and when he saw
the smoke of the thieves' campfire, he was lying behind his
breastwork, the rifle resting on its folded cover, muzzle toward the
smoke. He lay for a long time, watching, before he saw the file of
tiny dots emerge into the open.

They came forward steadily, in the same order as on the day before,
Vahr in the lead and the man with the Crown in the rear. The thieves
suspected nothing; they grew larger and larger as they approached,
until they were at the range for which he had set his sights. He
cuddled the butt of the rifle against his cheek. As the man who
carried the Crown walked under the blade of the front sight, he
squeezed the trigger.

The rifle belched pink flame and roared and pounded his shoulder. As
the muzzle was still rising, he flipped open the breech, and threw out
the empty. He inserted a fresh round.

There were only three of them, now. The man with the bearskin bundle
was down and motionless. Vahr Farg's son had gotten his rifle unslung
and uncovered. The Southron with the other rifle was slower; he was
only getting off the cover as Vahr, who must have seen the flash,
fired hastily. Too hastily; the bullet kicked up snow twenty feet to
the left. The third man had drawn his negatron pistol and was trying
to use it; thin hairlines of brilliance were jetting out from his
hand, stopping far short of their mark.

Raud closed his sights on the man with the autoloading rifle; as he
did, the man with the negatron pistol, realizing the limitations of
his weapon, was sweeping it back and forth, aiming at the snow fifty
yards in front of him. Raud couldn't see the effect of his second
shot--between him and his target, blueish light blazed and twinkled,
and dense clouds of steam rose--but he felt sure that he had missed.
He reloaded, and watched for movements on the edge of the rising
steam.

It cleared, slowly; when it did, there was nothing behind it. Even the
body of the dead man was gone. He blinked, bewildered. He'd picked
that place carefully; there had been no gully or ravine within running
distance. Then he grunted. There hadn't been--but there was now. The
negatron pistol again. The thieves were hidden in a pit they had
blasted, and they had dragged the body in with them.

He crawled back to reassure Brave, who was guarding the pack, and to
shift the pack back for some distance. Then he returned to his
embrasure in the snow-fort and resumed his watch. For a long time,
nothing happen