Kreiss was wounded. Chet found him dropped beside his firing platform working methodically to extract the broad blade of a spear from his shoulder where it was embedded.
Chet's first thought was of poison, and he shouted for Towahg. But the savage only looked once at the spear, seized it and with one quick jerk drew the weapon from the wound; then, when the blood flowed freely, he motioned to Chet that the man was all right.
The savage wadded a handful of leaves into a ball and pressed it against the wound, and Chet improvised a first-aid bandage from Kreiss' ragged blouse before they put him from sight in one of the shelters and ran to rejoin Harkness and Diane on the rocks.
But the first wave was spent. There were no more snarling, white-toothed faces above the barricade, and in the open space beyond were shambling forms that hid themselves in the long grass while others dragged themselves to the same concealment or lay limply inert on the open, sunlit ground.
And within the enclosure one solitary ape-man forgot his bruised body while he stamped up and down or whirled absurdly in a dance that expressed his joy in victory.
"Better come down," said Chet. "Schwartzmann might take a shot at you, although I think we are out of pistol range. We're lucky that isn't a service gun he's got, but come down anyway, and we'll see what's next. This time we've had the breaks, but there's more coming. Schwartzmann isn't through."
But Schwartzmann was through for the day; Chet was mistaken in expecting a second assault so soon. He posted Towahg as sentry, and, with Diane and Harkness, threw himself before the door-flap of the shelter where Kreiss had been hidden, and was now sitting up, his arm in a sling.
"Either you're a 'mighty hard man to kill,'" he told Kreiss, "or else Towahg is a powerful medicine man."
"I am still in the fight," the scientist assured him. "I can't do any more work with bow and arrow, but I can keep the rest of you supplied."