"But let us be careful," said Cuwignaka. Then, with a cry of pleasure, kicking his heels back into the flanks of his kaiila, he urged his beast down the slope.

Grunt and I looked at one another, and grinned. "He is still a boy," said Grunt.

We then followed Cuwignaka. It was toward neen when we reined up beside him on another rise. The animals were now some three to four pasangs away, below us.

"It is the Pte!" called out Cuwignaka happily to us, turning to look at us.

"Yes," said Grunt.

We could now smell the animals clearly. My mount, a lofty black kaiila, silken and swift, shifted nervously beneath me. Its nostrils were flared. Its strom lids were drawn, giving its large round eyes a distinctive yellowish cast. I did not think that it, a kaiila purchased some months ago in the town of Kailiauk, near the perimeter, had ever smelled such beasts before, and certainly not in such numbers. Too, I supposed that there were many among such beasts, perhaps most, in fact, who had ever smelled a man, or a kaiila, before. Grit and dust settled about us. I blinked my eyes against it. It was very impressive to be so close to such beasts. I scarcely dared to conjeture what it might be like to be even closer, say, within a few hudred yards of them. Individual kills on such animals, incidentally, are commonly made from distances whre one can almost reach out and touch the beast. One must be that close for the lance thrust to be made or for the arrow, from the small bow, to strke with suffcient depth, to the feathers, either into the intestinal cavity behind the last rib, resulting in large-scale internal hemorrhaging, or behind the left shoulder blade, into the heart.

"Is there always this much dust?" I asked. I raised my voice somewhat, against the sounds of the beasts, their bellowing and the thud of the hoofs.

"No," said Cuwignaka, raising his voice. "It is moving now, not drifting and grazing."