ed annoyed at having been cut off.

"Probably," he said more prosaically. "The tides would be monstrous,
though."

"Might be used for power," said Cochrane. "We'll see ..."

Then Jones spoke with elaborate casualness:

"Here's something to look at. On the ground."

Cochrane moved to see. The dusk had deepened still more. The smooth,
green-covered ground had become a dark olive. Where bare hillsides gave
upon the sky, there were dark masses flowing slowly forward. The edges
of the hills turned black, and the blackness moved down their nearer
slopes. It was not an even front of darkness. There were patches which
preceded the others. They did not stay distinct. They merged with the
masses which followed them, and other patches separated in their places.
All of the darkness moved without haste, with a sort of inexorable
deliberation. It moved toward the ship and the valley and the gushing
fountain and the stream which flowed from it.

"What on Earth--" began Cochrane.

"You're not on Earth," said Jones chidingly. "Al and I found 'em. You
asked for buffalo or a reasonable facsimile. I won't guarantee anything;
but we spotted what looked like herds of beasts moving over the green
plains inland. We checked, and they seemed to be moving in this
direction. Once we dropped down low and Bell got some pictures. When he
enlarged them, we decided they'd do. So we lined up where they were all
headed for, and here we are. And here they are!"

Cochrane stared with all his eyes. Behind him, he heard Bell fuming to
himself as he tried to adjust a camera for close-up pictures in the
little remaining light. Babs stood beside Cochrane, staring
incredulously.

The darkness was beasts. They blackened the hillsides on three sides of
the ship. They came deliberately, leisurely onward. They were literally
uncountable. They were as numerous as the buffalo that formerly thronged
the western plains of America. In black, shaggy masses, they came toward
the spring and its stream. Nearby, their heads could be distinguished.
And all of this was perfectly natural.

The cosmos is one thing. Where life exists, its living creatures will
fit themselves cunningly into each niche where life can be maintained.
On vast green plains there will be animals to graze--and there will be
animals to prey on them. So the grazing things will band together in
herds for self-defense and reproduction. And where the ground is covered
with broad-leaved plants, such