palms, and the muscles
twitched unsteadily in his arms and across his stomach.

* * * * *

With morning he was half a mile away, in a foxhole less than sixty yards
from the massive outer perimeter of the arena. Two of his snares had
yielded a rabbit each, and so he was supplied for several days.

The foxhole had two entrances, both well-concealed, and he had rigged
elaborate warning devices should the vicinity be approached. So he was
sleeping.

His dreams were unpleasant.

In his latest dream an extremely shapely and smiling young woman with
dark hair was heaving a grenade into a pit where he lay bound and
helpless. The grenade swelled until it became a space ship heading
directly toward the frail scout craft he piloted....

And a tiny blob of dislodged mud from the dugout spatted his face. He
sat up.

Another day to hunt or be hunted. Or to lie here and try to rest and
make plans. There was slight possibility that Neilson could find him
here.

He gnawed at the scantly-fleshed ribs of the first rabbit, savoring the
raw meaty smell and flavor. Hunger was his salt.

Now that they had lost contact with one another it might require several
days to find Neilson. A wooded platter, a mile in diameter, can afford
many hiding places for one creature hiding from another hunting beast.

It was time to set some of the traps he had been contriving.

There were the two nooses, attached to bent-down triggered young trees
that could not be set until darkness fell again. The net, too, would
need darkness to conceal the four rough pulleys, and the rocks that a
tug on his rope would spill.

But the almost invisible nylon cords, set at ankle height across the
paths, and the ugly little pits with their sharpened stakes set three
feet below, could trip up a man and cripple him. He must put out several
of those.

He had no wish to kill Neilson. If he could capture him, very good. He
could go back to Andilia and perhaps his Jane would be glad to take him.
If she did not--it was worth knowing how little she really cared, was it
not?

So he would try to trap the younger man and save his life.

It would be difficult. The other man had grenades, a carbine and a keen
needle-knife. Perhaps, before the end, he would be forced to kill after
all. But regretfully.

Treb dumped the last of the _tsaftha_ antibiotic into his wound and lay
back for a few more hours of rest before going out to prepare the