e truth," Jil-Lee acknowledged. "Also there is good sense in
this seeking out of the tower things. Let the Reds find such first--if
they exist at all--and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with
only death at our heels."

"And you would go to these towers now?" Nolan demanded.

"I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the
pass!" The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now
so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was
surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger
man.

"Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember,
if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no
returning--"

"We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day," Nolan added.
"Then--" he shrugged--"where you go will be your own affair."

Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two
steps down his chosen path.

12

Travis had taken a direct cross route through the heights, but not
swiftly enough to reach his objective before nightfall. And he had no
wish to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now
warred. There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their
secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was
he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the
Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world--half Apache
brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for
knowledge? Or was the fear rooted more deeply and for another reason?

Travis crouched in a hollow, trying to understand what he felt. Why was
it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the
towers? If he only had the coyotes with him.... Why and where had they
gone?

He was alive to every noise out of the night, every scent the wind
carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours
held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify, even less did
he see. There was one wide-winged, huge flying thing which passed
across the green-gold plate of the nearer moon. It was so large that for
an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings
flapped, breaking the glide, and the creature merged in the shadows of
the night--a hunter large enough to be a serious threat, and one he had
never seen before.

Relying on his own small defense, the strewing of brittle