s rifle, and ran, looking back over his shoulder. The
stingers showed no inclination to follow, though, the tobacco juice
seemed to be keeping them well occupied for the moment.

Halfway home, Ed had to stop and rest for a moment while he took a spell
of shuddering and gagging as a sudden picture of the slimy gullet came
into his mind, with Ed Brown laying where the rabbit had been, melting
down into a stinking soup of bones and gobbets of flesh.

When he got to the hole, his arrangement of tin cans, traps, and tobacco
juice no longer looked nearly as secure as it had. He got his ax and cut
two stout posts, framing the hole; built a stout slab door and hung it
from them. Then he drove stakes close together at the threshold, to foil
any attempts to dig under, and trimmed a sill tight to the door.

His feeling in this matter, as it happened, was sound.

The Harn was beginning to develop a pretty strong dislike for Ed Brown.
Three of its stinging units were dead, and most of the rest were in poor
shape, thanks to the tobacco spray. It had got a little whiff of the
stuff itself, not enough to do any serious damage ordinarily, but right
now, so close to swarming time--

Ed was going to have to go.

So far, in this world, the Harn had needed only the three basic types of
mobile units. There were other standard types, however, for dealing with
more complicated situations. As it happened, a couple of carrier embryos
were at just about the right stage. With a little forcing, they could be
brought on in not too long a time. Meanwhile, the Harn would do what it
could with the material available.

When Ed came through the next day to set his snares, the Harn was
prepared to test his snakeproof pants. They held, which was
disconcerting to the Harn, but it was a hard creature to convince, once
thoroughly aroused. Ed was not too sure of how well the pants would
stand up to persistent assault himself. After the third ambush, he took
to spraying suspicious looking spots with tobacco juice. He shot two
more stingers in this way, but it slowed him up quite a bit. It took him
all day to make four sets.

In the next three days he made a dozen sets and caught two carriers.
Then, the fourth day, as he adjusted a snare, a seeming root suddenly
came to life and slashed at his hand. He was wearing gloves to keep his
scent from the snares, and the fang caught the glove and just grazed the
ball of his left thumb. The hatchet he had been us