preserved for
service to the state!" And a thousand bright Red staffs swung up in
salute, while from the throats of the bearers came the chant: "Right
for Alfreed! _Right! Right! RIGHT!_" 

Isral pointed. "See, Stevens, the sharpened tops of the stockade; logs
half buried, upright, ten feet out of the ground showing, so close
together that a rabbit couldn't squeeze through. We're safe here from
any animal or man, I think."

"I see," said Stevens, shifting his rucksack. "It's most ingenious. But
shouldn't you have sentries posted there by the gates?"

"We usually do," said Isral, puzzled. "I don't understand--" He broke
off sharply as his eyes caught something. "Thundering heavens! _The
gate's open!_ Somebody's going to catch hell from the judges for this.
Come on!" he shouted at the straggling column of men carrying, in a
sort of palanquin cage, the live deer they had gone so far South to
capture. "I can't understand it," he mused fretfully as he and Stevens
and Markett ran on the double. They halted before the picketed gate and
Markett wrinkled her nose. "What's that smell?" she asked.

Stevens grimaced at the foul stench that drifted over the high
palisade, and turned to Isral for an answer. The Heber had forced his
face into lines of composure, but beneath his weather-beaten tan, his
skin was white with shock. "Fever," he said, pushing open the gate.
"But twice before it has come, and both times we were able to combat
it. Now--look--" Hopelessly he stretched forth his hand, and Stevens
turned his head.

There was a long street of neat little houses, log houses, punctuated
here and there by little shops of artisans. At the end of the street
was a meeting-hall on which, in wood contrasting with the rough,
unfinished logs on the outside, was nailed the six-pointed star, tribal
symbol of the Hebers. But the pottery wheels and grindstones and forges
before the shops were untended, and there was no smoke of cooking from
the neat little chimneys of the houses. Lying in the street, or half
hidden in doorways, were drawn, gaunt figures, women, children and old
people.

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