"Gee, what are you going to do about them, Dad?"
"I've been trying to decide. I don't know what I should do that will be best for them." I looked at my watch. "Let's go back out and talk to the chief."
His eyes lighted and he clapped me on the shoulder, man to man. We ran out and got into the jeep and drove back up to the valley. The late afternoon Sun glared across the landscape.
We didn't say much as we wound up the valley between the darkening trees. I was filled more and more with the unease that had seized me as I watched the three volplas leave my terrace and climb smoothly and purposefully into the east.
We got out at the chief's camp and there were no volplas around. The fire had burned down to a smolder. I called in the volpla language, but there was no answer.
We went from camp to camp and found dead fires. We climbed to their tree houses and found them empty. I was sick and scared. I called endlessly till I was hoarse.
At last, in the darkness, my son put a hand on my arm. "What are you going to do, Dad?"
Standing there in those terribly silent woods, I trembled. "I'll have to call the police and the newspapers and warn everybody."
"Where do you suppose they've gone?"
I looked to the east where the stars, rising out of the great pass in the mountains, glimmered like a deep bowl of fireflies.