didn't know he was following them. Hefound their tracks, some hours later.
Toward dusk, he came to a steep building-mound. It had fared betterthan most of the houses of the ancient people; it rose to twenty timesa man's height and on the south-east side it was almost perpendicular.The other side sloped, and he was able to climb to the top, and faraway, ahead of him, he saw a tiny spark appear and grow. The firecould not be more than two hours ahead.
He built no fire that evening, but shared a slab of pemmican withBrave, and they huddled together under the bearskin robe. The dog fellasleep at once. For a long time, Raud sat awake, thinking.
At first, he considered resting for a while, and then pressing forwardand attacking them as they slept. He had to kill all of them to regainthe Crown; that he had taken for granted from the first. He knew whatwould happen if the Government Police came into this. They would takeone Southron's word against the word of ten Northfolk, and the thieveswould simply claim the Crown as theirs and accuse him of trying tosteal it. And Dranigo and Salvadro--they seemed like good men, butthey might see this as the only way to get the Crown forthemselves.... He would have to settle the affair for himself, beforethe men reached Long Valley town.
If he could do it here, it would save him and Brave the toil anddanger of climbing the Ice-Father. But could he? They had two rifles,one an autoloader, and they had in all likelihood three negatronpistols. After the single shot of the big rifle was fired, he had onlya knife and a hatchet and the spiked and pickaxed ice-staff, andBrave. One of the thieves would kill him before he and Brave killedall of them, and then the Crown would be lost. He dropped into sleep,still thinking of what to do.
He climbed the mound of the ancient building again in the morning, andlooked long and carefully at the face of the Ice-Father. It would takethe thieves the whole day to reach that place where the two tongues ofthe glacier split apart, the easiest spot to climb. They would not tryto climb that evening; Vahr, who knew the most about it, would be thelast to advise such a risk. He was sure that by going up at thenearest point he could get to the top of the Ice-Father before dark,and drag Brave up after him. It would be a fearful climb, and he wouldhave most of a day's journey after that to reach the head of the longravine up which the thieves would come, but when they came up, hecould be there waiting for them. He knew what the old rifle could do,to an inch, and there were places where the thieves would be coming upwhere he could stay out of blaster-range and pick them all off, evenwith a single-loader.
He knew about negatron pistols, too. They shot little bullets ofenergy; they were very fast, and did not drop, like a real bullet, sothat no judgment of range was needed. But the energy died quickly; thenegatrons lived only long enough to go five hundred paces and no more.At eight hundred, he could hit a man easily. He almost felt himselfpitying Vahr Farg's son and his companions.
When he reached the tumble of rocks that had been dragged along withand pushed out from the Ice-Father, he stopped and made up apack--sleeping robes, all his cartridges, as much pemmican as he couldcarry, and the bag of trade-tokens. If the chase took him to LongValley Town, he would need money. He also coiled about his waist along rawhide climbing-rope, and left the sled-harness on Brave, simplydetaching the traces.
At first, they walked easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grewsteeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced alittle at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced tosnub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet.Toward noon--at least he thought it was noon--it began snowing again,and the valley below was blotted out in a swirl of white.
They came to a narrow ledge, where they could rest, with a wall of icerising sheerly above them. He would have to climb that alone, and thenpull Brave up with the rope. He started working his way up theperpendicular face, clinging by the pick of his ice-staff, choppingfootholds with the hatchet; the pack and the slung rifle on his backpulled at him and threatened to drag him down. At length, he draggedhimself over the edge and drove the ice-staff in.
"Up, Brave!" he called, tugging on the rope. "Good dog, Brave; comeup!"
Brave tried to jump and slipped back. He tried again, and this timeRaud snubbed the rope and held him. Below the dog pawed frantically,until he found a paw-hold on one of the chopped-out steps. Raud hauledon the rope, and made another snub.
It seemed like hours. It probably was; his arms were aching, and hehad lost all sense of time, or of the cold, or the danger of the narrowledge; he forgot about the Crown and the men who had stolen it; heeven forgot how he had come here, or that he had ever been anywhereelse. All that mattered was to get Brave up on the ledge beside him.
