For some time he made fast, steady progress, although the going was by no means easy, sometimes leading along the rims of landslides, sometimes forcing him to fight his way through thick clumps of scrub trees. The last "Kii ... eee" stuck in his ears, and at times he was pretty sure he glimpsed furry bodies slipping along to one side, paralleling his progress. His thoughts went off on unpleasant tacks, chiefly about the degree to which careful breeding had increased the intelligence of house cats, the way in which they had always maintained their aloof and independent life in the midst of man's civilization, and other less concrete speculations. Once he heard another sound, a repetition of the melancholy howling that had first startled him in the cave. It might have been wolves, or dogs, and seemed to come from somewhere low in the ravine and quite a distance away. The sky was growing darker. The rapid ascent was taking less out of him than he would have imagined. He was panting, but in a steady, easy way. He felt he could keep up this pace for a considerable distance. The pines began to thin on the uphill side. He emerged onto a long, wide slope that stretched, ever-steepening, boulder-strewn but almost barren of vegetation, to the ravine's horizon. His easiest way lay along its base, past tangled underbrush. A little distance ahead and up the slope, a large chunk of granite jutted out. On its rim sat three cats, again regarding him. Something about the way they were turned toward each other, the little movements they made, suggested that they were holding a conference and that the topic of the conference was--he. From behind and below the howling came again. The cats pricked up their ears. There were more movements, more glances in his direction. Then as he began jogging along again, one of the cats--the tiger--leaped down and streaked away past him, downhill. While the black-and-gray and the black dropped off the granite rim more leisurely and began to trot along in the direction he was taking, with frequent sidewise glances. He quickened his pace, grateful for the reserve energy. The going was good. There were no eroded chutes to be edged around, no pines to fight. Once the howling was repeated faintly. The shadowy bodies of the cats slipped between the boulders, in and out. Gradually he began to draw ahead of them. * * * * * For some reason everything felt very natural, as if he had been created for this running through the dusk. He sprinted up the last stretch, came out on top. For a long time he just looked and turned, and turned and looked. Everything else--emotions, thought--was subordinated to the act of seeing. Up here it was still pretty light. And there were no hills to shut out the view. It stretched, snow-streaked, lightless, lifeless, achingly drear, to black horizons in three directions and a distant glittering ice-wall in the fourth.