"Nobody's been killed so far."
"Blind luck. And Garth, too. He knows this country. If we didn't have him, we wouldn't have lasted a day."
"We've got him," Brown said crisply. "So we're going on. Only three more days, anyhow. That's enough. Start cooking your rations." He turned his back on Sampson and walked away. The red-haired giant hesitated, scowling. Finally he shrugged and glanced around at the others.
That broke the tension. One by one the men scattered to prepare food.
Only Garth was gnawed by a persistent, deep-rooted fear. He didn't admit it, even to himself. But he watched Brown closely that night, and finally unpacked his medical kit and carefully searched it for something he knew wasn't there.
He was dreading the next morning.
V
Slow reddish dawn brightened over the Forest. Garth felt someone shaking him. He grunted, stirred, and opened his eyes to see Paula's white face, and, behind her, Sampson.
"Yeah. What's wrong?" He scrambled out of his blankets, blinking. The girl, pale to the lips, pointed toward a recumbent figure.