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audible range, for the pooka had not expected me to persist in the pursuit and kept pausing to forage. That confirmed that it was solid; true ghosts didn't have to eat. At that point, in my mind, the pooka changed from “it” to “he.” It is a ghost; he is a living creature. I don't claim that this was deep thinking on my part; it was just the way I saw things.
    I realized that the pooka had teased me simply because I was there; it had been a chance encounter. Now I was overreacting, and the ghost horse was uncertain. He didn't know that I intended to capture him. He would stand for a while in silence, thinking I would lose him without the rattle; but I always walked directly toward the last chain sound I had heard, using my unerring primitive sense of direction. Inevitably he would move again. He couldn't walk or run without those chains sounding off; that was his curse. If this had not been the case, I never would have been able to track him, either by night or by day. At least, not so readily.
    Morning dawned, and the pooka had led me generally southwest. At that point, as the sun got ready to heave itself up into the sky, he found a hidden thicket and froze. I couldn't hear him and I couldn't see him, and the brush was so thick I knew I would make so much noise searching it that the pooka might escape, his chain clinks drowned out. So I waited, and it became a siege. I knew he was near, but had to make him move. And of course he was determined not to move, having tired of this game.
    I made good use of the wait. I snoozed. I really needed that sleep!
    But I woke instantly at the clink of the chain. The pooka was trying to sneak out! He thought I was one of the civilized sleepers who wallow so deep in dreams they can't break free for six hours at a time. Not me! I knew when I planned to go adventuring that I could never afford to tune out the wilderness, so I had learned to wake the moment anything threatened and to sleep again the moment the threat was gone. Wild creatures sleep that way, and I was pretty wild myself. So that single little clink of a link alerted me, and I unkinked my legs and set off in renewed pursuit.
    Now the pooka bolted. I followed, feeling better, though I really hadn't had enough sleep. I had held the trail through the night and gotten just as much rest as the pooka had. I grabbed edible berries from bushes as I walked, feeding myself; there again I had an advantage, for the pooka had to pause to graze and could not do that while running. He was probably getting really hungry now. I realized, now that I thought about it, that anything solid enough to carry heavy chains had to take in energy-food.
    I passed a region where the bushes had twice as many berries, for each was double. I was about to pop the first twin-berries into my mouth when I hesitated. I had, of course, familiarized myself with many natural things, so that I could safely forage in the wilderness, but these were strange. Something nagged; Something about twin-berries, paired berries, double-berries--
    I froze. Berry-berries! They were poisonous, causing weakness, paralysis, and wasting away. But the effects were slow, so that a person could eat a lot of them before being affected--and that would be too late. Of course my magic talent would protect me from serious damage, but while it was acting, the pooka could have gotten away. Better not to get into trouble to begin with!
    However, I had a cunning primitive thought. I might be able to use those berry-berries for my own advantage sometime. So I harvested a number and put them in my bag. I noticed there were no B's buzzing around the plants that still had flowers; perhaps that had helped alert me. B's stayed strictly away from berry-berries, so that the berries could even be used as a B repellent.
    Then I plowed on after the pooka, who obviously had had the sense not to nibble on these berries. Had he led me through here deliberately? I wasn't sure. Animals aren't supposed to be