alled. "What is it?"

The dog whined and moved about nervously, looking first at her and
then at the darkness between the big barn and the machine shed. As she
sought to pierce the blackness there, a shape moved out from between
the buildings and the sudden move caused her to step back. Dobie at
once set up loud and ferocious barking.

"Quiet, Dobie," she managed to say, laying a hand aside the dog's head
and viewing the figure before her. It was a man--at least a man
_shape_--with hands (she thanked God the creature had both its hands),
a head, neck, shoulders and legs. But the head was a lot larger than a
man's, there was no hair on it and the eyes were smaller, the nose
longer and the mouth a narrow slash across the face. The neck was
short, the shoulders thin and the legs and arms were spindling. She
saw that each hand had six fingers. Across the narrow shoulders had
been flung what looked like a carpet and from beneath this fell a
skirt that went to the knees, held to the body with a metal rope belt
just under his ribs. The shoes were enormous things for such pipestem
legs--until she saw they were soft and furry and that this gave them
their size. For a moment she almost laughed because he presented such
a grotesque figure, but she did not dare. The creature spoke.

"Good evening, Mrs. McNearby," it said in a not unpleasant, whistling
voice and Alice wondered how it could talk so well to her.

"I come from the crashed ship. You know of it, of course. You were
there this afternoon."

Alice was on the point of asking how he knew she had been at the wreck
site when he started in again.

"We have traced the severed hand of one of our crew to your place
here. We came down at considerable velocity when our ship went out of
control. We were lucky to escape with our lives. But one of us was
thrown from the ship with such force that his hand was cut off by an
obstruction on the ship. Your dog happened on the scene before we
could find the hand."

The chill of the November night air was beginning to penetrate her
shawl and Alice could feel a stirring of air on her legs. Dobie moved
restlessly at her side but she did not let go of his neck hair for
fear of what he might do.

"We need that hand, Mrs. McNearby. Without it the man who lost it will
be at a tragic disadvantage among us. That is why we were looking so
hard for it this morning after the crash. If we can return the hand to
him in time it can, through proper