The Red Dust

Jo

, however, dim, bluish lights glowed near the ground. There an intermittent glow showed that a firefly had wandered far from the rivers and swamps above which most of

large, warm raindrops fell ceaselessly. A drop, a pause, and then a

and mushrooms could be heard, swelling and growing large in the darkness. Rustlings and stealthy movemen

y interwoven for the larger insects to penetrate. Only the little midgets hid

he humid earth, small beetles roamed, singing cheerfully to themselves in deep bass notes.

they been other than low as the lowest tone of a harp. They were truffle-b

t down. A foot, two feet, or two yards, all was the same to them. In time they would come upon the morsel they sought and would remain at the bottom of their tem

new and childlike confidence and considered the matter settled. They slept, while beneath a glowing mushroom at one side of the clearing Burl struggled with his new problem. He squatted upon the ground in the

ng edible fungus for the tribal larder, had seen the fat, distended globule

unds that would warn her of danger while her eyes searched for tidbits that would make a m

ross the top, and a thick cloud of brownish-red dust was spurting in every direction. It formed a pyra

seemed like playful taps upon a friendly element. The butterfly was literally intoxicated with the sheer joy of living. It had emerged from its cocoon barely

something the matter with the butterfly. Its wings no longer moved lazily and gently. They struck out in frenzied, hysterical blows that were erratic and wil

hurried forward. The wings would be new fabric with which to adorn herself, and t

rned her nostrils and seared her lungs. She gasped in pain, and the agony was re

he stumbled and fell to the ground. She lay there, gasping, and uttering moans of pain, until one of the

e clicking of an ant's limbs, and rather than have the ant pick her to pieces bit by bit-and leave his cur

ed Burl to sit alone all that night beneath the shining toadstool in t

mbered that one day, a long time before, there had been a strange breeze which blew for three day and

reason that the spores of the red mushrooms had been borne upon the wind to the present resting-places of the deadly fungus

y were everywhere about, and that they would burst, and that to

ed under the glowing disk of the luminous mushroom, his face a

e all about. They would fill the air with their poison. He struggled with his problem while his peo

er head. She saw Burl crouching by the shining toadstool, his gay attire draggled and

e she spoke his name softly. When he turned and looked at her, confu

y her presence, and she sat down beside him. After a long time she slept, with her head resting against his side, but he continued to

nts, he had seen great forests of edible mushrooms, and had said to himself that he would bring Saya to t

. If he traveled far enough he would come to a place where there were still no r

en woke, talking in few words and in a loud vo

and he had thrown down before them the gray bulk of the labyrinth spider he had thrust through with his sp

little fabric they still possessed. Three men bore spears, in addition to Burl's long shaft, an

r way from their hiding-place and set out upon their journey. For their course, Burl depended entirely upon chance. He avoided the direction of the river, however, and the path along whic

s ferocity and incredible malignance, armed only with a horny spear borrowed from a dead insect. His velvety cloak, made fro

nable to resist the Instinct to play even in the presence of the manifold dangers of the march. They ate hungrily of the lumps

, one with a short spear, and the other with a club, each with a huge mass of edible mushroom under his free arm, and both badly f

m a fixed line, and with many halts and pauses. Once a shrill stridulation filled all the

uite half a mile in either direction the earth was black with ants, snapping and biting at each other, locked in vise-like

ed, and strange sounds made by the dying, and above all, the whining battle-cry

rushing to the fight. Tiny as the ants were, for once no lumbering beetle swaggered insolently in their path, nor did the hunting-spiders

out in and among the fighting creatures with marvelous dexterity, carrying off

battle shifted, insect guerrillas, fighting for their own hands, careless of the origin of

rrying to the scene of strife was a matter of some difficulty. The ants running rapidly toward the battle-field were hugely excited. Their anten

ty before allowing him to proceed. Once they arrived at the battle-field they flung themselves i

ir foes, but the ants had a much simpler method of identification. Each ant-city possesses its individual odor-a variant on th

