where Monsieur Kreiss go!" and he
led the way into the jungle where the scientist had emerged.

* * * * *

Chet followed close through wraith-like, drifting mist. They were
ascending a gentle slope; among the trees and tangled giant vines the
mist grew thin. Then they were above it, and occasional shafts of golden
light shot flatly in to mark the ascending sun.

They were climbing toward the big divide, that much Chet knew. White,
ghostly trees gave place to the darker, gloomier growth of the uplands.
Strange monstrosities, they had been to Chet when first he had seen
them, but he was accustomed to them now and passed unnoticing among
their rubbery trunks, so black and shining with morning dew.

Far above a wind moved among the pliant branches that whipped and
whirled their elastic lengths into strange, curled forms. Then the
miracle of the daily growth of leaves took place, and the rubbery limbs
were clothed in green, where golden flowers budded prodigiously before
they flashed open and filled the wet air with their fragrance.

They were following the path that Chet had traveled on his morning trips
to the divide for a view of the ship. Kreiss would have gone this way,
of course, although to Chet, there was no sign of his having passed.
Then came the divide, and still Chet followed where Towahg led sullenly
across the expanse of barren rocks. Towahg's head was sunk between his
black shoulders; his long arms hung limply; and he moved on with a
steady motion of his short, heavily muscled legs, with apparently no
thought of where he went or why.

Chet stopped for a moment's look at the distant sparkle that meant the
shining ship, which shone green as on every other day, and he wondered
as he had a score of times if it might be possible for them to make a
suit--a bag to enclose his head, or a gas-mask--anything that could be
made gas-tight: and could be supplied with air. Then he thought of the
bow that was slung on his shoulder and the stone ax at his belt. These
were their implements: these were all they had.... Suddenly he began to
walk rapidly down the slope after Towahg who was almost to the trees.

* * * * *

Again they were among the black rubbery growth. It rose from a tangle of
mammoth leafed vines and creepers that wove themselves into an
impassable wall--impassable until Towahg lifted a huge leaf here, swung
a hanging vine there, and laid ope