“I think we’re in less danger now than usual. Hunter is between us and Wayne and Ishihara.” He gestured toward the rooms around them, “We should keep quiet and just go to sleep, so we don’t wake up the kidnappers.”

Marcia nodded and opened the door to her room. “Of course. Sorry.”

“Make sure you bar the door behind you,” he added. “Light your candle with this.” He carefully handed her the brass lamp and waited while she took it into her room. A moment later, she brought it back out, silhouetted by the candle flame flickering behind her on a small table.

“Good night.” She yawned again and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

Steve waited in the hall until he heard her slide the bar into place. Then he went into his own room and did the same. In a few minutes, he was sound asleep.

As the hours passed, Hunter could feel Jane’s mount tiring. Both horses walked more slowly. He changed mounts again, but his horse now had to be kicked more often to keep up the pace. The moon was about to set. His magnified vision revealed that the tracks ahead of him remained on the road. However, his hearing no longer detected the sound of hoofbeats ahead.

This puzzled him. Considering the amount of weight the mounts ahead of him had to carry, he had expected that he would either have drawn close enough to hear them by now, or else he would have seen the tracks leave the road for the forested hills. Since Hunter had already concluded that Ishihara would not take that risk at night, he was not surprised to see the tracks continue on the road, but he had apparently missed something.

Hunter reined in and dismounted. He kneeled to examine the tracks. Even his magnified vision needed help now that the moonlight had faded.

Carefully, he studied the depth of the tracks and then compared them to those of his own horses. He also saw that the hoofprints his own mount made now, shuffling wearily on the road, were much shallower than the ones just a few feet back, when Hunter had still been in the saddle. Suddenly he realized that the horse and donkey in front of him were no longer carrying the amount of weight they had been when he had begun tracking them. From the saddle, in the waning light, the difference in the appearance of the hoofprints had been too slight for him to see, but it was clear now.

Somehow, those he was following had dismounted and left the road without leaving footprints. Hunter had been fooled, most likely by Ishihara lifting Wayne and Jane directly from their mounts into the trees. He had also miscalculated Ishihara’s interpretation of the danger that the forested hills would offer to his human companions at night.

That triggered his own First Law concern. If Ishihara’s judgment was questionable, then Hunter could not conclude that the humans with him were safe, as he had believed to this point. He hoped they were hiding in one spot, maybe for the humans to rest. That would be less dangerous than hiking through the mountains.

Hunter concluded that Xiao Li was probably riding the horse now and leading the donkey. His weight was slight enough not to alter these hoofprints significantly. Certainly the tired animals would not have continued down the road all night on their own. At least one rider had to be urging them forward.

Now Hunter had to decide how to investigate all these surmises. He had two essential problems: the near-exhaustion ofboth his horses and the deepening darkness. Both problems could be improved by waiting several hours.

Once his horses had rested, evenfor a short time, they would move a little faster. Daylight would allow him to follow tracks even in the forest. Now that Wayne, Ishihara, and Jane were on foot, he would have the advantage.

Hunter hobbled his horses and sat down by the side of the road to conserve his energy and wait for dawn.