nted with
his chin--"leading the Reds into a trap."

Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him
now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.

"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.

"_We_," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind
in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.

Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving,
contemptuous appraisal.

"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome
machines?"

"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis
displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into
shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not
change, though his eyes narrowed.

The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was
heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made
a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in
sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of
knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen
troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.

"You would talk--then talk!" Menlik ordered.

This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery.
"Kaydessa leads the Reds into a trap we have set beyond the peaks--four
of them ride with her. How many now remain in the ship near the
settlement?"

"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship.
But there is no getting at them in there."

"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not
think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at
the meat?"

Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a
tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.

"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up
against them, then we are once more gathered into their net--before we
reach their ship."

"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People,"
Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you
not be free?"

"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."

"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the
river?"

Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.

"Give us proof that this will act against their m