ecome negligible.

"Might at well land," Sime decided. "Conserve fuel. If we get a
favorable wind to-morrow we can go up and drift with it."

But Tolto, who had been narrowly scanning the terrain, advised
continuing a little longer.

"I thought I saw a little smoke, a few miles ahead. Seems to be gone
now. But we're still drifting slow."

* * * * *

Sime searched the indicated spot in the ground glass of the forward
magnifying periscope. After a few minutes he discovered a blackened
spot which might be the remains of a fire. It was surrounded by huge
blocks of orange rock, the igneous rock which is the outstanding
feature of the Martian desert landscape.

"Looks like he built the fire around there so nobody on the same level
would see him," he hazarded. He set the altitude control to fifty
feet. There was part of the globular skeleton of a desert hog in the
fire; whoever had built it had dined most satisfyingly not long
before, and as the fugitives looked their stomachs contracted
painfully.

"I could eat a whole one of them myself," Tolto said wistfully.

The urge to descend here was strong upon Sime too. He realized that
the fire might have been made by some dangerous criminal--a fugitive
from justice; but dangerous men are no novelty to the I. F. P. On the
other hand, there was a possibility that it was just some political
offender, driven into the desert by persecution. Or a prospector. At
any rate, he would have food, or would know where it could be
procured.

They had drifted some hundreds of yards farther and the ground was
getting constantly more broken, so the best time to land was as soon
as possible. Slowly the little ship settled, scraped on a rock and
arrested its slight forward motion, crunching solidly in the stony
soil.

"Take a neuro, Tolto," Sime advised. "Whoever's here, if he or they
are dangerous, we won't get close enough to touch 'em with a sword."

Tolto took the weapon without a word. They locked the door of the
ship. Men have been marooned for neglecting that little precaution.

They walked in a spiral course, making an ever-widening circle,
looking sharply from left to right. Presently they came to the remains
of the fire. The ashes were hotter than the ground, proving that they
had been recently made.

But nowhere was there any sign of men. They shouted, but only weird
echoes answered.

The ship was now out of sight, and solitude pressed upon