river, too."

That point puzzled Hume slightly. The red coated felines might be
washed out of their burrows, but they did not willingly head so
sharply away from the water. He squatted on his heels and surveyed the
stretch of countryside between them and the distant wood with care.

The grass was this season's, still growing, not tall enough to afford
cover for an animal with paws as large as these prints. There were two
clumps of brush. It could have holed up in either, waiting to attack
any trailer--but why? It had not been wounded, nor frightened by their
party, there was no reason for it to set an ambush on its back trail.

Starns and Yactisi dropped back, though Starns was fussing with his
tri-dee. Rovald caught up. He had drawn his ray tube in answer to
Hume's hand wave. Any action foreign to the regular habits of an
animal was to be mistrusted.

Getting to his feet Hume paced along the line of marks. They were
fresh--hot fresh. And they still led in a straight line for the woods.
With another wave of his hand he stopped Chambriss. The civ was
trained in spite of his eagerness and obeyed. Hume left the tracks,
made a detour which brought him to a point from which he could study
those clumps of brush. No sign except that line of prints pointed to
the woods. And if the party kept on, they might well come upon the
L-B!

He decided to risk it. But when they were less than a couple of yards
from the tree fringe his hand shot up to direct Chambriss to fire
towards the quivering bush.

Only, that formless half seen thing, hardly to be distinguished in
color from the vegetation, was no water-cat. There was a thin, ragged
cry. Then the creature plunged backward, was gone.

"What in the name of nine Gods was that?" Chambriss demanded.

"I don't know." Hume went forward, jerked the needler dart from a tree
trunk. "But don't shoot again--not unless you are sure of what you are
aiming at!"

5

Moisture from the night's rain hung on the tree leaves, clung in
globules to Rynch's sweating body. He lay on a wide branch trying to
control the heavy panting which supplied his laboring lungs. And he
could still hear the echoes of the startled cries which had come from
the men who had threaded through the woods to the up-pointed tail fins
of the L-B.

Now he tried to reason why he had run. They were his own kind, they
would take him out of the loneliness of a world heretofore empty of
his species. But that tall