d closer to it he could smell a mixture of odors--the
hide itself, horse, wood smoke, and other scents--strange to him. He
undid the fastenings and pulled out the contents.

There was a shirt, with long full sleeves, of a gray wool undyed from
the sheep. Then a very bulky short jacket which, after fingering it
doubtfully, Travis decided was made of felt. It was elaborately
decorated with highly colorful embroidery, and there was no mistaking
the design--a heavy antlered Terran deer in mortal combat with what
might be a puma. It was bordered with a geometric pattern of beautiful,
oddly familiar work. Travis smoothed it flat over his knee and tried to
remember where he had seen its like before ... a book! An illustration
in a book! But which book, when? Not recently, and it was not a pattern
known to his own people.

Twisted into the interior of the jacket was a silklike scarf, clear,
light blue--the blue of Terra's cloudless skies on certain days, so
different from the yellow shield now hanging above them. A small case of
leather, with silhouetted designs cut from hide and affixed to it,
designs as intricate and complex as the embroidery on the jacket--art of
a high standard. In the case a knife and spoon, the bowl and blade of
dull metal, the handles of horn carved with horse heads, the tiny
wide-open eyes set with glittering stones.

Personal possessions dear to the owner, so that when they must be
abandoned for flight they were hidden with some hope of recovery. Travis
slowly repacked them, trying to fold the garments into their original
creases. He was still puzzled by those designs.

"Who?" Tsoay touched the edge of the jacket with one finger, his
admiration for it plain to read.

"I don't know. But it is of our own world."

"That is a deer, though the horns are wrong," Tsoay agreed. "And the
puma is very well done. The one who made this knows animals well."

Travis pushed the jacket back into the bag and laced it shut. But he did
not return it to the hiding place. Instead, he made it a part of his own
pack. If they did not succeed in running down the fugitive, he wanted an
opportunity for closer study, a chance to remember just where he had
seen that picture before.

The narrow valley where they had discovered the bag sloped upward, and
there were signs that their quarry found the ground harder to cover. The
second discard lay in open sight--again a leather bag which Nalik'ideyu
sniffed and then began to l