the masculine mannerisms they affected. Not since the spring
the Lost Islands died had he seen a girl like the one before him.

"Well?" she asked. "Do you think you'll know me next time?"

He walked to her, while she watched him with catlike wariness.

"Hand me that pistol," he ordered.

"Try to take it, you Vogarian ape!"

He moved, and a moment later she was sitting on the ground, her eyes
wide with dismayed surprise as he shoved the pistol in his own belt.

"Resisting a Vogarian with a deadly weapon calls for the death
penalty," he said. "I suppose you know what I can do?"

She got up, defiance like a blaze about her.

"I'll tell you what you can do--you can go to hell!"

The thought came to him that there might be considerable pleasure in
laying her over his knee and raising some blisters where they would do
her the most good. He regretfully dismissed the idea as too
undignified for even a sub-ensign and asked:

"Who are you, and what are you doing here with that pistol?"

She hesitated, then answered with insolent coolness:

"My name is Barbara Loring. I heard that you Vogarians had demanded
that we agree to surrender. I came down from the hills to disagree."

"Is a resistance force meeting here?"

"Do you think you could make me tell you?"

"There are ways--but I'm not here to use them. I am not your enemy."

A little of the hostility faded from her face and she asked, "But how
could a Vogarian ever not be our enemy?"

He could find no satisfactory answer to the question.

"I can tell you this," she said. "I know of no resistance
organization. I can also tell you that we're not the race of cowards
you think and we'll fight the instant Father Brenn gives the word."

"For one who speaks respectfully of Brenn," he said, "your recent
words and actions weren't very religious and refined."

Fire flashed in the green eyes again. "Up in the Azure Mountains,
where I come from, we're not very refined and we like being that way!"

"And why do you carry guns?" he asked.

"Because all along our frontier lines are rhino-stags, cliff bears,
thunder hawks, and a lot of other overgrown carnivora that don't like
us--that's why."

"I see." He took the pistol from his belt and held it out to her. "Go
back to your mountains, where you belong, before you do something to
get yourself executed."

* * * * *

Y'Nor, waiting impatiently in the ship, was grimly pleased by the news