snow, and though I found upon
minute examination of several that we killed that each ocellus is
furnished with its own lid, and that the animal can at will close
as many of the facets of his huge eyes as he chooses, yet I was
positive that nature had thus equipped him because much of his life
was to be spent in dark, subterranean recesses.

Shortly after this we came upon the hugest apt that we had seen.
The creature stood fully eight feet at the shoulder, and was so
sleek and clean and glossy that I could have sworn that he had but
recently been groomed.

He stood head-on eyeing us as we approached him, for we had found
it a waste of time to attempt to escape the perpetual bestial rage
which seems to possess these demon creatures, who rove the dismal
north attacking every living thing that comes within the scope of
their far-seeing eyes.

Even when their bellies are full and they can eat no more, they
kill purely for the pleasure which they derive from taking life,
and so when this particular apt failed to charge us, and instead
wheeled and trotted away as we neared him, I should have been greatly
surprised had I not chanced to glimpse the sheen of a golden collar
about its neck.

Thuvan Dihn saw it, too, and it carried the same message of hope
to us both. Only man could have placed that collar there, and as
no race of Martians of which we knew aught ever had attempted to
domesticate the ferocious apt, he must belong to a people of the
north of whose very existence we were ignorant--possibly to the
fabled yellow men of Barsoom; that once powerful race which was
supposed to be extinct, though sometimes, by theorists, thought
still to exist in the frozen north.

Simultaneously we started upon the trail of the great beast.
Woola was quickly made to understand our desires, so that it was
unnecessary to attempt to keep in sight of the animal whose swift
flight over the rough ground soon put him beyond our vision.

For the better part of two hours the trail paralleled the barrier,
and then suddenly turned toward it through the roughest and seemingly
most impassable country I ever had beheld.

Enormous granite boulders blocked the way on every hand; deep rifts
in the ice threatened to engulf us at the least misstep; and from
the north a slight breeze wafted to our nostrils an unspeakable
stench that almost choked us.

For another two hours we were occupied in traversing a few hundred
yards to the foot of the barr