It was late afternoon when he crept cautiously to the
top of a ridge and gazed down into a valley.
There was a town in that valley, sturdy houses of logs behind a
stockade. He had seen towns vaguely like it before, yet it had a
dreamlike quality as if it were not as real as it appeared.
Ross rested his chin on his arms and watched that town and the people
moving in it. Some were fur-clad hunters, but others dressed quite
differently. He started up with a little cry at the sight of one of the
men who had walked so swiftly from one house to the next; surely he was
a Beaker trader!
His unease grew stronger with every moment he watched, but it was the
oddness he sensed in that town which bothered him and not any warning
that he, himself, was in danger. He had gotten to his knees to see
better when out of nowhere a rope sang through the air, settling about
his chest with a vicious jerk which not only drove the air from his
lungs but pinioned his arms tight to his body.
CHAPTER 10
Having been cuffed and battered into submission more quickly than would
have been possible three weeks earlier, Murdock now stood sullenly
surveying the man who, though he dressed like a Beaker trader, persisted
in using a language Ross did not know.
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