From within the bundle he brought to light a twelve-ounce bottle of
alki. Footsteps coming down the embankment alarmed him, and he hid
the bottle under his hat on the ground between his legs.

But the next comer proved to be not merely one of their own ilk,
but likewise to have only one arm. So forbidding of aspect was he
that greetings consisted of no more than grunts. Huge-boned, tall,
gaunt to cadaverousness, his face a dirty death's head, he was as
repellent a nightmare of old age as ever Dore imagined. His
toothless, thin-lipped mouth was a cruel and bitter slash under a
great curved nose that almost met the chin and that was like a
buzzard's beak. His one hand, lean and crooked, was a talon. The
beady grey eyes, unblinking and unwavering, were bitter as death,
as bleak as absolute zero and as merciless. His presence was a
chill, and Whiskers and Fatty instinctively drew together for
protection against the unguessed threat of him. Watching his
chance, privily, Whiskers snuggled a chunk of rock several pounds
in weigh close to his hand if need for action should arise. Fatty
duplicated the performance.

Then both sat licking their lips, guiltily embarrassed, while the
unblinking eyes of the terrible one bored into them, now into one,
now into another, and then down at the rock-chunks of their
preparedness.

"Huh!" sneered the terrible one, with such dreadfulness of menace
as to cause Whiskers and Fatty involuntarily to close their hands
down on their cave-man's weapons.

"Huh!" the other repeated, reaching his one talon into his side