iles of perilous territory behind before nightfall. Many times during the day they saw the sudden billowing of a red-brown dust-cloud from the earth, and more than once they came upon the empty skin and drooping stalk of one of

f white powder resembling smoke. The powder was precisely the same in nature as that cast out by

emainder of his tribe, and even Saya, were fearful and afraid, listening ceaselessly al

t. Once one of the little children was caught in a whirling eddy of red dust, and its mother rushed into the deadly stuff to se

s-and Burl took two men and speared two of the huge, twelve-foot slugs that fed upon the leaves. When the tribe passed on it was

roze suddenly into stillness. One of the hairy tarantulas-a trap-door spider with a black

nic-stricken silence, and refused to advance until he had led the

ces of plains covered with many-colored "rusts" and molds; pauses beside turbid pools whose waters were concealed by thick layers of green slime,

ad it would have been beyond the power of the strongest of the tribe to break. They passed through

ning with incredible speed upon legs of uncountable number. It was a centipede all of thirty feet in length, a

their complaint, and he simply pointed with his hands behind them. There were three little clouds of brownish vapor in the air, where they c

a long distance, one of the little children ran a little to the left of the route its elders were fol

n, crying and choking, to its mother, its lungs burning as with fire, and i

looked about for a hiding-place. Far over to the right a low cliff, perhaps twenty or thirty feet high, showed sides of crum

y kinds of both insects dig burrows for their young, and do not occupy them thems

, and the entrances were "weathered" and worn. The tribefolk made their way into the three-foot t

signs of danger. While waiting he poked curiously with his spear at a little pile

alf an inch in length, tumbled pell-mell from the dirty-white heap. Awkward legs, tiny, gree

e to hide themselves in it again, moving slowly and clumsily,

little insect back with the point of his spear and examined it from a safe distance. Tiny jaws be

om his fingers, dropping upon the soft yellow caterpillar-fur he had about his middle. Instantly, as if it were a conjuring trick, the little insect vanish

f form and emerge into the open air, passing over the cluster of tiny creatures at the doorway. As the bees pass, the little bee-lice would clamber in eager haste up their hairy legs and come to rest in the fur about their thoraxes. Then, weeks later, when the bees in turn made ot

t had hidden themselves in his furry garment, no doubt thinking it the coat of their natural, though unwilling host

it with the flat side of his spear to dislodge the visitors. They dropped out one by one, reluctantly, and finally the gar

than three of the great imperial mushrooms. Of the three, one had been attacked by a parasitic purple mould,

ned in the consumption of the find as readily as t

all vision on one side. But the view toward the horizon was unobstructed on three sides, and here and there the black speck of a monster bee could be seen, dronin

lightly above the swollen fungoids, and touching their dainty proboscides to unspeakable things in default of the fragrant f

y flitted gaily in the air. There were some so tiny that they would barely have shaded Burl's face, and some beneath whose slender bodies h

ank would turn red in the west, and then darkness would lean downward from the sky. With the coming of that time these creatures of the day would seek hiding-places, and the air woul

ushroom forests, and a gentle haze arose above the golden glades. One by one the gorgeous fliers of the daytime dipped down and furled their painted wings. The overhanging cloud

undersides of huge toadstools, creeping silently, with every sense alert

hidden itself barely two hundred yards away. Burl could imagine it, now, preening its slender limbs and combing from its long and slender pro

g-holes along an insect's abdomen. Then came the delicate rustling of filmy wings being stretched and closed again, and the movement of sharply barbed f

eads were deformed and misshapen from their crowdings. Burl spent precious moments in trying to force a silent passage, but had to o

curity. He moved forward for some ten yards, however, walking gingerly over his precario

ng thing, thrusting his spear with all the force he could command. He lande

's soft flesh. He had fallen upon the shining back of one of the huge, meat-eating beetles, and his spear had slid acr

ssed him when the creature beneath him uttered a grunt of fright and pain, and, spreading its s