They spent the rest of the day exploring and looking for food. When they found a wide deep creek that tumbled over the cliff, they followed it up until they came to a pool. Here they improvised fishing poles and caught three troutlike fish. They also waded around in a small swamp and seized three large frogs. When they returned to camp, their bellies were full of protein. They also arrived just in time to see Blogo's short legs carrying him at his top speed towards them.
Blogo stopped a few feet from them. Panting, looking exultant and proud, he cried, "I've found a village!"
The next day, they followed him to a distant point on the edge of the plateau. There he gestured at a place far down and on the opposite side of the river.
It took a day for the three to climb down and get across the swift rapids-riddled stream. The villagers were not the type of Gillikins expected. They obviously were a nearly pure strain of Neanderthals. They did, however, speak an archaic dialect of Gillikin. The three strangers managed to make themselves intelligible and to make it clear that they wanted thirty gallons of grain alcohol. The villagers had the alcohol, but they refused to give it away. They wanted something in return. They did not know what that something was, but it had to be of equal or superior value.
"Why don't we just take it from them?" Blogo said. "One burst from your gun, Hank, and the survivors will run like mad."
"I won't do that," Hank said. "Besides, we're going to need their help to get the fuel up the cliff."
"It would be a lot of fun seeing the tiny apemen run," Blogo said.
"Tiny!" Hank said. "Blogo, you're the shortest person here! And you look more like an ape than they do!"
Blogo said, sulkily, "In spirit, I meant. In spirit."
They spent the night there, the first half of which was entertainment by their hosts of what must have seemed to them to be rather weird guests. They got up early, however. After a breakfast of acorn bread, fish, frog, nuts, berries, corncakes with wild honey, and a thick, whitish and vanillaish fluid tapped from a milktree, they set out. The headman, the priestess, and six young men accompanied them. They got to the camp just after dusk. Here, by the light of a bonfire, the villagers were shown the toy-making machine.
"You can have this in return for the alcohol," Sharts said.
The Kumkwoots' eyes shone, though with fear as much as with desire. This was a holy, a dreaded place. They had stayed away from here because they feared the ghosts of the Long-Gones. But, since they thought that the strangers were spirits of the ancients who had come down to tell them that the ghosts were now friendly, they had agreed to trespass.
This made Hank grin. If they believed that the strangers were ghosts, why had they bargained with them? He would have thought that they would have given the ghosts anything they wanted. But avarice had ridden down their fear.
"The toymaker is mine, and so I can give it to you," Sharts said. "The other ghosts have agreed to this. In fact, they would like you to visit them whenever you feel like it."
"Where are they?" the priestess said. "I'd like to meet them."
Sharts handled the shrewd woman shrewdly.
"They're off on a visit to the otherworld just now. But they'll be back."
Three days later, they came back to camp with the fuel. The next morning, the Kumkwoot porters bade them farewell. Despite Sharts's reassurances, they seemed glad to get away from the place. Perhaps this was because they were made even more uneasy by Jenny.
Blogo was still sulking because Hank and Sharts had made him stay away from the Kumkwoot women.
"Let's get away from this miserable place," he said. "How long will it take to refuel this thing?"
"Person!" Jenny yelled at him. "Person! Not thing!"
"How would you like apples jammed up your exhaust pipes?" Blogo said.
"I'll be glad when we get rid of that chickenspit," Jenny said to Hank.
He patted her cowling. "Me, too."
However, the black sky threatened rain, and the wind was too strong and gusty for flight. Also, Sharts wanted to explore the ruins some more. Since they could not take off anyway, Hank agreed to this.
"You're coming with us," Sharts said.
Blogo, bristling, his eyes wild, said, "No, I'm not!"
"Yes, you are," the giant said. "You've had this ridiculous and demeaning terror of this nonexistent Very Rare Beast long enough. We're going to go into every place we can get into, and I'm going to show you that there's nothing to be afraid of."
"What good it'll do if there isn't any Beast there?" Blogo said. He swallowed and said, "It could be haunting some other ruins."
"You told me that there's supposed to be one in every ruin," Sharts said.
"I did? I don't remember that."
"Are you calling me a liar?" Sharts said coldly. He stepped forward until Blogo's nose almost touched the giant's navel.
Blogo, hands fisted, trembling, said, "No, but I am saying that maybe your memory isn't perfect."
"What?" Sharts roared. "You know that it's perfect! I never forget a thing! And you can bet your silly-looking nose that I won't forget this insubordination! Maybe you and I should part when we get to Quadlingland! I plan to spend a beautiful life in beautiful surroundings, and you'd spoil the esthetically perfect environment! There's no way anybody as dumb and as ugly as you could fit into anything beautiful!"
"Please, boss!" Blogo whimpered. "Don't make me do this!"
"You have no choice," Sharts said, picking the little creature up by his loincloth. "Really, Blogo, I'm doing this for you because I like you—though how I can stumps me—and it's all for your own good. I don't mind the bother of it, but I'd appreciate it if you'd be more cooperative."
Sharts carried the kicking and yelling Rare Beast into the ruins. Hank, disgusted with both of them, followed. When they were in front of the first building that had an entrance not choked with dirt and bushes, Sharts put Blogo down. But he held him with two fingers around his neck.
He pushed him into the building. Hank waited. Presently, they came out. Blogo had quit struggling and screaming, but his cock's comb and face were red, and if the bulb at the end of his nose had had a little more blood in it, it would have burst.
"See?" the giant said. "There was no one there except for a few bats. It wasn't so bad, was it?"
"Not bad!" Blogo said. "I left something of me in there on the ground."
"You'd have had to get rid of it, anyway," Sharts said. "Though it was, I'll have to admit, the best part of you."
They went into another building. When they came out, Blogo said nothing, but he was shaking as if he was about to have a seizure. And the blood had drained from his comb, face, and nose.
The third structure could be entered only by a half-buried doorway. Dirt piled around it showed that some large animal had dug into it to make a home there. The stench indicated that animals might still live there. Sharts, however, said that he had run out the wolverine pack that had made their abode there. Hank did not know if he was telling the truth. For one thing, wolverines did not run in a pack; they were solitaries. However, this was not Earth, and the sentient animals might have overcome their powerful instincts.
Blogo, looking as numb as if he had been shot with morphine, walked in ahead of Sharts. No more than ten seconds had passed before Hank heard a despairing scream. A few seconds later, Blogo raced from the entrance and headed towards the edge of the plateau. His eyes were popping, and his head was thrown back. His legs and arms pumped.
Sharts, stooping, came out of the entrance. He was laughing uproariously, but, when he saw where Blogo was running, he shouted.