ands, Lynwood twisted the controls
to take them instantly, in magnification, to a distance slightly above
the tops of the trees. The automatic pilot caused the ship to drift with
the rotation of the planet, keeping them in fixed relative position.

They scanned the ground rod by rod. There were expanses of heavy tree
and bush growth that they could not penetrate. Some of these trees grew
where the pictures showed cleared fields, buildings, truck gardens,
cattle pastures.

"Those big trees didn't grow up in a month, since the last colonist
report," Louie said positively. He still clung to his belief that it was
all a hoax.

Cal made no comment. He was intent on the scanner screen. There were
heavy foliage spots, but there were also bare areas covered by a soft,
springy turf and patches of wild flowers. But there was no sign of man
or his works. There was not so much as a board, the glint of a nail, not
a furrow, not even the scar of a campfire. And no indication that there
had ever been.

In the sandy patches along the banks of the small meandering river,
there was not even a footprint.

They swept the scanner down the valley.

"Wait a minute," Cal said. "There are some cows and horses." He held the
scanner fixed while they studied the animals. In two small herds, the
animals grazed contentedly near a patch of woods.

"We're in the right time slot, then," Tom said, with an attempt to pick
up the spirit of treating it lightly. "They've been here. Else the cows
and horses wouldn't be."

"Funny thing about those horses," Frank commented in a puzzled voice. "I
grew up on a farm. Those are work horses, but field horses always have
harness marks on them where the hair gets rubbed off or the skin gets
calloused. If they used these horses for work, there ought to be collar
and hames rubs on their necks. There ought to be worn streaks left by
the traces on their sides. There isn't. Far as the evidence shows, they
might have been wild all their lives."

"Whatever happened didn't seem to hurt them any," Cal agreed.

He swept the scanner on down the valley to the sandy shore of the sea.
They were close enough to pick up the brown streaks of beached seaweed.
A flock of shore birds were busy running up the sand away from the
gentle, beaching waves, then following the water line back down to dig
their beaks into the soft, wet sand for food. The birds showed no alarm,
no sign of lurking presence near them.

Cal brought the