Between this next great rampart and the one on whose crest they stood yawned a deep gorge, wooded thickly with fir and poplar and larch. Shadows were already deepening in the forests down there.
This was the mountain wilderness that stretched between the southeastern Kunlun Ranges and Koko Nor. And it was still one of the least-known parts of Earth.
Warplanes had flown over this mountainous no-man's-land in the last few years. A few explorers like Hedin had, at great peril, toiled across sectors of it. But most of it was as little-known as when the French missionaries, Hue and Gabet, had trudged through it a hundred years before. There was little here to tempt exploration, and there were hostile Tibetan and Mongol tribes to discourage it.
"Your guns!" Shan Kar was shouting as Nelson and Sloan rode up. "Shoot them, quickly!"
He was pointing skyward. Bewildered, Eric Nelson looked up. There was nothing in the fire-shot heavens but two eagles planing down a thousand feet above the ridge.
"There's nothing up there—" Nelson began puzzledly, when Shan Kar interrupted.
"The eagles! Kill them or our danger is great!"
It hit Nelson in the face. It brought back all the uncanny memory of Nsharra and her weird animal companions — a memory he had deliberately sought to rationalize and forget during the two weeks' trek.
Shan Kar was in deadly earnest. His black eyes glared hatred and fear at the two bkck winged shapes swooping in smooth circles through the sunset.
"Cursed native superstitions!" Nick Sloan grunted. "But I suppose we have to humor him."