Those moments were the crisis of the fight. It then declined into a series of sporadic brawls as they made their way back toward the river. Feller was keen on getting back to the boat, and would have run straight to it, but the projectiles still hurtling their way from all directions obliged them to retreat in a more deliberate style, walking backward much of the way, alert to the hum of the slings that their foes used to hurl rocks.

As they drew closer to the bank of the river and the cries of their attackers diminished, they became conscious of a distant, repetitive sound, growing more distinct: the thunk, thunk of an axe biting deep into wood. It was a sound that filled their days and to which they were well accustomed. But this had a hollow booming character to it, different from the sound of a tree being felled. When they came in view of the riverbank, they understood why: Thunk had got there well ahead of them and flipped Feller’s boat upside down to expose its belly. He was standing on its hull swinging his sharp axe down into its keel. A distant splintering noise told them that he had broken all the way through it. As Feller sprinted toward him howling like a wild beast, Thunk watched him and coolly struck a few more blows through its thinner hull planking before stepping back and dropping into the river. A few steps took him out into the current, which bore him away. Feller, mounting to the top of his ruined boat, hefted his rod as if making ready to hurl it at Thunk; but then he thought better of doing so.

They turned the ruined boat back over to find that Thunk’s crew had pilfered their axes and other goods. They did not even have enough rope to lash the available logs together into a raft that could bear them downstream, and so instead they walked back to Eltown: a journey that would have taken them but an hour rowing downstream but that on foot consumed the remainder of the day. Of Thunk and his crew they saw no more, though at first every shifting tree branch or scurrying beast caused them to twitch about and unlimber their iron rods.