Yet they were not going to take her until—

She started, one hand dropping back to the ground to steady herself, her eyes wide in her sun-browned face. What— “Where are the wagons, two-legs? This one is sore-pawed— also hungry—”

No foggy beam of hate or fear or calculating menace—this was as clear in her head as if she heard it by ear instead of by mind!

“Two-legs-—”

Again that imperative and irritated call. She hunched over the crude club, her hands rubbing along its length. Then there came a quiver of leaves ahead, a swinging of branches, and a fur-covered head arose into her line of astounded sight.

She had seen tree cats in plenty, and Uncle Roth had had in the presence chamber of the hold two rugs made from great cat beasts with spotted hides for which he had traded some years back. But this was—

Nancee drew a deep breath, and a little of her hold on the club loosened. Here was one of those great cat people with whom the Horseclans had a treaty-of-assistance. Of that she had heard even before she had come to envy the caravan guards and talked as much as she could with Oonaa, the archer.

“Cat lord—” She spoke in a hoarse whisper. She was no woman of the Clans; this furred death before her had no kincall for her. But what had Dik done which had given him the power to call such into his service? The Horseclans alone shared shelter with the cats.

“Where is the wagon?” Once again the clear words in her head.

“No wagon.” She spoke aloud, but perhaps the cat could understand speech too, for it stared with great green eyes at her, the grayish brindle of its fur seeming to fade into the maze of branches wherein it crouched.

“This one is sore-pawed—this one is hungry—” There was a low throaty growl to underline that. “This one wishes to ride—

“There is nothing to ride,” she returned bitterly, and then, wondering if she could indeed communicate without words which it might not understand, she tried to form the message in her mind, haltingly, as one would speak a language of which one knew but a phrase or two. She pictured the camp as she had seen it last before she had sought the stream. Then deliberately she beamed what she had not seen but what was clear to her mind had happened—the complete killing raid led by Dik.

Again the cat growled, and it pulled back under the willow boughs until she feared it was going. Why she should cling to this one animal which might mean her no good, she could not have said. But she felt that she could not bear to let it go.

“Those will be coming—” She mind-pictured Dik striding confidently toward the willows, satisfied that the easiest part of his massacre and pillage waited before him.

“This one will kill if any two-legs tries to—” The words in her mind faded out, but she was aware of movement against the gravel, of seeing a paw—outsize for even the large animal before her—rise claws curved as if already dug into flesh to tear.

“These hunt cats—” She pictured the hide Dik had had made into a cloak and wore proudly.

The young prairiecat spat and whipped out with that uplifted paw to scrape a fall of leaves from a willow branch.

“This one is of the blood of Dark Slayer. No two-legs can—”

“They can stand at a distance,” she interrupted that boastful claim, “and fill you full of arrows. Dik is a master archer.” Deliberately, as she had tried earlier to project what she had deemed had happened to their camp, so did she now mind-picture a gray-brown body well covered with quills which snapped wildly from side to side as a wounded animal expired under feathered death.

“So.” There was an odd note in that. The cat mask again came farther into view—the yellow eyes only slits, the mouth open enough to show the whole armanent of fangs. Though Nancee knew that the cat was hardly yet out of cubhood, still there was something about it which held her in a kind of awe.

“Would you wait here for this two-legged killer of his kind?” came the quick demand then. “He will fill you with his arrows or take a blade to cut you down.”

“The cat warrior knows of a better place?” Out of her resigned belief that she faced an already lost battle a small hope arose.

“This way.” The swaying of the branches was all which remained to mark the cat’s retreat. Because she could think of nothing better she followed, trying as well as she might to go without disturbing the branches and so betray her path to any who might watch from the hilltop.

However, the screen lasted until she was faced by a stand of grass where a number of bruised stems showed her a new trail. Keeping to her hands and knees, Nancee followed.

In the wall of the hill here there was a break—perhaps some spring storm long ago had eaten away the bank. A tree of greater girth than the willows among which she had taken refuge lay crown downward, its withered and broken tangle of roots uphill. To one side of the trunk there was a scatter of earth and a large hole from which came a musky stench that nearly made her gag.

“The black killer thing is gone,” sharp into her mind came the “voice” of the cat. “That one has left a hidden way of its own. Crawl, two-legs, and you will see. 1 do not think that those you fear can look into the earth itself. Crawl!”

Obediently she crawled forward into the evil-smelling pit in the soil. She found it large enough that she could still keep to hand and knees, but it was dark and she had only a very faint scrape of claw now and then to let her know she still followed the cat.

There came an abrupt change as ahead she saw daylight, which was dimmed nearly at once by the cat shouldering its way through. So she came, head foremost, into another stand of grass and brush, warned in time to slither belly down under this other natural cover.

Nancee found herself looking down into the small hollow where they had pitched Camp. The first hues of sunset were at her back as she skulked behind a bush to peer through.

Three bundles of red-splashed clothing had been rolled aside. Mik, Hari, and Uncle Roth, she was sure, and had no desire to see them closer and prove her identification right. Three men hunkered on their heels after the way of prairie barbarians. They had ripped open the supply bags and were wolfing down the nearly stone-hard rolls of travel meat, chewing with determined force.

Dik was not there. A ripple of foreboding ran up her spine. Only too well she could guess what occupied the man she had come to loathe. Snooping into the willows—hunting—her! There was the pound of a huge hoof on the ground. Even where she lay in hiding she could feel the force of that through the earth. Boldhoof, the one treasure Uncle Roth had held fast to, was impatient. Large and armed as she was with hoof and teeth, the mare was generally even of temperament. Nancee had had those soft lips pluck a round marble of maple sugar from her palm and knew she had nothing to fear from the tall mountain of a horse.

The Northhorses were not unknown here in the southern lands, but those who had them gave them great care. None were bred here, being sold only by tribes who were so jealous of their monopoly that they would not ever offer a stallion to be bought by an outsider.

They would not have gained Boldhoof even, had it not been that her former owner had died of the coughing sickness two months back and Uncle Roth had claimed the animal as burial price. The secret he discovered within a day thereafter he had shared only with Nancee. Though Dik might have discovered it by some spying. Boldhoof was in foal! And should she throw a colt, why then their family fortune could be established as soon as the foal appeared.

Hate was bitter water in Nancee’s mouth as she watched the outlaws below. Though they seemed at such ease she was certain that they must have sentries out and perhaps even men on the search with Dik. She counted seven horses—most of them the smaller mounts known to the prairie men. If those were of the Horseclans breed—