Its main protagonist is Ed Brown, a trapper who has just begun a winter's stay in the wooded mountains.

The entity overseeing the planet, known in the story only as the Warden, needs to eliminate the Harn and decides that the easiest way to do this is to open a portal from World 7 to Earth.

The Harn is a colony organism that can produce individuals of different sizes, shapes, and armaments, though it is limited by available resources.

Ed, being prepared for a winter in a hostile landscape, has several firearms with him, including shotguns, hunting rifles and light "varmint" guns.

The foregoing was taken from the story's listing in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (for which see the External Links section below).

[2] In that letter, the son reports that his father's actual name was Ralph William Slone and that he died in 1959 (at age 45) while fishing on Kachemak Bay (in Alaska).

More detail on his publication history can be found at his listing in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (for which see the External Links section below).