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as well as the women wore long and often in pigtails, and their skin was olive green. They led a hard, frugal life, and their children, girls as well as boys, were brought up to be brave, proud, and generous. They learned to bear heat, cold, and great hardship and were tested for courage at an early age. This was necessary because the Greenskins were a nation of hunters. They obtained everything they needed either from the hard, fibrous prairie grass or from the purple buffaloes, great herds of which roamed the Grassy Ocean.
    These purple buffaloes were about twice the size of common bulls or cows; they had long, purplish-red hair with a silky sheen and enormous horns with tips as hard and sharp as daggers. They were peaceful as a rule, but when they scented danger or thought they were being attacked, they could be as terrible as a natural cataclysm. Only a Greenskin would have dared to hunt these beasts, and moreover they used no other weapons than bows and arrows. The Greenskins were believers in chivalrous combat, and often it was not the hunted but the hunter who lost his life. The Greenskins loved and honored the purple buffaloes and held that only those willing to be killed by them had the right to kill them.
    News of the Childlike Empress’s illness and the danger threatening all Fantastica had not yet reached the Grassy Ocean. It was a long, long time since any traveler had visited the tent colonies of the Greenskins. The grass was juicier than ever, the days were bright, and the nights full of stars. All seemed to be well.
    But one day a white-haired black centaur appeared. His hide was dripping with sweat, he seemed totally exhausted, and his bearded face was haggard. On his head he wore a strange hat plaited of reeds, and around his neck a chain with a large golden amulet hanging from it. It was Cairon.
    He stood in the open space at the center of the successive rings of tents. It was there that the elders held their councils and that the people danced and sang old songs on feast days. He waited for the Greenskins to assemble, but it was only very old men and women and small children wide-eyed with curiosity who crowded around him. He stamped his hooves impatiently.
    “Where are the hunters and huntresses?” he panted, removing his hat and wiping his forehead.
    A white-haired woman with a baby in her arms replied: “They are still hunting.
    They won’t be back for three or four days.”
    “Is Atreyu with them?” the centaur asked.
    “Yes, stranger, but how can it be that you know him?”
    “I don’t know him. Go and get him.”
    “Stranger,” said an old man on crutches, “he will come unwillingly, because this is his hunt. It starts at sunset. Do you know what that means?”
    Cairon shook his mane and stamped his hooves.
    “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. He has something more important to do now. You know this sign I am wearing. Go and get him.”
    “We see the Gem,” said a little girl. “And we know you have come from the Childlike Empress. But who are you?”
    “My name is Cairon,” the centaur growled. “Cairon the physician, if that means anything to you.”
    A bent old woman pushed forward and cried out: “Yes, it’s true. I recognize him. I saw him once when I was young. He is the greatest and most famous doctor in all Fantastica.”
    The centaur nodded. “Thank you, my good woman,” he said. “And now perhaps one of you will at last be kind enough to bring this Atreyu here. It’s urgent. The life of the Childlike Empress is at stake.”
    “I’ll go,” cried a little girl of five or six.
    She ran away and a few seconds later she could be seen between the tents galloping away on a saddleless horse.
    “At last!” Cairon grumbled. Then he fell into a dead faint. When he revived, he didn’t know where he was, for all was dark around him. It came to him only little by little that he was in a large tent, lying on a bed of soft furs. It seemed to be night, for through a