" He shook a thick forefinger at Fitzhugh Parr, who wore the
armor he had stripped from the dead Martian. "You were chief, and what
you said goes. But you're not chief now--you're just the man who
murdered four of us!"

"Mmm--yes," growled one of the lower-fallen listeners, a
furry-shouldered, buck-toothed clod named Wain. "That blast almost got
me, right behind Haldocott." His eyes, grown small, gleamed nastily at
Parr. "We ought to condemn this man--"

"Please," interposed Sadau, who alone remained friendly to Parr, "it's
for the chief to condemn." He looked to Varina Pemberton, who shook her
head slowly.

"I feel," she ventured with her eyes on Parr, "that this ought to be
left up to you as a voting body."

Shanklin sprang to his feet. "Fair enough!" he bawled. "I call Parr
guilty. All who think like me, say aye!"

"Aye!"

"Aye!"

"Aye!"

They were all agreeing except Sadau, who looked shrunken and sad and
frightened. Shanklin smirked.

"All who think he should be killed as a murderer--"

"Hold on," put in Varina Pemberton. "If I'm chief, I'll draw the line
there. Don't kill him."

Shanklin bowed toward her. "I was wrong to suggest that before a woman.
Then he's to be kicked out?"

There was a chorus of approving yells, and all save Sadau jumped up to
look for sticks and stones. Parr laid his hand on the club he had borne
in the skirmish that day.

"Now wait," he said clearly and harshly, and the whole party faced
him--Sadau wanly, the girl questioningly, the rest angrily.

"I'm to be kicked out," Parr repeated. "I'll accept that. I'll go. But,"
and the club lifted itself in his right hand, "I'm not going to be
rough-housed. I've seen it happen here, and none of it for me."

"Oh, no?" Shanklin had picked up a club of his own, and grinned
fiercely.

"No. Let me go, and I leave without having to be whipped out of camp.
Mob me, and I promise to die fighting, right here." He stamped a foot on
the ground. "I'll crack a skull or two before I wink out. That's a
solemn statement of fact."

"Let him go," said Varina Pemberton again, this time with a ring of
authority. "He wears that armor, and he'll put up a fight. We can't
spare any more men."

"Thank you," Parr told her bleakly. He gave Shanklin a last long stare
of challenge, then turned on his heel and walked away toward the
thickets amid deep silence. Behind him the council fire made a dwindling
hole in the blackness of night. It seemed to be hi