d, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks
gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger
of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint,
glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake.

The Out-Hunter made that instant return to full consciousness which
was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild
worlds.

"What--?"

Rynch pulled him forward. The mist had thickened, but there were more
of those ominous lights at water level, spreading down both sides of
the point, forming a wall. Dark forms moved out of the water ahead of
them, flopping on the rocks, pressing higher, towards the ledge where
the men stood.

"Those globes--I think they're moving in the river now." Rynch found
another stone, took careful aim, and smashed a second one. "The
needler has no effect on them," he reported. "Stones do--but I don't
know why."

They searched about them in the crevices for more ammunition, laying
up a line of fist-sized rocks, while the lights gathered in, spreading
farther and farther down the shores of the islet. Hume cried out
suddenly, and aimed his ray tube below. The lance of its blast cut the
dark as might a bolt of lightning.

With a shrill squeal, a blot shadow detached from the slope
immediately below them. A vile, musky scent, now mingled with the
stench of burning flesh, set them coughing.

"Water spider!" Hume identified. "If they are driving those out and up
at...."

He fumbled at his equipment belt and then tossed an object downward to
disintegrate in a shower of fiery sparks. Wherever those sparks
touched rock or ground they flared up in tall thin columns of fire,
lighting up the nightmare on the rocks and up the ledges.

Rynch fired the needler, Hume's ray tube flashed and flashed again.
Things squealed, or grunted, or died silently, while clawing to reach
the upper ledges. He could not be sure of the nature of some of those
things. One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large
as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed
head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle
about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water.

"The lights--smash the lights!" Hume ordered.

Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
might conceivably return to their homes. He