"I suspect there's another cat in the neighborhood," Wallace answered.
Saxton pointed to the center of the clearing. Beneath a tree the oldster with the scar on his arm sat alone, seemingly unaware that the others had left him.
"Are they using their chief for a decoy?" Saxton asked.
"Perhaps the old duffer isn't the chief," Wallace answered. He reached for his firearm.
A dirt-encrusted hand closed over his own. He looked up. Al-fin shook his head.
Wallace turned to look back at the clearing just in time to see a big cat step out of the bushes. It glanced across at them with an easy hate in its red-shot eyes, and turned its attention to the fat man, who was nearer. Slowly it gathered itself to spring.
Wallace shrugged off Al-fin's hand, that still rested on his, just as the cat left its feet. He had no chance to fire. The cat finished its spring—and the ground caved in beneath its feet. A moment later they heard its snarling and spitting from several yards underground.
Calmly, unhurriedly, the natives picked boulders from the ground and carried them to the pit. They dropped or threw them down on the cat until its snarls changed from anger to pain, and died completely.
Wallace and Saxton walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. The cat was dead. Its carcass lay sprawled over those of another dozen of its kind.
"Evidently they've used this method often before," Wallace remarked. A thought occurred to him and he looked at Saxton.