"So?" murmured Yorgh. "Still ... just let her give me to choose between the kitchen and a house of her young women, and you will see a notable choice made, my friend!" "Young women reside with their families," snapped Ueln. He stared Yorgh up and down, his eyes black pools in the light cast by the flambeaux he carried. "I admire your attitude," he sneered with heavy sarcasm. "Enjoy it while you can!" He strode away down the hall, leaving Yorgh in the dark. The big hunter thought fleetingly of creeping quietly to the stairs, but a saner instinct convinced him that Ueln would not have left them unguarded. He groped his way to the bed, found that a blanket had been left on the straw, and wrapped himself in it against the night chill of the mountains. * * * * * The next three days he spent "enjoying his attitude," as Ueln had bidden him. The Raydower gave him a tunic of dark blue which was only a trifle snug, having belonged to the old chief, and pants of gray Hunter wool. The tunic had a narrow fur collar. Bathed and refreshed, Yorgh regained some of his good nature with the new clothes. He did not see Vaneen anywhere when he was invited to sit at the great table for meals and to entertain the black-haired Raydower ruler. With unusual insight, he decided that Jayn would probably not be pleased to hear him asking about the girl. Instead, he told some of his stories, and at supper made bold to yank a bench from under one of Jayn's discouraged suitors. IV The roar of laughter died as the fellow scrambled up from the stone floor with a snarl, but Jayn's husky voice cut across the silence to avert trouble. She keeps a tight guide rope, thought Yorgh, and tried to smooth things over by telling one of his stories. He thought the company about the table seemed impressed at the tale of his latest adventure in the desert, but it might have been the flickering light of the torches. "I think you must have taken that from an old legend," said Ueln. "We, too, have half-remembered stories of people who rode out from the shrine in self-moving wagons, in the old days when there were more men in The World." "What shrine?" asked Yorgh, for it was a tale he had not heard, although he knew it was widely told of the Raydowers that they held mysterious beliefs. "On the mountain top," said Ueln. "You might have seen it any morning when you went with us to swim--" He stopped abruptly, and Yorgh was aware of a peculiar hush around the table. Then Jayn quickly asked him to describe again how the Hunters made their powerful horn bows famous for their loud twang and swift arrows, and how they got such strength without making them as long as the wooden ones of the mountain people. Yorgh answered sketchily, not failing to notice Ueln shrug defiantly under the severe stares of several diners near him at the great table.