"It seems funny," she went on, "to thank you for saving me. I used to reproach you for saving me the first time, and I tried to fling away the life you'd given back. But somehow, now, it's different. I want to live! I feel somehow that I've found the place where I belong—a world where living is real and glorious, as it should be."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"I guess you're right. Everything's as it should be."
As soon as he could walk with but a slight limp, he gathered up his spears and implements.
"I've a notion there's better hunting farther south," he observed.
DuChane avoided his eyes. Norma said nothing, but it was apparent that she wished to be alone with her man.
"I'll drop around sometimes—keep in touch with you," Marlin assured them cheerfully. "So long."
Thus casually, he set out alone in the wilderness.
For weeks he hunted along the shore of the murky sea. One day he picked up a shaft in which was bound a spearhead unlike any that either he or DuChane had fashioned. It was a crudely hammered thing of metal—and the red stain with which it was encrusted revealed that the metal was iron.