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that took a couple of hours or so. Then carefully reconnoiter the place for the Hill Bluffer, in whose shadow he could enjoy some security.
    He had just made up his mind to this, and was beginning to get his breath back, when there was a sudden flash of light from the hide curtain. Looking up, he caught sight for a moment of a female Dilbian figure, a small one, framed in silhouette for a second against the glare within. Then, swiftly, the curtain fell back into place, leaving only its pencil outline of yellow illumination.
    But John had a sudden, uncomfortable feeling that the female he had seen had remained outside, rather than within. Quickly and quietly, he got to his feet in the darkness.
    No sound from the direction of the door reached his ears; but he remembered how quietly the Tree Weeper had gone off through the woods as he left John and the Bluffer. And there had been no reason for the woodsman to hide the noise of his passage. If that was any index, and the Dilbian he had seen in the doorway was actually out there hunting him for any reason, John would have to rely on more than his ears for warning of any approach.
    He lifted his nose and sniffed, cautiously. The kitchen odors had pretty much taken charge of the night air, but . . . yes, he was sure he caught a whiff of the peculiar Dilbian body odor.
    And just at that moment, not ten feet from him, he heard clearly the sound of a double sniff.
    Mentally kicking himself for his stupidity in forgetting that where human and Dilbian were concerned, two could play at this nose game, John moved speedily and silently away from the spot where he had been resting. The thing to do now, he thought, was to get upwind of his hunter, or huntress—if indeed it was the small female he had seen silhouetted, and then try to dodge past and get around once more to the front of the inn. Even Halitosis and his friends would be safer company than he was enjoying out here.
    John began to move cautiously around to his right, toward the unseen and sounding river below the edge of the dropoff. No noise followed him; and this silence by itself was disturbing. John breathed shallowly and quietly, straining his eyes against the obsidian dark. He thought he saw something moving—black against black—but he was not sure. With the utmost possible silence, he began to back away, crouching. If he could find the edge of the cliff without falling over it, and work back along to a point level with the end of the inn, perhaps a quick dash from that spot for the inn's front door—
    The odds were against him. Just at that moment, he tripped and fell over a broken hoop from a keg.
    The thud and clatter of his fall cried out in the tense silence. There was a sudden, tearing rush at him by something large and invisible; he rolled frantically free, stood up and ran.
    There was no moon showing over this part of Dilbia in this season of the year, and the starlight gave little illumination. Still, what there was was enough to show him the ragged edge of the dropoff. He skidded to a halt, just short of tumbling headlong into the canyon. He stopped and turned, half-crouched, holding his breath and listening.
    His heart hammered. There was no other sound.
    End of round one, his brain suggested idiotically. And beginning of round two. Seconds out of the corners.
    He held his breath and went on listening. For a long minute or two he heard nothing. Then, at some short distance behind him, he heard again the faint but unmistakable sound of sniffing. He froze. He was between the wind blowing up over the edge of the dropoff, and whoever hunted him. That sniffing nose would lead the pursuer straight to him.
    Step by step, like a cat cautiously crossing a basket of eggs, he began to back up along the lip of the cliff. He had been blocked off from escape around the near end of the inn. Possibly he could retreat and make another try, this time around the far end. That is, if the hunter didn't catch up with him before he