mething else!

Down in those turgid depths he made out a straight ridge running with
a trueness of line which could not be nature's unassisted product.
That ridge joined another in a squared corner. He leaned over,
strained his eyes to follow through the murk the farther extent of
those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the
surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was
something--something artificially fashioned which might be the answer
to all their questions. But to venture into the lake himself--he could
not do it! If he could bring the Out-Hunter to his senses the other
might find the solution to this puzzle.

Vye filled his bulbs, working speedily, but still studying what he
could see of the strange erection under the lake. He thought it was
curiously free of silt, and its color, as far as he could distinguish,
allowing for the dark hue of the water, was light gray--perhaps even
white. He lowered his last bulb.

Down in the bleached forest of dead branches, well to one side of the
mysterious walls, there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so
hidden by a stirring of bottom mud that Vye could not make out its
true form. But it was rising to the bulb.

Vye hated to lose a single precious drop. Once he might have the luck
to make this journey unmolested, a second time the odds could be too
high.

A flash--the slowly rising shadow was transformed into a whizzing
spear of attack. Vye snapped the bulb out of the water just as a
nightmarish, armored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck,
and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom.
Vye clung to his perch as the thing flopped back into deeper water
from a froth of beaten foam, leaving a patch of odorous scum and slime
to bracelet the waterlogged wood.

He ran for the shelter of the trees to get away. This time there was
no rear, no thump of feet in warning. Out of the ground itself, or so
it seemed to Vye's startled terror, reared one of the tusked beasts.
To reach his tree and its dubious safety he had to wind past that
chimera. And the creature waited with a semblance of ease for him to
come to it.

Vye brought around his spear. The length of the haft might afford him
a fighting chance if he could send the point home in some vulnerable
spot. Yet he knew that the beasts were hard to kill.

The mouth opened in a wide grin of menace. Vye noted a telltale
tightening of shoulder musc