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"Try to keep your predatory instincts under control."
    "I wasn't even considering anything," Silk protested.
    "Really? Aren't you feeling well?"
    Silk loftily ignored that.
    "Wouldn't it be safer to go around it?" Garion asked as they rode across the broad meadow.
    Belgarath shook his head. "I want to know what's going on ahead of us, and the quickest way to find out is to talk to people who've been there. We'll drift in, circulate for an hour or so and then drift on out again. Just keep your ears open. If anyone asks, we're on our way toward the north range to look for gold."
    There were differences between the hunters and trappers who roamed the streets of this settlement and the miners they had met in the last village. They were more open for one thing - less surly and distinctly less belligerent. Garion surmised that the enforced solitude of their occupation made them appreciate companionship all the more during their infrequent visits to the fur-trading centers. Although they drank probably as much as the miners, their drinking seemed to lead more often to singing and laughter than to fighting.
    A large tavern stood near the center of the village, and they rode slowly along a dirt street toward it. "Side door," Belgarath said tersely as they dismounted in front of the tavern, and they led their horses around the building and tied them at the porch railing.
    The interior of the tavern was cleaner, less crowded, and somewhat lighter than the miners' tavern had been, and it smelled of woods and open air instead of damp, musty earth. The three of them sat at a table not far from the door and ordered cups of ale from a polite servingman. The ale was a rich, dark brown, well chilled, and surprisingly inexpensive.
    "The fur buyers own the place," Silk explained, wiping foam from his upper lip. "They've discovered that a trapper is easier to bargain with if he's a little drunk, so they make the ale cheap and plentiful."
    "I suppose that makes sense," Garion admitted, "but don't the trappers know that?"
    "Of course they do."
    "Why do they drink before they do business, then?"
    Silk shrugged. "They like to drink."
    The two trappers seated at the next table were renewing an acquaintanceship that obviously stretched back a dozen years or more. Their beards were both touched with gray, but they spoke lightheartedly in the manner of much younger men.
    "You have any trouble with Morindim while you were up there?" one was asking the other.
    The second shook his head. "I put pestilence-markers on both ends of the valley where I set out my traps," he replied. "A Morind will go a dozen leagues out of his way to avoid a spot that's got pestilence."
    The first nodded his agreement. "That's usually the best way. Gredder always claimed that curse-markers worked better; but as it turned out, he was wrong."
    "I haven't seen him in the last few seasons."
    "I'd be surprised if you had. The Morindim got him about three years ago. I buried him myself - what was left of him anyway."
    "Didn't know that. Spent a winter with him once over on the head waters of the Cordu. He was a mean-tempered sort of a man. I'm surprised that the Morindim would cross a curse-marker, though."
    "As near as I could judge, some magician came along and uncursed his markers. I found a dried weasel foot hung from one of them with three stems of grass tied around each toe."
    "That's a potent spell. They must have wanted him pretty badly for a magician to take that much trouble."
    "You know how he was. He could irritate people ten leagues away just walking by."
    "That's the truth."
    "Not any more, though. His skull's decorating some Morind magician's quest-staff now."
    Garion leaned toward his grandfather. "What do they mean when they talk about markers?" he whispered.
    "They're warnings," Belgarath replied. "Usually sticks poked into the ground and decorated with bones or feathers. The Morindim can't read, so you can't just put up a signboard for them."
    A stooped old trapper,