ead it as they ran.

Were they puzzled by the sudden increase in markings? Did they sense
that some were more recent than those they had followed? Chet could not
say. But he saw the pack return, staring curiously about until they
swung off and vanished through the trees toward the west. And in that
direction lay the arena and the haunt of a horror unknown.

Yet Chet lowered himself to the ground with steady hands and motioned
Towahg where the yelling mob had gone.

"We'll go that way," he said; "we'll follow them up. And perhaps, if I
can only get the idea into your thick head, we can learn what their
plans are: find out if Kreiss has really thrown us in their hands--led
them as straight as a pack of wolves could run to the quiet peace of
Happy Valley."

* * * * *

Chet might have followed them into the arena itself: he felt so keenly
that he must know with certainty whether or not the pack would continue
their pursuit. And why had they turned back? he asked himself. Had they
returned to acquaint their horrible god and his hypnotised slaves with
what they had learned?

But the trail turned off from the rocky waste where the arena lay; it
took them west and south for another mile, until again to Chet's ears
came the chattering bedlam of monkey-talk that was almost human. And now
they moved more cautiously from rock to tree and through the concealing
shadows until they could look into a shallow valley ahead. But before
Chet looked he was prepared for a surprising scene. For over and above
the raucous calling of the ape-folk had come another deeper tone.

"_Gott im Himmel!_" the deep voice said. "One at a time, you _verdammt_
beasts. Beat them on the head, Max; make them shut up!"

And the big bulk of Schwartzmann, when Chet first saw him, was seated on
a high rock that was like a barbaric throne in a valley of green. About
him the ape-men leaped and grimaced and made futile animal efforts to
tell him of their discovery.

"They've found something, Max," Schwartzmann said to his pilot. "Get the
other two men. We'll go with the dirty brutes. And if they've got wind
of those others--" His remarks concluded with a sputtering of profanity
whose nature was not obscured by its being given in another language.
And Chet knew that the obscenities were intended for his companions and
himself.

Schwartzmann's booming voice came plainly even above the chorus of
coughing growls and shriller cha