tter to retreat now than
to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the
chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in
a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.

"Did you feel something just now--in your head?" Travis found it
difficult to put that sensation into words.

"Not so. But you did?"

He had--of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, that
point of panic. "Yes."

"The machine?"

"I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of the
party had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.

"This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."
Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to be
answered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.

The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.
Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that odd
blow? He was met by negatives.

But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee's
comment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be swept
into his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remains
close to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stay
here until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then they
must pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with his
machine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if he
also has a defense against these when they come without warning." He
touched the arrows in his quiver.

To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of the
machine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit that
Nolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a second
attack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not ordered a
general retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was in
Travis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, it
must cease to function.

They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted into
their memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,
and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatar
plodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travis
knew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passed
between the teeth of the