hind Foscar, with two other guards bringing up the rear. The rest
of the men, leading their mounts, melted into the trees. Ross watched
that quiet withdrawal speculatively. It argued that Foscar did not trust
those he was about to do business with, that he was taking certain
precautions of his own. Only Ross could not see how that distrust, which
might be only ordinary prudence on Foscar's part, could in any way be an
advantage for him.

They rode at a pace hardly above a walk into a small open meadow
narrowing at the east. Then for the first time Ross was able to place
himself. They were at the entrance to the valley of the village, about
a mile away from the narrow throat above which Ross had lain to spy and
had been captured, for he had come from the north over the spurs of
rising ridges.

Ross's horse was pulled up as Foscar drove his heel into the ribs of his
own mount, sending it at a brisker pace toward the neck of the valley.
There was a blot of blue there--more than one of the aliens were
waiting. Ross caught his lip between his teeth and bit down on it hard.
He had stood up to the Reds, to Foscar's tribesmen, but he shrank from
meeting those strangers with an odd fear that the worst the men of his
own species could do would be but a pale shadow to the treatment he
might meet at their hands.

Foscar was now a toy man astride a toy horse. He halted his galloping
mount to sit facing the handful of strangers. Ross counted four of them.
They seemed to be talking, though there was still a good distance
separating the mounted man and the blue suits.

Minutes passed before Foscar's arm raised in a wave to summon the party
guarding Ross. Ennar kicked his horse to a trot, towing Ross's mount
behind, the other two men thudding along more discreetly. Ross noted
that they were both armed with spears which they carried to the fore as
they rode.

They were perhaps three quarters of the way to join Foscar, and Ross
could see plainly the bald heads of the aliens as their faces turned in
his direction. Then the strangers struck. One of them raised a weapon
shaped similarly to the automatic Ross knew, except that it was longer
in the barrel.

Ross did not know why he cried out, except that Foscar had only an ax
and dagger which were both still sheathed at his belt. The chief sat
very still, and then his horse gave a swift sidewise swerve as if in
fright. Foscar collapsed, limp, bonelessly, to the trodden turf, to lie
unm