Kenton made a semi-permanent camp near the salt lick, building a lean-to of branches and leaves for protection against the warm summer rain. He went back to the lick for both deer and buffalo, and added three more sets of spearfang teeth in less hair raising fashion than he had col ected the first.
The hunting was so easy it required only a small part of his time.
He ranged widely over the countryside, adding to his map and journal.
The more he traveled, the richer he judged the land. Not only was it full of game, but the rich soil and abundant water were made for farming.
Sometimes Charles accompanied him on his journeys, sometimes he went alone. The sim traveled too, though not as widely as Kenton.
Often he would bring back to camp smal game he had slain himself rabbits, turkey, a beaver, a porcupine that proved amazingly tasty once it was skinned. They made a welcome change of diet.
Saw strange thing, Charles signed after one of his solitary jaunts. Many buffalo bones. He opened and closed his hands several times, indicating some number larger than he could count.
He led Kenton to the spot the next morning. The scout whistled in surprise as he looked down into a dry wash at the tangle of whitened bones there. 'Must be a hundred head, easy,' he said.
Charles repeated the sign for an indefinitely large number.
Together they scrambled down the steep side of the ravine, going slowly and often grabbing at bushes for support. Kenton tried to imagine what could have made a herd plunge down such a slope. Even at fuII stampede, the buffalo should have turned aside.
Then the scout was among the bones. Scavengers had pul ed apart many skeletons. Bushes were pushing through rib cages, climbing over skulls.
The herd had met disaster at least a year ago, Kenton judged.
Many great legbones were neatly split lengthwise, almost al the skul s smashed open. When Kenton found a fist sized lump of stone with an edge chipped sharp, it only confirmed what he had already guessed.
He tossed the hand-axe up and down.
Charles recognized it at once. Sims. Wild sims.
'Aye. No animal could've gone for the beasts' brains and marrow so.'
Likely, Kenton thought, the subhumans had driven the buffalo into the gully. He glanced round, as if expecting to see a sim crouching behind every shrub. He had never doubted sims lived west of the mountains, but this was the first sure sign of it, and a sobering reminder.
Big killing, Charles signed, his eyes traveling the scatered bones.
Kenton wondered what was going through his mind, wondered if he was proud of the slaughter his distant cousins had worked. Some Englishmen trained their sims to hate and fear the wild ones. The scout had never seen the need for that. Finding out he was wrong might prove costly.
He did his best to keep his voice casual. 'Let me know before you join them, eh?'
Charles's face was troubled. Joke? he signed at last.
Kenton dimly realized how hard it had to be for sims to keep track of men's vagaries they could not share. 'Joke,' he said firmly.
Charles nodded.
They spent a while longer investigating the ravine.
Kenton turned up a few more stone tools, but nothing to show that the sims had come back to this immediate area since the year before.
That was some relief, if not much.
When Charles wanted to go off for some purpose of his own, Kenton said only, 'I'll see you back at the camp this evening.' The last thing he wanted was the sim thinking he mistrusted him. He wished he had kept his mouth shut instead of letting his stupid wisecrack out.
Thinking such dark thoughts, the scout decided to return to the salt lick. The chunk of venison he had cached in a tree probably would not be fit to eat by nightfal , not in this heat. And game was so easy to come by west mountains that he did not have to put up with meat even a little off.
He wormed his way to his familiar cover. Excitment coursed through him as he looked into the clearing of the lick. A spearfang had just slain a plump doe dragging the carcass back into the bushes to feed, without conscious volition, his rifle sprang to his shoulder and spoke.
The spearfang yowled with anguish as it staggering from its kill.
Kenton reloaded, hurried after it. He held the gun at the ready, although he did not think he would need it for such desperate work as before. The big cat's gait reflected a wound that would soon be fatal.
So it proved. Less than a furlong from the fallen doe the scout found the spearfang dead, its mouth gaping in defiant snarl. Insects were already lighting on the cat They buzzed away as Kenton stooped beside it.
He set down his rifle, used his knife and a stone out the beast's fangs. They were a fine pair, not much shorter than the gap between his thumb and little finger when he splayed them wide. He bound the two long teeth with a rawhide thong, slipped them into his pouch rest.
He caught a slight motion out of the corner of his eye. Still on his knees, he turned. 'See, I'll be rich yet.” The words caught in his throat. The sim behind was naked, and shorter and stockier than his companion and hefted a stone in its right hand.
The tableau held for several seconds. The sim looked at Kenton as if unsure it believed its eyes. He beratted
