that he shall find those he seeks sitting
waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay
remarked.

"It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they
are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into
the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.

"A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Travis
cut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has good
reason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,
he probably leaves his machine on guard."

"At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "This
one does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he can
master. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn--" He
made a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.

At dawn--the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.
Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo and
creep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.

But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip him
of his enslaving machine.

Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between his
eyes--to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physical
impact--no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He braced
his whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understand
what had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.
Never had he experienced anything like it--or had he? Two years or more
ago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona of
the Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier--that moment of transfer
had been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space and
time with no stable footing to be found.

Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing about
him in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.
But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried far
inside him, a tender spot like an open wound.

Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up on
one elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this some
attack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all sure
what might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.

Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with him
to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Be