nning happily over the
news that his laws were true, suddenly understood what Travis was
saying and let his mouth fall open.

But the girl sat without expression. Then, to Travis' dismay, a slow
dark look of disgust came over her face.

"This," she said ominously, "this smacks of _vetching_."

The word fell like a sudden fog. Lappy, who had begun to smile, cut it
sharply off. Travis, remembering what vetching meant to these people,
gathered his forces.

"Woman," he said bitingly, "you speak in offense, but with patience
and kindness I heal your insult. I control my choler, but my blood
flows hot, therefore fasten your tongue. Tell me not that I have
overvalued you, for your brain is clear, your courage thick. Wherefore
speak of vetch? What vetch is there in travel? He vetches who leaves a
certainty for another certainty, who attempts to avoid his starry
fate. But you go from a certain end to an end not certain at all, to
places of dark mystery, of grim foreboding. It may be that you perish,
or pain in the extreme, as well as gain fortune. The end is not clear.
This then is not vetching. Now retreat your words, and reply to me as
one does to a friend, a companion, one who seeks your good."

He sat tautly while the girl thought it out. Eventually she dropped
her eyes in submission and he sighed inwardly with relief. It was
accomplished. He would have to shore it up perhaps with a little
elaboration, but it was accomplished.

Ten minutes later he was standing free and unbound in the passageway.
It was just barely in time. Down the round dark tunnel two men came.

* * * * *

Navel stopped gingerly over the bodies and gazed at Travis with
awestruck admiration.

"A rare skill," she murmured, "they did flip and gyrate as dry leaves
in the wind."

"Observe then," Travis said ominously, inspecting meanwhile the long
slash down his arm with which Tude had nearly gotten him "and learn.
And in the future receive my words with planetary respect."

"I will."

"And I," added Lappy, shaken.

"Fair. Bright. Now attend. How lies the path?"

"Through more such as these, I fear. This place in which we trouble
lies at a dead end. We must proceed through great halls where many sit
waiting, ere we arrive at the light."

"No other way? Think now."

"None."

Travis sighed.

"And they talk about luck. Well boy," he turned to Lappy, "give me
your blunderbuss. Obtain that one's knife"--he ind