d foraged through the woods. Jamison carried one of Johnny Simms'
guns, which he regarded with acute suspicion, and Bell carried cameras.
They photographed trees and underbrush, first as atmosphere and then
with fanatic attention to leaves and fruits or flowers. Bell got
pictures of one of the small, furry bipeds that Cochrane and Holden had
spied when Babs was with them. He got a picture of what he believed to
be a spider-web--it was thicker and heavier and huger than any web on
Earth--and rather fearfully looked for the monster that could string
thirty-foot cables as thick as fishing-twine. Then he found that it was
not a snare at all. It was a construction at whose center something
undiscoverable had made a nest, with eggs in it. Some creature had made
an unapproachable home for itself where its young would not be assailed
by predators.

Al, the pilot, went out of the lock and descended to the ground and went
as far as the edge of the ash-ring. But he did not go any farther. He
wandered about unhappily, pretending that he did not want to go into the
woods. He tried to appear quite content to view half-burnt trees for his
experience of the first extra-terrestrial planet on which men had
landed. He did kick up some pebbles--water-rounded--and one of them had
flecks of what looked like gold in it. Al regarded it excitedly, and
then thought of freight-rates. But he did scrabble for more. Presently
he had a pocket-full of small stones which would be regarded with
rapture by his nieces and nephews because they had come from the stars.
Actually, they were quite commonplace minerals. The flecks of what
looked like gold were only iron pyrates.

Jones did not leave the ship. He was puttering. Nor Alicia. Holden urged
her to take a walk, and she said quietly:

"Johnny's out with a gun. He's hunting. I don't like to be with Johnny
when he may be disappointed."

She smiled, and Holden sourly went away. There had been no particular
consequences of Johnny Simms' inability to remember what was right and
what was wrong. But Holden felt like a normal man about men whose wives
look patient. Even psychiatrists feel that it is somehow disreputable to
illtreat a woman who doesn't fight back. This attitude is instinctive.
It is what is called the fine, deep-rooted impulse to chivalry which is
one of the prides of modern culture.

Holden settled dourly down at the communicator to get an outgoing call
to Earth, when there were some hund