be looking in the mountains for men of Dara come here for
cattle. He used a pair of binoculars, first at low-magnification to
search as wide an area down-valley as possible, and then at highest
power to search the most likely routes.

He found a small, bobbing speck beyond a far-away hillcrest. It was her
head. It went down below the hilltop.

He snapped a command to Murgatroyd, and when the _tormal_ was on the
ground outside, he locked the port with that combination that nobody but
a Med Ship man was at all likely to discover or use.

"She's an idiot!" he told Murgatroyd sourly. "Come along! We've got to
be idiots too!"

He set out in pursuit.

The girl had a long start. Twice Calhoun came to places where she could
have chosen either of two ways onward. Each time he had to determine
which she'd followed. That cost time. Then the mountains ended,
abruptly, and a vast undulating plain stretched away to the horizon.
There were at least two large masses and many smaller clumps of what
could only be animals gathered together. Cattle.

But here the girl was plainly in view. Calhoun increased his stride. He
began to gain on her. She did not look behind.

Murgatroyd said "_Chee!_" in a complaining tone.

"I should have left you behind," agreed Calhoun dourly, "but there was
and is a chance I won't get back. You'll have to keep on hiking."

He plodded on. His memory of the terrain around the mining settlement
told him that there was no definite destination in the girl's mind. But
she was in no such despair as to want deliberately to be lost. She'd
guessed, Calhoun believed, that if there were Darians on the planet,
they'd keep the landing-grid under observation. If they saw her leave
that area and could see that she was alone, they should intercept her to
find out the meaning of the Med Ship's landing. Then she could identify
herself as one of them and give them the terribly necessary warning of
Weald's suspicions.

"But," said Calhoun sourly, "if she's right, they'll have seen me
marching after her now, which spoils her scheme. And I'd like to help
it, but the way she's going is too dangerous!"

* * * * *

He went down into one of the hollows of the uneven plain. He saw a clump
of a dozen or so cattle a little distance away. The bull looked up and
snorted. The cows regarded him truculently. Their air was not one of
bovine tranquility.

He was up the farther hillside and out of si