e there must be signs he could follow.

He pulled the boat up as high as he could, then used strips torn from
the Tibetan's own clothes to bind and gag him. That done, he picked up
the infrared camera and his rifle and stood a moment in indecision.
Which way?

It was a tossup. Finally he decided to keep going in the general
direction the Tibetan had led him. He paused long enough to inspect his
rifle. After firing, he had failed to lever another cartridge into the
chamber. He did so now, then put the hammer on half cock so it couldn't
fire accidentally, and started off.

It was easy going in most places. But now and then he came to a point
where the shore ledge narrowed and he had to crawl. Once he skirted an
outcropping by walking in the water, feeling his way carefully so he
wouldn't step off a ledge into the depths.

After a while he began to think he hadn't been very smart. He was
getting exactly nowhere. As far ahead as the infrared beam could
penetrate, there was nothing but the curving shore. In some places the
lake narrowed to a channel less than a hundred feet wide, then it
broadened again until he could no longer see the opposite shore. He
couldn't guess how far he had walked from the boat. He thought it must
be at least a quarter mile.

Presently he found a place where a limestone pillar made a comfortable
back rest and sat down. He switched off the infrared light, and
instantly all light was blotted out. It was startling, even more so than
when he had switched off the flashlight, because the infrared beam gave
the illusion of a sort of gray daylight.

He sat quietly, waiting for some of the weariness to leave his legs, his
eyes closed. After a while he opened them again, more from habit than
with the intention of seeing anything. He couldn't see even the tip of
his nose it was so dark. Then suddenly he realized it wasn't as dark as
he had expected!

There was a faint luminous quality that outlined the shore of the lake.
He studied the line of demarkation, then guessed that the faint
luminosity must come from microscopic plant or animal life that clung to
the rock underwater. Sea water had a phosphorescence sometimes for the
same reason.

His eyes followed the faint line up the shore in the direction he had
been traveling. The silver phosphorescence turned a faint yellow. Almost
out of the range of his vision the yellow was picked up by the water,
like the dimmest moonlight.

He studied it for lon