the native,
grasped it by the shoulder and pulled it up beside him.

Sipar was shivering.

"It's all right," said Duncan.

And it _was_ all right, he reassured himself. He still had the rifle.
The extra drum of ammunition and the knife were on his belt, the bag
of rockahominy in his pocket. The canteens were all they had lost--the
canteens and the fire.

"We'll have to hole up somewhere for the night," Duncan said. "There
are screamers on the loose."

* * * * *

He didn't like what he was thinking, nor the sharp edge of fear that
was beginning to crowd in upon him. He tried to shrug it off, but it
still stayed with him, just out of reach.

Sipar plucked at his elbow.

"Thorn thicket, mister. Over there. We could crawl inside. We would be
safe from screamers."

It was torture, but they made it.

"Screamers and you are taboo," said Duncan, suddenly remembering. "How
come you are afraid of them?"

"Afraid for you, mister, mostly. Afraid for myself just a little.
Screamers could forget. They might not recognize me until too late.
Safer here."

"I agree with you," said Duncan.

The screamers came and padded all about the thicket. The beasts
sniffed and clawed at the thorns to reach them, but finally went away.

When morning came, Duncan and Sipar climbed the scarp, clambering over
the boulders and the tons of soil and rock that covered their camping
place. Following the gash cut by the slide, they clambered up the
slope and finally reached the point of the slide's beginning.

There they found the depression in which the poised slab of rock had
rested and where the supporting soil had been dug away so that it
could be started, with a push, down the slope above the campfire.

And all about were the deeply sunken pug marks of the Cytha!

IV

Now it was more than just a hunt. It was knife against the throat,
kill or be killed. Now there was no stopping, when before there might
have been. It was no longer sport and there was no mercy.

"And that's the way I like it," Duncan told himself.

He rubbed his hand along the rifle barrel and saw the metallic glints
shine in the noonday sun. One more shot, he prayed. Just give me one
more shot at it. This time there will be no slip-up. This time there
will be more than three sodden hunks of flesh and fur lying in the
grass to mock me.

He squinted his eyes against the heat shimmer rising from the river,
watching Sipar hunkered