Dark and cold and empty. The rockhound had burrowed into the loose
sand nearby, but it would raise the alarm if the Martian should come
sneaking near the camp. Not that that was likely--he'd have to find
shelter somewhere too, if he didn't want to freeze.

_The bushes and the trees and the little furtive animals whispered a
word he could not hear, chattered and gossiped on the wind about the
Martian who kept himself warm with work. But he didn't understand that
language which was no language._

Drowsily, Riordan thought of past hunts. The big game of Earth, lion
and tiger and elephant and buffalo and sheep on the high sun-blazing
peaks of the Rockies. Rain forests of Venus and the coughing roar of a
many-legged swamp monster crashing through the trees to the place
where he stood waiting. Primitive throb of drums in a hot wet night,
chant of beaters dancing around a fire--scramble along the hell-plains
of Mercury with a swollen sun licking against his puny insulating
suit--the grandeur and desolation of Neptune's liquid-gas swamps and
the huge blind thing that screamed and blundered after him--

But this was the loneliest and strangest and perhaps most dangerous
hunt of all, and on that account the best. He had no malice toward the
Martian; he respected the little being's courage as he respected the
bravery of the other animals he had fought. Whatever trophy he brought
home from this chase would be well earned.

The fact that his success would have to be treated discreetly didn't
matter. He hunted less for the glory of it--though he had to admit he
didn't mind the publicity--than for love. His ancestors had fought
under one name or another--viking, Crusader, mercenary, rebel,
patriot, whatever was fashionable at the moment. Struggle was in his
blood, and in these degenerate days there was little to struggle
against save what he hunted.

Well--tomorrow--he drifted off to sleep.

* * * * *

He woke in the short gray dawn, made a quick breakfast, and whistled
his hound to heel. His nostrils dilated with excitement, a high keen
drunkenness that sang wonderfully within him. Today--maybe today!

They had to take a roundabout way down into the canyon and the hound
cast about for an hour before he picked up the scent. Then the
deep-voiced cry rose again and they were off--more slowly now, for it
was a cruel stony trail.

The sun climbed high as they worked along the ancient river-bed. I