be wiped out. We'll have to stake out bait to draw one, probably. Usually have to anyway."

He cleaned his rifle four times and paced the salon impatiently awaiting dawn. Finally he glanced at his chronometer and told his wife, "Get Suchane—the darkest one. See that she's scrubbed down, well. No perfume, understand?"

It was the first time he had mentioned one of the girls to Annellica by name and she paled. I wondered why taking a "niece" on the hunt with us bothered her after the comportment I had witnessed on the trip.

In a half hour the four of us set out in the first pale light of a dawn that exploded quickly into pink daylight. The Major wore a wicked hunting-knife in his belt, carried only a pint flask in his right hand and his left arm was wrapped intimately around Suchane's slender waist. Annellica carried the rifles.

We had gone only a few yards when he stopped us. "You wait here," he said. Then he sipped from the flask and offered it to the beautiful, dark-haired girl. She drank deeply and handed it back. He waved it to her with his satyr-like smirk, that she finish it. He watched until she was through, then his left hand slid up to her neckline, grasped the material of the dress and tore down with one powerful gesture.

She staggered back, nude and startled. Daphne roared with laughter, clasped her around the waist again and held out his right hand. "Nellie, my rifle. You wait here. Keep your heads down. No fair peeking, eh, Suchane?"

Annellica threw one of the two rifles she was carrying at him, muzzle up. He caught it with a slap of his huge paw and pulled the girl forward with him. She was reassured, now, and giggling with anticipation.

Somehow the lecherous display was more revolting out here in daylight. I mistook Annellica's paleness for humiliation, and I didn't blame her. Why did he have to drag one of his damned concubines out here?

We knelt down obediently, and before Daphne's head disappeared he turned and shouted back, "If the wampus gets by me, remember, no gut shots, Frost."

I muttered to Annellica, "The man has nerve, anyway."

"You confuse bravery with selfishness. He insists on the first shot—won't trust another member of a hunting party to hold his fire. He always stalks out ahead like this," Annellica explained tensely.

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