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"Yes, isn't it" Bond was thinking of his gun He ondering hoell it would shoot after a bath in the river-how et if they were found He felt a wave of disquiet It had been a bad break coirl is your extra heart The eneainst your one

Bond remembered his thirst He scooped up soht He drank soirl put out her hand and stopped him "Don't drink too et fever"

Bond looked at her quietly He did as she told him

Quarrel whistled from somewhere in the main stream Bond answered and waded out towards hirove roots ater where their bodies ainst them "Kill da smell of us," he explained briefly He produced his handful of ba theun and the spare ammunition ; They stood still in the pool so as not to stir up h the thick roof of leaves The shrimps nibbled softly at their feet Tension built up in the hot, crouching silence

It was als

X

DRAGON SPOOR

The search party was co trunks and tall waders were having to run to keep up with the dogs They were big Chinese Negroes wearing shoulder holsters across their naked sweating chests Occasionally they exchanged shouts that wereDoberh the water, baying excitedly They had a scent and they quested frenziedly, the diamondshaped ears erect on the s crocodile," yelled the leadinga short hich he occasionally cracked like a whipper-in on the hunting field

The other ed towards hi liive us a-ing aun out of its holster and put it under his armpit and kept his hand on the butt

They were corove tunnel The first ar butt He blew a shrill blast When the dogs swapt on he laid about hi as the slow current forced theuns and waded slowly downstrearoves

The leading rasped a dog by the collar and swung it into the channel The dog snorted eagerly and paddled forward The rove roots on either side of the channel to see if they were scratched

The dog and the man came into the small enclosed pool at the end of the channel Theby the collar and pulled hi was reluctant to leave the place The man lashed down into the water with his whip

The secondat the entrance to the little channel The first man cas, now less excited, strearew less and vanished

For another five rove pool, then, in one corner a the roots, a thin periscope of baed, the forehead streaked et hair, like the face of a surfacing corpse In his right hand under the water the gun was ready He listened intently There was dead silence, not a sound Or was there? What was that soft swish out in thein the wake of the hunt? Bond reached out on either side of hi the roots on the edge of the pool As the two faces surfaced he put his finger to his lips It was too late Quarrel had coughed and spat Bond ently towards the main stream, They all listened There was dead silence Then the soft swishing began again Whoever it as co into the side-channel The tubes of bamboo went back into the three ain

Underwater, Bond rested his head in the mud, pinched his nostrils with his left hand and pursed his lips round the tube He knew the pool had been examined once already He had felt the disturbance of the swiet aith it again? This time there would have been less chance for the stirred mud to seep away out of the pool If this searcher saw the darker brown stain, would he shoot into it or stab into it? What weapons would he have? Bond decided that he wouldn't take chances At the first et to his feet and shoot and hope for the best

Bond lay and focused all his senses What hell this controlled breathing was and howof the shrimps! It was lucky none of thes would have eaten into it But it had been a bright idea of the girl's Without it the dogs would have got to theed A rubber boot had stepped on his shin and slid off Would the man think it was a branch? Bond couldn't chance it With one surge of th of bae body standing al rifle butt He lifted his' left ar blow on his foreared forward and as the ht breast below the hairless aureole he pulled the trigger