"It sees me!" she moaned.

"Good!" I said. "Do not appear to much notice it."

"It is coming!" she said. "It is coming, very swiftly!"

"Do not appear to much notice it," I said.

"I am frightened!" she said.

"Breathe deeply," I said. "Keep your body ready, a little tense, but not tight."

"It is coming very swiftly," she said.

"do not lose track of it," I said. "Keep in mind clearly, as well, the location of the entrance of the pit."

"I am frightened!" she cried.

Suddenly the tether seemed to jerk from the pit and then, in a moment, it had jerked tight. I heard her cry out with misery. I thrust my head and shoulders from the pit and saw her, on her belly, in the grass, her right leg stretched out, almost straight, behind her, the tether tight on it. She had tried to run.

I hoisted myself out of the pit, screaming and cursin, waving my arms. The quarry, startled at my unexpected appearance, veered away, passing within feet of me, the great shadow suddenly between me and the sun, and then the sun again blazed on the late-summer grass, tumultuous and whipped, twisted, by the passage of the quarry. the sweat on my face felt cold, from the wind which had rushed past.

"On your feet," I said.

Tremblingly, she rose to her feet.

I looked after the receding figure in the afternoon sky.

"I could have been killed," she said.

"You lost us the quarry," I said.

"I could have been killed," she said, trembling.

"You are only a worthless slave," I told her. "You have lost us the quarry."

"Forgive me, Master," she said, her head down.

"Into the pit, Slave, and be quick about it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I followed her into the pit. She knelt at one end, near the larger opening, her head down.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

"Another such performance and you shall be well punished," I informed her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It may return," I said.

She shuddered.

In a few Ehn, as I had hoped, we heard again the two notes, as of the fleer.

"It is perhaps hungry," I speculated.

She lifted her head, her eyes wide with terror.

"I di dnot think he would forget you, my luscious, nude bait," I said. I regarded her. Most women, for some reason, stand in mortal terror of such things. This is particularly true of women who have some familiarity with them, who know something of their swiftness, their savagery and their ferocity, who have some knowledge of what they can accomplish.

"Do not make me go out of the pit again," she begged.

"Out," I told her.

Fearfully, scarcely able to move, she crawled out of the pit.

"It is there," she said, "in the sky. It is ciercling. Isense myself the center of that circle."

"Splendid!" I said.

"Let me hide," she begged. "Let me hide!"

"No," I said.

She suddenly screamed and the tether, length by length, leaped from the pit and then, again, jerked taut.

"Idiot slave!" I cried.

"I'm tied! I'm tied!" she wept.

I stood up, lifting my head and shoulders above the entrance to the pit. She was sitting on the grass, at the end of the tether, weeping hysterically. "I'm tied," she cried, fighting to thrust the tether from her ankle.

The quarry was still in the sky.

By the tether I pulled her to within a few feet of the entrance.

"Get on your feet," I cried, "Slave!"

Unsteadily, trembling, her head lifted, she rose to her feet, her hands out to help her maintain her balance.

"I'm frightened," she wept.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," she wept. "It's gone! It's gone!"

"No," I said. "It will not be gone."

"I can't see it," she cried, joyfully. "I can't see it!"

It is not gone," I said. "It is somewhere. Be alert!" Suddenly the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The quarry had seen the fear responses of the girl. Twice she had tried to run. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

"It is gone," she said.

"It has alighted," I said.

"What am I to do?" she asked.

"Scan in a low circle, about you," I said.

The quarry knew the girl's location. The girl did not know its location.

There is, within normal limits, and assuming the dimension is under surveillance, a direct correlation between height and detectability. It is for such reasons that an upright carriage increases the capacity to detct the appraoch of a predator or the position of game. It is for such a reason that the larl commonly crouches when stalking prey.

"I see nothing," she said.

"Be alert," I said.

I wondered how long it would take, say, a startled tabuk or ground animal, ofa burrowing sort, to regain its composure, to return to its normal activities.

"It is gone," she said.

"Do not relax your vigilance," I cautioned her. "It will presumably be moving with great speed and will be some ten to fifgeen feet in the air. You will not see it, probably, given your height, and the grass, until it is within a few hundred yards of you. Even so, however, this will permit you ample reaction time. You have a great advantage, you see, in that you are expecting it."

"I think it is gone," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"It would have come by now, surely," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not."

The sky seemed placid, the clouds slowly changing their shapes in the air currents. I watched them for awhile. I supposed that a tubuk, my now, might have returned to grazing.

"It is coming!" she cried, suddenly.

"Into the pit!" I cried. "Hurry!" There had been no mistakeing the urgency in her voice.

"I cannot move!" she cried. "I cannot move!"

I threw myself half out of the pit and with my right hand seized her right ankle, and then, with my left, seized her left ankle. She screamed, throwing her hands before her face. Bodily I dragged her down beside me. Almost at the same instant, flashing over the opening, I saw immense, extended talons closing, and therushing passage of a huge, dark shape, the grass leaping up and seeming to almost torn up, almost uprooted, following it.

She clutched me, shuddering.

"You ahve not been pleasing," I told her. I then thrust her from me.

"Is it gone?" She begged, sobbing.

"It will be back," I said. "Stay near the opening."

I unlooped the tether on her left from the hobbling log. She watched me, frightened. Teh other end was still tied tightly on her right ankle. I then went to the other end of the pit, where the smaller opening was, and uncoiled the line which lay there, formerly atop the hobbling log.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Wait," I said.

She lay downin the pit, making herself as low, and small as possible.

We did not wait long.

We heard a sudden, striking, thudding sound. It was almost as though half of a kaiila had been suddenly dropped to the earth. It was a sound which, when one has once heard it, one is not likely to mistake it for another. The vibrations were felt through the walls of the pit.

"It is here," I said.

The girl, looking up, suddenly screamed with fear. A large, bright, round eye peered through the opening in the ceiling of the pit.

A beak, yellowish, some two feet in length, scimitarlike, poked into the pit.

It withdrew.

We heard a taloned foot cutting at the sod and poles over our head.

"We are safe here!" cried the girl.

"No," I said.

The beak agian entered the pit and pushed downward. It poked against the girl's body. She screamed. It snapped at her and she shrank back, to the opposite end of the pit, covering her head, screaming. This excited the predator. Half of its head thrust into the pit, after her. Then it screamed, too, a shril scream, and, withdrawing its head, it began to cut and tear at the roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge through the sod roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge though the sod roof. I saw poles lifting and splintering.