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drying land had forced them to move away into the hills, beyond which rose those mountains that held up the sky bowl.
    Grumbling and snorting, they had come. The People were a settled lot who distrusted and disliked change. But Jony had welcomed the move. There was something which ever urged him on, a curiosity which was as much a part of him as the clubbed braid of his dark hair, his sun-browned skin. He wanted always to know what lay a little farther on.
    During that journey they had come across a thing which astounded Jony by its very being. It was like the stream below, save it was not formed of water, but stone (or something as hard as the rock about Jony now). However, in the likeness of a stream, it ran as a narrow length from the lowlands up toward the hills. The top of it was uniformly smooth, though in places earth had drifted across its surface, even as sand bars pushed at the water of the stream.
    Jony had run along that surface for a space, finding excitement in being able to move so quickly without stone or brush to impede his going. In the sign language of the People (Jony and his kind could not reproduce their grunting speech), he had tried to ask questions about this strange river of rock. He had been with Trush that day. Trush had been Yaa's cubling when she had come to Rutee's aid.
    To Jony's vast surprise, Trush had turned away his head, started determinedly walking away from the rock river, refusing to answer any of Jony's questions, acting as if no one must see or speak of such a thing. His displeasure was enough to subdue Jony; and the boy had reluctantly joined in that retreat, though he had been plagued ever since by the memory of the strange thing and the need to know more.
    By his People-trained ability of location he was certain that, had the river of rock really penetrated deeply into the hills, it could not lie far now from this present site. As soon as he could persuade Maba and Geogee to leave the water and see them back with the cubs to the clan campsite, he was going to do a little prowling on his own.
    However, unless Jony wanted to arouse the only too annoying curiosity of the twins, he must do nothing to make them suspicious. Jony sighed. He considered that he was as cautious and reasonable as Voak, but the twins rushed madly into action without ever thinking. Also, they both lacked his own ability to sense danger, or to use the control he could hold by concentration upon some other minds.
    Not that he could so influence the People. Their minds were too different. Jony had never been able to enter, let alone bend, any one of them to his will, as he had that Big One during the crucial moments of escape. Perhaps (he had talked about it with Rutee often), perhaps this was because the Big Ones had used the mind-controller, and so in some way were themselves more vulnerable to such power. But neither of the twins had such a talent. Rutee explained, when Jony had grown older (it was just before she had died, when she had him promise to watch over them), that their father had been wholly mind-controlled. And she thought perhaps that might make them more susceptible to influence.
    She had made Jony promise then that he, himself, would never try to control either Maba or Geogee by such a power. To do so was an evil thing. Her distress had been so great when she spoke of this that Jony had promised at once. Though many times his exasperation with the twins' reckless disregard for their own safety—and that of others—made him wish she had not demanded that of him.
    So he had to use other methods of persuasion to control them, and, the older they grew, the more they resented his orders. Jony stirred impatiently on the rock, which was now almost too hot to make a comfortable lounging place. He sat up and called down:
    “You two—time to come out!”
    Maba laughed and jumped back, so the falling curtain of water hid her slim brown body. Geogee bobbed up and down in the stream and made a