But this was an arrow of _my making_. That meant that the shot had been a warning to return to a safer place, an admonition that I was wandering too far, sent dramatically by one of the patrolling guardians. Yet why had he not merely stepped up and warned me? All the guardians knew me well. They knew I would be tractable to any suggestion. Why had he shot and fled? So conditioned is our race to amity and all-embracing brotherly love, so incredible is the thought of violence between men, that it took quite five minutes of cogitation before the terrible idea occurred to me: that it might have been Laq, a jealous and hate-filled Laq, shooting not to warn, but to murder. I remembered the legend of the bones of Sunset Fields, and a sickness took me in the pit of the stomach for a while. Then I put the grotesque thought from me, and went to look for Halfspoor's trail once more. * * * * * It ran clear and straight out across the black plain; I rubbed my chin and hesitated briefly. Then, nocking an arrow, I strode out and away from the edge of the Fearful Forest. My skin began to crawl, crawl with dread, but with scowling eyes I traced the prints before me, and there was no possibility in my mind of turning back now. Remembrance of the shaft in the tree was angering me more with every step. Warning or murder weapon, its insolent caveat was the final stimulation I had needed to force my frightened body onward. If you are not a hunter, perhaps you will not understand the intense and passionate ascendancy that a stalk may gain over a man's will. He begins in a spirit of sport, it may be, thinking, "I shall pit my wits against this stag--or bison, or cave cat--and see if I can out-think him." Then after so long he begins to feel feverish about the temples, his hands sweat, his breath comes shorter; and suddenly it is not an idle hour's sport, but a whole life he is living in these moments, a veritable microcosm of existence, and the quarry is not simply a great dangerous animal, but all foemen, all desirable goals, everything he wants for himself and in the same moment everything he has fought and will fight forever. I cannot make it plainer. It is just this: the longer the hunting, the more acute grows the urgency to come up with and slay this fleeing creature, whether it be jackal-rat or eagle or two-ton knifetooth bear. If the hunter be a real man, he will not cease from pursuit while there is wind in his lungs and a modicum of strength in his hands.