First, after we left the river, we worked toward the
west till we came to a small stream that flowed through
marshlands. Here we turned away toward the north,
skirting the marshes and after several days arriving at
what I have called Long Lake. We spent some time
around its upper end, where we found food in plenty;
and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes,
nothing more. And yet they were not so different from
us. They were more hairy, it is true; their legs were
a trifle more twisted and gnarly, their eyes a bit
smaller, their necks a bit thicker and shorter, and
their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a sunken
surface; but they had no hair on their faces and on the
palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and
they made sounds similar to ours with somewhat similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were
not so unlike.

I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old
fellow, wrinkled-faced and bleary-eyed and tottery. He
was legitimate prey. In our world there was no
sympathy between the kinds, and he was not our kind.
He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He was sitting
at the foot of a tree--evidently his tree, for we could
see the tattered nest in the branches, in which he
slept at night.

I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for