behind to protect the neck. They had powder horns
and bullet pouches slung over their shoulders, and long rifles in
their hands. They stepped aside as soon as they were out.
Carefully avoiding any gesture of menace, they simply stood,
watching the helicopter which had landed in their village.

Three other men followed them out. They, too, wore buckskins and
the odd double-visored caps. One had a close-cropped white beard,
and on the shoulders of his buckskin shirt, he wore the single
silver bars of a first lieutenant of the vanished United States
Army. He had a pistol on his belt. The pistol had the saw-handle
grip of an automatic, but it was a flintlock, as were the rifles
of the young men who stood so watchfully on either side of the
door.

Two middle-aged men accompanied the bearded man and the trio
advanced toward the helicopter.

"All right, come on, Monty."

Loudons opened the door and let down the steps. Picking up an
auto-carbine, he slung it and stepped out of the helicopter,
Altamont behind him. They advanced to meet the party from the
church, halting when they were about twenty feet apart.

"I must apologize, lieutenant, for dropping in on you so
unceremoniously."

Loudons stopped, wondering if the man with the white beard
understood a word of what he was saying.

"The natural way to come in, when you travel in the air," the old
man replied. "At least, you came in openly. I can promise you a
better reception than that you got at the city to the west of us
a couple of days ago."

"Now how did you know that we had trouble the
day-before-yesterday?" Loudons demanded.

The old man's eyes sparkled with child-like pleasure. "That
surprises you, my dear sir? In a moment, I daresay you'll be
surprised at the simplicity of it.

"You have a nasty rip in the left leg of your trousers, and the
cloth around it is stained with blood. Through the rip, I
perceive a bandage. Obviously, you have suffered a recent wound.
I further observe that the side of your flying machine bears
recent scratches, as though from the spears or throwing hatchets
of the Scowrers. Evidently, they attacked you as you were
landing. It is fortunate that these cannibal devils are too
stupid and too anxious for human flesh to exercise patience."

"Well, that explains how you knew that we'd recently been
attacked," Loudons told him. "But how did you guess that it had
been to the west of here, in a ruined city?"

"I never guess," the o