k to the bottom that ought to fix them
as far as we are concerned."

Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift log
Hume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brown
stream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.

"Downstream--"

Rynch looked. One shape--two--three--Clearly detailed where matching
vegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come out
of the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and upright
towards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist under
the direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, the
things out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brute
strength as they moved.

"Let's get out of here--fast!"

The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line of
green-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safari
camp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes had
shaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,
so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.

At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard no
more of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Hume
stopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacing
animals.

"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."

The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo of
his Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, and
method means intelligence."

Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.
In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educated
and Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.

The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't use
it until I say so. Understand?"

He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pace
which matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows to
meet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.
Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:

"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song of
syllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.

The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzz
covering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, not
one of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.
Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a