Finally Brave came up and got first his fore-paws and then his bodyover the edge. He lay still, panting proudly, while Raud hugged himand told him, over and over, that he was a good dog. They rested for along time, and Raud got a slab of pemmican from the pack and dividedit with Brave.
It was while they rested in the snow, munching, that he heard thesound for the first time. It was faint and far away, and it soundedlike thunder, or like an avalanche beginning, and that puzzled him,for this was not the time of year for either. As he listened, he heardit again, and this time he recognized it--negatron pistols. Itfrightened him; he wondered if the thieves had met a band of hunters.No; if they were fighting Northfolk, there would be the reports offirearms, too. Or might they be fighting among themselves? Rememberingthe melted brass studs on Bold's collar, he became more frightened atthe thought of what a negatron-blast could do to the Crown.
The noise stopped, then started again, and he got to his feet, callingto Brave. They were on a wide ledge that slanted upward toward thenorth. It would take him closer to the top, and closer to where Vahrand his companions would come up. Together, they started up, Raudprobing cautiously ahead of him with the ice-staff for hiddencrevasses. After a while, he came to a wide gap in the ice beside him,slanting toward the top, its upper end lost in swirling snow. So heand Brave began climbing, and after a while he could no longer hearthe negatron pistols.
When it was almost too dark to go farther, he suddenly found himselfon level snow, and here he made camp, digging a hole and lining itwith the sleeping robes.
The sky was clear when he woke, and a pale yellow light was glowing inthe east. For a while he lay huddled with the dog, stiff andmiserable, and then he forced himself to his feet. He ate, and fedBrave, and then checked his rifle and made his pack.
He was sure, now, that he had a plan that would succeed. He couldreach the place where Vahr and the Southrons would come up long beforethey did, and be waiting for them. In his imagination, he could seethem coming up in single file, Vahr Farg's son in the lead, and hecould imagine himself hidden behind a mound of snow, the ice-staffupright to brace his left hand and the forestock of the rifle restingon his outthrust thumb and the butt against his shoulder. The firstbullet would be for Vahr. He could shoot all of them, one afteranother, that way....
He stopped, looking in chagrined incredulity at the tracks in front ofhim--the tracks he knew so well, of one man in sealskin boots andthree men with ribbed plastic soles. Why, it couldn't be! They shouldbe no more than half way up the long ravine, between the two tonguesof the Ice-Father, ten miles to the north. But here they were, on theback of the Ice-Father and crossing to the west ahead of him. Theymust have climbed the sheer wall of ice, only a few miles from wherehe had dragged himself and Brave to the top. Then he remembered thenegatron-blasts he had heard. While he had been chopping footholdswith a hatchet, they had been smashing tons of ice out of their way.
"Well, Brave," he said mildly. "Old Keeper wasn't so smart, after all,was he? Come on, Brave."
The thieves were making good time. He read that from the tracks--straight, evenly spaced, no weary heel-dragging. Once or twice, hesaw where they had stopped for a brief rest. He hoped to see theirfire in the evening.
He didn't. They wouldn't have enough fuel to make a big one, or keepit burning long. But in the morning, as he was breaki
ng camp, he sawblack smoke ahead.
A few times, he had been in air-boats, and had looked down on the backof the Ice-Father, and it had looked flat. Really, it was not. Therewere long ridges, sheer on one side and sloping gently on the other,where the ice had overridden hills and low mountains, or had crackedand one side had pushed up over the other. And there were deep gullieswhere the prevailing winds had scooped away loose snow year after yearfor centuries, and drifts where it had piled, many of them higher thanthe building-mounds of the ancient cities. But from a distance, asfrom above, they all blended into a featureless white monotony.
At last, leaving a tangle of cliffs and ravines, he looked out acrossa broad stretch of nearly level snow and saw, for the first time, themen he was following. Four tiny dots, so far that they seemedmotionless, strung out in single file. Instantly, he crouched behind aswell in the surface and dragged Brave down beside him. One of them,looking back, might