He had never felt like a Ph.D. anyway. And since he was interested in such things as Sasquatch, the Yeti, and the Great Man-Apes of Africa, his colleagues at the University of Texas were not always inclined to think of him as a Ph.D. either. He certainly didn't look. like one. A fact he was secretly proud of. He was a little less trim at forty than he had been just five years ago, but he was husky, strong, and he still had some of what had made him an excellent fullback on the Lumberjacks football team at Stephen F. Austin State University. And he could still throw a punch as well as when he was an amateur middleweight fighting out of San Antonio.

He turned to locate his daughter, Jean. She was nearby, directing the four askaris and the bearers, showing them where she wanted camp set up. She was like that. Always in charge. One of her anthropology professors-Hanson refused to have his own daughter in his class-Professor Chad Oliver, referred to her as having the head of a bull, if the bull's head was made of steel.

He studied her, thought: my God, she looks so much like her mother. Her shoulder-length blond hair was dark with sweat, and the back of her shirt at the small other back was stuck to her skin. Her baggy khaki pants were pocked with burs, thorns, and sticky little plants, the .38 revolver dangled Annie Oakley-style from the worn holster and ammunition belt at her hip, but still, even though a bit lean and gangly, she was beautiful.

When she had directed the bearers properly, and they were about their work, she turned and saw Hanson smiling at her. She strolled over to him, said, "You took happy. Dad. I'd hug you, but I'm so sweaty."

"It's just you remind me of your mother," he said.

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. But I can't say you look happy. Sorry you came?"

"Oh, no. It's those men. I didn't like the looks of them. They made me nervous. They looked like criminals."

Hanson hadn't liked their looks either. He had kept his hand near his .38 all the time they had been near. The words that had passed between him and them had been friendly enough, but he hadn't liked the way they studied him, his supplies, and especially the way that one man, the fat one, looked at Jean, as if she were a pork chop and he a starving wolf.

"They were a tough-looking bunch," he said. "Deserters, I presume. Foreign Legion most likely."

"I thought so too, "Jean said.

"Wise you didn't say as much," Hanson said. "They might have been trouble if you had.