d. "Where bitter water?" asked Tulka.

Ross jerked his head to the west. "Some sleeps away----"

"Some sleeps!" repeated Ennar jeeringly. "We ride some sleeps, maybe
many sleeps where we know not the trails--maybe no people there, maybe
no bitter water--all things you say with split tongue so that we not
give you back to master. We go this way not even one sleep--find chief,
get good things. Why we do hard thing when we can do easy?"

What argument could Ross offer in rebuttal to the simple logic of his
captors? For a moment he raged inwardly at his own helplessness. But
long ago he had learned that giving away to hot fury was no good unless
one did it deliberately to impress, and then only when one had the upper
hand. Now Ross had no hand at all.

For the most part they kept to the open, whereas Ross and the other two
agents had skulked in wooded areas on their flight through this same
territory. So they approached the mountains from a different angle, and
though he tried, Ross could pick out no familiar landmarks. If by some
miracle he was able to free himself from his captors, he could only head
due west and hope to strike the river.

At midday their party made camp in a grove of trees by a spring. The
weather was as unseasonably warm as it had been the day before, and
flies, brought out of cold-weather hiding, attacked the stamping horses
and crawled over Ross. He tried to keep them off with swings of his
bound hands, for their bites drew blood.

Having been tumbled from his mount, he remained fastened to a tree with
a noose about his neck while the horsemen built a fire and broiled
strips of deer meat.

It would seem that Foscar was in no hurry to get on, since after they
had eaten, the men continued to lounge at ease, some even dropping off
to sleep. When Ross counted faces he learned that Tulka and another had
both disappeared, possibly to contact and warn the aliens they were
coming.

It was midafternoon before the scouts reappeared, as unobtrusively as
they had gone. They went before Foscar with a report which brought the
chief over to Ross. "We go. Your chief waits--"

Ross raised his swollen, bitten face and made his usual protest. "Not my
chief!"

Foscar shrugged. "He say so. He give good things to get you back under
his hand. So--he your chief!"

Once again Ross was boosted on his mount, and bound. But this time the
party split into two groups as they rode off. He was with Ennar again,
just be