They tried to kill Alan Rackham about an hour after he had seen the accident. They bungled the job. They shot at him from ambush—with an ordinary automatic pistol—as he was walking up to his house; and Brave, who had a sixth sense for danger which never failed him, knocked Alan over at the very instant of the shot and sprawled across him, a great solid shield holding him down and protecting him despite his angry wrigglings. Brave's grenade pistol was in his hand before the two of them hit ground