w the gas in
another direction, the ship could be cleared. One of us could go in long
enough to switch on the air generators full."

But now it was Chet who shook his head in a negative. "Remember," he
told her, "when we were here before? All of the time while Walt was gone
for the ship--how did the wind blow then?"

"The same as now," she admitted.

"And it never changed."

"No,"--slowly--"it never changed."

* * * * *

Chet turned to Walt and Kreiss. "That's that," he said shortly. "Any
other good ideas in the crowd? Can anyone go through that gas and get to
the ship? I'll make a try."

"Suicide!" was Kreiss' verdict, and Harkness confirmed his words.

"I saw things that moved up in the trees," he said. "Lord knows what
they were; Birds--beasts of some sort! But they were alive till the gas
touched them. I saw it drift among the trees when we left, and those
things up there came plopping down like ripe apples."

Diane Delacouer looked up at Harkness with wide, serious eyes. "Then,"
she shrugged, "we are really--"

"Castaways," Harkness told her. "We're on our own--off on a desert
island--shipwrecked--all that sort of thing! And you might as well know
the worst of it; you, too, Kreiss.

"Our good friend, Schwartzmann, is at large, and he has the pistol and
ammunition we brought out from the ship. He is armed, and we are not; he
has food, and we have none. And I'll have to admit that I didn't have
any breakfast and could use a little right now."

"There are seven shells left in my pistol," said Diane. She held the
weapon out to Harkness; he took it carefully.

"Seven," he said; "it is all we have. We must kill some animals for
food, my dear, but not with these; we must save these for bigger game."

"But we cannot!" expostulated Kreiss. "To kill game with our bare
hands--impossible! We are doomed!"

And now Chet caught Diane's glance brimming with mirth that was
undisguised. Truly, Diane Delacouer would have her laugh in the face of
death.

"Doomed?" she exclaimed. "Not while Chet and I know how to make bows and
arrows!... Do you suppose we can find any of their old spears, Chet?
They made gorgeous bows, you remember."

And Chet bowed low in an exaggeration of admiration that was not
entirely assumed. "Lead on!" he said. "You are in command. The army is
ready to follow."

CHAPTER IX

_A Premonition_

Fire Valley had been the home of the ape-men. On that ea