by the
way, came uncomfortably close to my head. I'm not at all sure but it was
meant for me."

Harkness released his arms from Diane, for she was now able to sit
erect. He picked up the crude bow that had been beside him and fitted an
arrow to the string.

"I'll go and have a look," he promised grimly. But Chet held him back.

"You're not thinking straight; this shock has knocked you out of
control. If that little stranger with the spear meant to help us there's
no need of hunting him out; he doesn't seem anxious to show himself. And
if he meant it for me, he's still too good a shot to fool with in the
dark. You stick here until daylight."

"That is good advice," Herr Kreiss agreed. "The night, it will soon be
gone." He was looking at the leafy opening overhead where the golden
light of a distant Earth was fading before the glow of approaching day.

CHAPTER XI

_The Sacrificial Altar_

"I am off the trail," Harkness admitted. "Towahg guided me before; I
wish he were here to do it now."

They had pushed on for another short day, Harkness leading, and Chet
bringing up the rear and casting frequent backward glances in a vain
effort to catch a glimpse of some other moving figure.

Smothered at times in a dense tangle of vegetation, where they sweated
and worked with aching muscles to tear a path; watching always for the
flaming, crimson buds on grotesque trees, whose limbs were waving,
undulating arms and from which came tendrils like the one that had
nearly ended Diane's life, they fought their way on.

They had seen the buds on that earlier trip; had seen the revolting
beauty of them--the fleshy lips that opened above a pool of death into
which those reaching arms would drop any living thing they touched. They
kept well out of reach when a splash of crimson against the white trees
flashed in warning.

Again they would traverse an open space, where outcropping rocks would
send Kreiss into transports of delight over their rich mineral contents.
But always their leader's eyes were turned toward a range of hills.

"It is beyond there," he assured them, "if only we can reach it."
Harkness pointed to a scar on a mountainside where a crystal outcrop in
a sheer face of rock sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight. "I remember
that--it isn't so very far--and we can look back down the valley from
there and see our ship."

"But we'll never make it to-night," said Chet; "it's a case of making
camp again."

Th