We were still three kloms from King’s X when Carson spotted the dust. “What on hell’s that?” he said, leaning forward over his pony’s pommelbone and pointing at nothing that I could see.

“Where?” I said.

“Over there. All that dust.”

I still couldn’t see anything except the pinkish ridge that hid King’s X, and a couple of luggage grazing on the scourbrush, and I told him so.

“My shit, Fin, what do you mean you can’t—” he said, disgusted. “Hand me the binocs.”

“You’ve got ’em,” I said. “I gave ’em to you yesterday. Hey, Bult!” I called up to our scout.

He was hunched over the log on his pony’s saddlebone, punching in numbers. “Bult!” I shouted. “Do you see any dust up ahead?”

He still didn’t look up, which didn’t surprise me. He was busy doing his favorite thing, tallying up fines.

“I gave the binocs back to you,” Carson said. “This morning when we packed up.”

“This morning?” I said. “This morning you were in such an all-fired hurry to get back to King’s X and meet the new loaner you probably went off and left ’em lying in camp. What’s her name again? Evangeline?”

“Evelyn Parker,” he said. “I was not in a hurry.”

“How come you ran up two-fifty in fines breaking camp, then?”

“Because Bult’s on some kind of fining spree the last few days,” he said. “And the only hurry I’ve been in is to finish up this expedition before every dime of our wages goes for fines, which looks like a lost cause now that you lost the binocs.”

“You weren’t in a hurry yesterday,” I said. “Yesterday you were all ready to ride fifty kloms north on the off-chance of running into Wulfmeier, and then C.J. calls and tells you the new loaner’s in and her name’s Eleanor, and all of a sudden you can’t get home fast enough.”