact, they are stronger than Drummond or me. Even their smallest, Dubhab, is stronger. But the duke seems to be an exception. Indeed, if I thought such a thing possible, I'd say he is an atavism, a throwback. But he just happens to be exceptionally powerful.'

Von Billmann sometimes referred to the Englishman as the duke, or His Grace. The reference was not altogether sarcastic. Von Billmann had a high regard for Gribardsun which was not, however, unmixed with envy.

The four were by the riverbank at the bottom of the valley below the village site. The German was sitting in a folding chair and transcribing notes from the playback of his recorder. Drummond was breaking open some geodes with his hammer. Rachel had been collecting pollen samples, but she had stopped to watch the spear-atlatl practice.