ge near the valley gate, moved into the
open and stood waiting, the alien weapon resting across his forearm. If
necessary, he intended to give a demonstration with it for an object
lesson.

"_Dar-u-gar_!" The war cry which had once awakened fear across a quarter
of Terra. Thin here, and from only a few throats, but just as menacing.

Two of the horsemen aimed lances, preparing to ride him down. Travis
sighted a tree midway between them and pressed the firing button. This
time there was a flash, a flicker of light, to mark the disappearance of
a living thing.

One of the lancers' ponies reared, squealed in fear. The other kept on
his course.

"Menlik!" Travis shouted. "Hold up your man! I do not want to kill!"

The shaman called out, but the lancer was already level with the
vanished tree, his head half turned on his shoulders to witness the
blackened earth where it had stood. Then he dropped his lance, sawed on
the reins. A rifle bullet might not have halted his charge, unless it
killed or wounded, but what he had just seen was a thing beyond his
understanding.

The tribesmen sat their horses, facing Travis, watching him with the
feral eyes of the wolves they claimed as forefathers, wolves that
possessed the cunning of the wild, cunning enough not to rush breakneck
into unknown danger.

Travis walked forward. "Menlik, I would talk--"

There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one
or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace
toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other--the
warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert
and the People.

"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were
more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to
come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount
into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be
prepared to use it."

"The Horde is not here--I see only a handful of people," Travis replied.
"Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are
those who are his greater enemies."

"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a
general to face him."

Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so
little time.

"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your
woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he poi