The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

guesses were they learned that night when Ashe returned, a deer’s haunch on his shoulder. Ross knew him well enough by now to sense his preoccupation. “You found something?”
    “A new set of ghosts,” Ashe replied with a strange little smile.
    “Ghosts!” McNeil pounced upon that. “The Reds like to play the supernatural angle, don’t they? First the voice of Lurgha and now ghosts. What do these ghosts do?”
    “They inhabit a bit of mountainous territory southeast of here, a stretch strictly taboo for all hunters. We were following a bison track until the beast headed for the ghost country. Then Ulffa called us off in a hurry. It seems that the hunter who goes in there after his quarry never reappears, or if he does, it’s in a damaged condition, blown upon by ghosts and burned to death! That’s one point.”
    He sat down by the fire and stretched his arms wearily. “The second is a little more disturbing for us. A Beaker camp about twenty miles south of here, as far as I can judge, was exterminated just a week ago. The message was passed to me because I was thought to be a kinsman of the slain—”
    McNeil sat up. “Done because they were hunting us?”
    “Might well be. On the other hand, the affair may have been just one of general precaution.”
    “The ghosts did it?” Ross wanted to know.
    “I asked that. No, it seems that strange tribesmen overran it at night.”
    “At night?” McNeil whistled.
    “Just so.” Ashe’s tone was dry. “The tribes do not fight that way. Either someone slipped up in his briefing, or the Reds are overconfident and don’t care about the rules. But it was the work of tribesmen, or their counterfeits. There is also a nasty rumor speeding about that the ghosts do not relish traders and that they might protest intrusions of such with penalties all around—”
    “Like the Wrath of Lurgha,” supplied Ross.
    “There is a certain repetition in this which suggests a lot to the suspicious mind,” Ashe agreed.
    “I’d say no more hunting expeditions for the present,” McNeil said. “It is too easy to mistake a friend for a deer and weep over his grave afterward.”
    “That is a thought which entered my mind several times this afternoon,” Ashe agreed. “These people are deceptively simple on the surface, but their minds do not work along the same patterns as ours. We try to outwit them, but it takes only one slip to make it fatal. In the meantime, I think we’d better make this place a little more snug, and it might be well to post sentries as unobtrusively as possible.”
    “How about faking some signs of a ruined camp and heading into the blue ourselves?” McNeil asked. “We could strike for the ghost mountains, traveling by night, and Ulffa’s crowd would think we were finished off.”
    “An idea to keep in mind. The point against it would be the missing bodies. It seems that the tribesmen who raided the Beaker camp left some very distasteful evidence of what happened to the camp’s personnel. And those we can’t produce to cover our trail.”
    McNeil was not yet convinced. “We might be able to fake something along that line, too—”
    “We may have to fake nothing,” Ross cut in softly. He was standing close to the edge of the clearing where they were building their hut, his hand on one of the saplings in the palisade they had set up so laboriously that day. Ashe was beside him in an instant.
    “What is it?”
    Ross’s hours of listening to the sounds of the wilderness were his measuring gauge now. “That bird has never called from inland before. It is the blue one we’ve seen fishing for frogs along the river.”
    Ashe, not even glancing at the forest, went for the water jug. “Get your trail supplies,” he ordered.
    Their leather pouches which held enough iron rations to keep them going were always at hand. McNeil gathered them from behind the fur curtain fronting their half-finished cabin. Again the bird called, its cry piercing and covering a long distance. Ross could understand why a careless man would select it for the signal. He crossed the clearing to the donkeys’ shelter, slashing through their nose halters. Probably the patient little beasts would swiftly fall victims to some forest prowlers, but at least they would have their chance to escape.
    McNeil, his cloak slung about him to conceal the ration bags, picked up the leather bucket as if he were merely going down to the river for water, and came to join Ross. They