I sat down with a bump—he was oblivious to me and to everything but his light-o'-love—and chuckled helplessly. Then I frowned. What should I do? Leap up and dance to attract his attention? Or leave him to his wooing and trust to run across his trail another day? You will understand that my stalking-fever, which even the country of The Nameless had not been able to dispel, was misted away by this development as though it had never been. Poor old Halfspoor! It would be a scurvy trick to interrupt him now with death.

And even as I thought these comradely thoughts, the whine of an arrow came from nowhere and on its heels the angry squall of the giant bear. I twisted round and looked over the wall. There was a shaft, fleshed in his furry thigh; and Halfspoor was gazing at me with no friendliness whatever.

It was no time for idle wondering as to the source of that arrow. Indeed, I think I knew instinctively who had sent it over my head into the courting bruin. But as I leaped the scattered rocks and dodged the higher walls of that ruinous place, I was seeking only an advantageous battleground, not the stealthy prowler with the bow. At my back I could hear the wrathful snorting of the knifetooth bear, the swift thud-thud of his enormous paws, and the rattle of stones dislodged by his whirlwind passage.

My bow was in my hand, a lean arrow nocked on the cord. Hastily as I ran I gripped two others between the fingers of my left hand. Skirting a heap of gray lichen-grown rubble, I whirled on my toes and sent the first missile back at him. When I could risk a glance again, he had fallen a little behind, being some forty long paces in the rear, and was swatting impatiently at the broken shaft protruding from his thigh. I think my own shot had missed him, and considering my haste, I was not surprised.

I halted and taking a decent aim I loosed one at his head. At the same moment he roared loudly, opening his immense mouth to its full extent. Luck not being with me, the arrow glanced off one of his overgrown fangs with a sharp click, which appeared to startle Halfspoor considerably, because he stopped dead and blinked down his muzzle in a quaint way. I shot the third of my arrows and tore a long red furrow up one gray-sprinkled cheek. Then, as he was nearly atop me in four sudden raging bounds, I fled like a hare amongst the ruins. His coughing and bellowing echoed like implacable thunder in my ears.

There was a deep and narrow gut of a trench that ran between two high stone walls. In jumping it I had an idea; doubled back, narrowly missed being decapitated by a swipe of one savage paw, and dived over the rocks into this curious thoroughfare. Scuttling like a jackal-rat, I went on toes and fingers off to the right, with Halfspoor's vociferance threatening to crack my eardrums. Two or three times he reached down for a blow at my back, and I actually felt the wind of his pad's thrust on my nape. Then he darted ahead, if such a titanic monster may be said to dart, and leaning over one wall he waited for me. Clever brute! He would scoop me out of my ditch like a fish from a runlet, would he? I vaulted the wall opposite to his side and after one hasty shot flew into a crazy labyrinth of ancient ramparts and disintegrating inclosures. An insane bawling told me I had probably hit him again. I had ten arrows left. My confidence was growing. Only let me find a tall cairn to scale, and I would make Halfspoor into a positive porcupine with those ten missiles.

A sun-blind owl sat in a filthy nest among fallen blocks of stone. As I dashed past, it blundered out and flew into my face, beating its heavy wings and jabbing furiously at my eyes with its little hooked bill. I fended it off with the bow, gripped my bone-headed hatchet and with a long-armed glancing swing hit it under one of the big dazzled eyes. It fell away, screeching, and I ran on. Halfspoor's grunt was close behind.

Then, some distance off, I caught the sound of howling, and knew that a pack of fierce dogwolves were running on a scent. I hoped they would not come here to complicate matters.