"A Wild One, Daiv! He has fallen into one of our traps."
"Wild One? Trap?"[2]
"I'll show you." Meg rose swiftly, instantly awake as any forest animal. Bright morning sun cascaded down upon her, wakening a sister gleam of gold on her arms and thighs, touching to warm life the tawny down between her high, proud breasts. Save for the white girdle of flesh beneath her fur breech-clout, Meg was all gold; her hair, piled in a loose knot upon her head, was like a shining crown. It was not all Women, Daiv thought briefly, whose charm withstood the early morning sun. He was lucky to have found as a mate this slim lance of loveliness.
He hungered for her lips. But he was Daiv—"He-who-would-learn"—and here was a new mystery. He followed Meg. Meg followed the plaintive cries.
They stopped, at length, at the lip of a cleft in the earth. It had formerly been covered over with a webbing of boughs and ferns, but now that cover was broken, and from the bottom of the pit came the howls of pain that had drawn them.
Meg's lips were grim, white lines.
"He is in there," she said—and as she spoke she unslung her hunting bow, slipped a bone-tipped arrow from her quiver. She stepped to the mouth of the crevice, drew aim. Then—
"Wait, Golden One!"
Daiv swept the weapon from her hands. He looked down into the pit, cried out sharply, then, ignoring Meg's warning, lowered himself into it. A moment later he was back again, slipping his burden from his shoulder. His burden was, as Meg had guessed, a brutish, hairy Man-thing; foul with the stench of unwashed sweat and grease, grimy with blood and dirt.
"You were going to kill him!" Daiv accused sternly. "He is a Man, wounded, and you were going to kill him!"